Top 45 Angela Rayner Quotes

Our higher education admissions process is neither fair nor effective.

It took 15 years and a Labour government to finally see Section 28 taken off the statute books. But this victory belongs to the LGBT+ activists who campaigned for so many years, fighting for change from the ground up.

If you want to underestimate me because I speak like a Mancunian, like the people I grew up with, then so be it at your peril.

We as a nation cannot be satisfied with our children suffering health problems through no fault of their own.

Politics changes lives. You would expect me, as a politician, to say that. But I don’t say it as a politician: I say it as someone whose own life was changed.

I went to my local Sure Start centre, and they put me on a parenting course. I learned things that might seem simple – that it was important to hug and love your child, and read to them. This might seem obvious, but it wasn’t to me at the time.

Sometimes you have to invest in people to get the best out of them. To me, that is socialism. That is why I’m a Labour member rather than a Conservative.

If the Tories are serious about ensuring everyone has the opportunity to learn, regardless of their background, then the only thing they need to review is Labour’s manifesto.

Building a country that worked for everyone was supposed to be about supporting ordinary working class families, which is exactly what Labour’s plan to bring back the maintenance grant would do.

People are still programmed to think that if your child doesn’t get straight As, get A-levels and go to a Russell Group university, that somehow they are not going to achieve in life. I think that’s sad.

I don’t pronounce all my words exactly how they do on the BBC. I am who I am.

I never got hugged as child.

The British people overwhelmingly favour big businesses and the wealthiest individuals contributing their fair share so we can invest in our schools, hospitals and services.

If I hadn’t had access to the vital support of my local Sure Start centre, I would never have had the help I – and my son – needed.

Surely in a country that works for everyone ensuring that everyone has access to an excellent education should be the first priority of any government?

We need to focus on helping EVERY child to get a world-class education in EVERY school in this country.

We can’t have children growing up feeling unloved – the price is too high for that.

My mother suffers mental health problems and has a learning deprivation.

I don’t want to stick a sticking plaster on it, I don’t want to fix children once the system’s broken them, I want to give every child the opportunity before that – because the system should protect and nurture, and not damage our children.

2018 marks 30 years since Margaret Thatcher’s government introduced Section 28, one of its most abominable policies. As a part of the Local Government Act, this Section was designed to prevent local authorities and schools from the so-called promotion of LGBT+ issues.

I was pregnant when I left school, so I needed income support. I didn’t even have functional skills, not even GSCEs in English and Maths, so I needed to go back to college.

I think class is still an issue in this country.

Child poverty is more than an abstract problem to me. It’s something I know all too much about.

Supporting any team has its ups and downs. But being part of a united team on the brink of victory, is the only way we’re going to change the country for the better.

Working-class students more often lack the advice, guidance and support needed to navigate the tricky application process, whereas their wealthy peers at top public schools have admissions tutors to help their students game the system.

To give every child a fair chance to succeed, we need to give them the best possible start in life. For far too many that isn’t happening.

In the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats built their campaign around a pledge to abolish tuition fees. By the end of that year, however, they had tripled them instead. The Liberal Democrats had made young people feel as if they were on their side. They were not.

I’ve seen at first-hand what Labour Governments can achieve in power.

Labour is the party for the many.

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds will have the most debt, and then, being less likely than their affluent peers to go straight into high paying jobs, they will spend most of their working lives trying but failing to pay off that debt.

Half of those people who experience mental health difficulties do so before the age of 14. The problems begin early – so early interventions are essential.

The privileged have become more wealthy, while people from disadvantaged backgrounds have had their opportunities to get on and move up closed off. That’s the Tory way.

In a parliamentary democracy, it is the job of parliament to decide the law, not the government.

During the 2010 election campaign, Liberal Democrat candidates, including Swinson, signed the National Union of Students pledge to vote against tuition fees. Looking back, students were among the first to see the reality of the Liberal Democrats in government.

Some of the Tories say, ‘She left school at 16, she doesn’t have a university degree, what does she know about education?’ I say, I may not have a degree – but I have a Masters in real life.

Grammar schools are about stigmatising children, not on the grounds of their ability, but on their background.

Politics is a lot like football. Both involve people working in a team. One week you can be top of the league, the next week, you might slip a place. But I’ve never for one minute wanted to give up my devotion for my team.

You’d be surprised how many politicians have a working class background but they get it beaten out of them.

Mental health is a case study in Tory failure.

I wanted to prove I wasn’t that person everyone wanted to stereotype me. You can slag me off, I talk about my upbringing now and try and do it in a way that inspires others, but I never felt good about it.

There was a council house waiting for me when I had Ryan, there was a welfare state. I never put into the system before I took out, I was on income support before I’d even paid a penny of tax.

We need radical, transformative solutions to address the inequality that is blighting millions of people’s lives.

The Tories should treat working families with more respect.

As a young single mum struggling to get by, I didn’t get to go to university, but that level of debt would have been unimaginable.

Regardless of what tribe people think they’re in, we don’t work in isolation as human beings, we want to do what’s right.