Opening speech by Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner at Labour's 2020 'Connected' conference (3 of 4)

Labour Party 'Connected' conference: Angela Rayner opening speech; ENGLAND: INTAngela Rayner MP (Labour Party Deputy Leader) speech SOT (3 of 4)- Never has there been a Prime Minister more out of his depth and ill-equipped to the task than this Bullingdon Club blagger.He lights up Downing Street green for Grenfell and then whips Tory MPs to block the Grenfell inquiry recommendations. He claps for our carers when it suits him for a photo opportunity. But he doesn’t even know what they earn, and won’t pay them what they deserve. He calls a Covid War Cabinet meeting to allow grouse shooting when frontline staff can’t get the tests they need and people can’t say goodbye to their loved ones.Yet it’s always someone else’s fault. Civil servants. The public health body they voted to create in the first place. Or even the public – for doing the right thing and trying to get a Covid test. And what about the other testing disaster this summer, in education. Not students failing exams. Exams failing students.Everyone responsible has lost their jobs except the man the Prime Minister put in charge – the Education Secretary. He’s gone from Private Pike to General Incompetence. He’s denied knowing there was even a problem. Now I don’t know if he’s lying or incompetent, or both. But if Boris Johnson still has confidence in him then he must be the only person in the country who does. His hero Thatcher once said ‘Advisers advise, but Ministers decide’.Now the motto seems to be ‘Ministers decide, but advisers resign.’ He’d probably make the algorithm resign if he could. Under Boris Johnson, the only thing government advisers don’t have to resign for is driving to Durham with Covid symptoms. We will offer a better alternative. A new leadership for our country. We know we have a mountain to climb to win the next election, but we are determined to climb it. We must – and we will – restore people’s trust in Labour as a party of government.And this work starts n...