i turned around and i had told the crowd, you can't come this way, people are dying. as mourners line the streets of seoul to pay their respects, south korea's president promises a thorough investigation. translation: a tragedy and disaster should not have _ translation: a tragedy and disaster should not have happened _ translation: a tragedy and disaster should not have happened took- translation: a tragedy and disaster should not have happened took placel should not have happened took place in the heart of seoul. i hope the people injured will get better soon. the president of somalia says more than 100 people have been killed in two car bomb attacks on a government building. uk government minister michael gove says suella braverman deserves a "secoond chance" as home secretary after allegations of a security breach. although the shadow home secretary, yvette cooper, remains unconvinced. and french vineyard owners are buying up land

in south east england following a summer of record breaking temperatures. now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking. thinking that politics isn't very easy these days because we seem to live in an era of permanent revolution and constant chaos. i was due to interview angela rayner, labour's deputy leaderjust seven weeks ago, it was the day after liz truss' first pmqs. it was the day of liz truss' energy price guarantee. it turned out to be the day that her majesty the queen died, and so much changed. just seven weeks later, we are now in a week of rishi sunak�*s first

prime minister's questions and angela rayner is back on political thinking. welcome back. i made it. how are you finding this roller—coaster,

when you are in opposition, that slightly changes how you picture yourself because you are pitching as the personality of the tory leader of the day. it was very noticeable at the beginning of pmqs keir starmer, and i thought he was sending a message to his own party as well as to the country, congratulated rishi sunak

people in the labour party who can't welcome it? i people in the labour party who can't welcome it?— welcome it? i think there are issues around rishi — welcome it? i think there are issues around rishi sunak's _ welcome it? i think there are issues around rishi sunak's wealth, - welcome it? i think there are issues around rishi sunak's wealth, and i around rishi sunak's wealth, and obviously he is a chancellor who was increasing taxes for working people at the time when obviously he has great wealth and his wife at the family were avoiding tax through the non—dom status, but you could congratulate and see a prime minister of asian heritage getting into number 10 minister of asian heritage getting into numberio and minister of asian heritage getting into number 10 and seeing how amazing that is, and congratulating him on that basis without bringing everything else into it, and i think sometimes, especially with the fast pace of politics, it can get ahead of itself, whereas sometimes it is nice to stop and look at something for what it is and say, this is a good thing. you might not like everything that that person stands for, but this is a good thing, and conservatives do that for me as

well. they don't agree with where i am politically, but they welcome the fact that someone from my background is in politics and speaks their mind. ~ ., , , ~ is in politics and speaks their mind. ~ . , , ~ , is in politics and speaks their mind. . . , , ~ , ., mind. what is striking is that someone _ mind. what is striking is that someone of _ mind. what is striking is that someone of your _ mind. what is striking is that someone of your background j mind. what is striking is that l someone of your background is mind. what is striking is that - someone of your background is in politics, and when you are last on the programme you talked a lot about your personal story. what people will also know is, you have now seen two women prime ministers, both conservatives, the first woman prime minister was a conservative. there is something about the labour party, isn't there, which is they broke the ceiling in many ways to get black and ethnic minority people into parliament, to get many more women into parliament, but not in leadership positions. yeah, as you say, we are the most diverse, you know, bench we've got at the moment in the labour party, but as you rightly point out is that we haven't had a female or a black asian minority ethnic leader of the labour party. i think that will change. but at the moment we have elected keir starmer. i think he's doing an exceptionaljob. we've got a more diverse shadow cabinet. i would be deputy prime minister

under the next labour government and you know, we'll keep championing and challenging that. we brought the landmark legislation through on the equalities act and the all women shortlists that enabled us to get to the position that we're at. so i think we're making great steps. but you know, i absolutely agree that, you know, there is that, i think it comes also from our membership that there is that kind of push. now that surge towards that when keir is no longer leader, then we do want to have a different leader. you know, someone from a different they realize that, you know, they're behind the door. i think they do. and as you say, perhaps why some labor people weren't willing to, as it were, celebrate

rishi sunak's success. he's because he's as wealthy as he is and he's married into wealth as well. is it a problem being too rich if you're prime minister? i don't think it is, but i think one of the things that was infuriating, i suppose, and the hypocrisy that people felt was that rishi sunak at the time when he was chancellor, was putting taxes up for working people. and he's saying again now there's going to be difficult choices. but as we know now, his family were avoiding tax through non—dom status. so i could take you through the arguments about how his wife now pays tax here. and yes, she does because that was that was exposed. but the point is, is that people people listening to that, people that hear that would say, hang on a minute, i don't mind you being wealthy, but don't preach towards who are struggling. if you're now not paying your taxes and are not doing the right thing when you're chancellor of the country. and i get that. i'm essentially asking you questions about what it says about the labour party. you see, you could celebrate rishi sunak as a british success story. that is a success story for our country, that is a symbol of what we want people to aspire to be. but what you know what his aspiration something labour believing absolutely 100%. and we've got many wealthy

labour party members and supporters out there because, you know, people that have come from humble beginnings that do create great wealth, they understand actually people that haven't had wealth bestowed upon them because their relatives were wealthy, people that have actually grafted from the shop floor and and got their wealth, they they absolutely get it. and they understand the challenges that others face. and it's not pulling that ladder up. it's about making sure that you give opportunities to others. you understand that working lives — one of the things that frustrates me and and it's, you know, what people say to me, oh, you should be a tory because you've done well for yourself. you know, you've worked really hard and done well. but it fails to understand that there is opportunities that are snatched away from people and therefore it doesn't enable them to get on. you know, when people said we've had conservative ministers say to people, just work a bit longer, get a betterjob, they're not truly appreciating the difficulties that people are under. just before we move on to that point about being out of touch, which you described even before it

became prime minister, he gave a speech this year talking about far too many politicians and influences in power. just don't have an understanding of what it's like. i just want to be clear, i think you're saying this, but are you are you agreeing with that famous quote from peter mandelson? are you saying you're intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich? as long as they pay their taxes, which peter, of course, said, yes, we do want people to be able to get on in life and to be filthy rich. and yet, to use this phrase, they're going to be, you know, filthy rich, as he says. i wouldn't use that term, but people are going to have great wealth. it's about sharing that wealth and understanding where that wealth comes from. so you won't attack rishi sunak for being rich then? i won't attack him for being rich. what i will attack him for is if he doesn't use that wealth in a way that is responsible. and we talk about people with the broadest shoulders paying a little bit more. and he tries to push the burden

of what was a couple of weeks ago a mini budget that absolutely decimated our economy and now there's a black hole. do not make working people who are already paying more through their mortgages and through the cost of living pay for that mistake. it's about what he prioritises as a prime minister and shows that he understands what it's like for other people. i don't expect him not to be rich. so it's clear you're happy if he's rich, but not if he's then targeting the poor. let's go back to that speech that he gave the too few people understand what it's like. you clearly, given your background, dd you understand what it's like? i was reading something you wrote about your mum, who of course, had mental health problems as well as being in poverty. coming out with a tin of dog food once. yes. thinking that she was bringing you a treat. my mum couldn't read or write, ssill can't. so she used to look at the pictures when she used to go around the supermarket and she once came home with about 15 tins

of processed peas as well, because they were in the reduced aisle and they didn't have a wrapper on them. and so she thought, i'lljust take pot look. so the dog she thought was jinxed. she fought the dog food with stewing steak. and we've had shaving foam before now as cream, we joke about it because it was difficult for my mum because of her disability in terms of her inability to read and write because she she never went to school. she was bullied at school. so she said to her in her own words, ifollowed the fair and she went round and did that.

she was coping with 12 siblings and they were very poor, i would say even more poorer than what my upbringing was. and i was on, you know, i was on benefits. my mum and dad were on a giro fortnightly and you know, we struggled as, as, as kids. but my mum's upbringing was even harder for people now worrying about whether they can pay their energy bills. oh, yeah. that brings back memories. yeah. i mean, we never put we had a machine that never went on because it was too expensive and we had concrete floors and threadbare carpets. so we used to have you didn't heat the water. what did you do then? we went to my nana's. we borrowed the kettle for things that were needed. we had a deep fryer that everything went in to cook. it was just this one fryer that everything went in and we went to bananas on a sunday because banana lived in high rise block of flats. so therefore the heating was continuous and it was part of her rent. so my nana used to have a twin top washer wash our clothes for us

on the sun, make us to ashes. you know it as with a big loaf of fresh bread, which was amazing because we just got to eat as much as we possibly wanted and we all had a bath there or if you got in the bath, my older brother went in first and me and my sister went in and my mum went in just the same bath. same bath? yeah, same water. so that was the other one bath away. yeah. it ends one bath a week at my nana's on a sunday evening and then we walk back home full to the brim, our bellies absolutely full of this warm food. and and i remember the flat being incredibly warm as well. you've referred in the past that sometimes when you tell these stories and we talked about them at greater length the first time you came on political thinking, people have this phrase for you, you know, poor little orphan ange. yeah. but you think it's important to have that knowledge. yeah. when you're taking political decisions. yeah. because it informs like i understand it was like during the pandemic, my friend who's got she's now got seven children, but at the time she had six and most of them were at school age. and she's a key worker. she works in a local supermarket.

and overnight she literally had no means of getting to work and getting the kids to school. so i gave her my car because we had two cars at the time as a family. so i didn't use mine that often because i was in london. so i gave her it wasn't a, you know, an amazing car. it was an old golf. but i gave her the car and she was just in tears because it meant so much to her that she was able to carry on working and take the kids to school because she couldn't do it on the transport system at the time because everything was in chaos and she needed to continue to work and the children needed to go to school. and you've talked about your own son struggling to pay the bills? yeah, my son. i mean, i was incredibly lucky because my son rang me up and told me that the bailiffs had sent a letter and that they were going to be at the door and that it was a bill that his partner had just she'd thought... there was so much debt, there was so many debts coming into the house that she thought she'd put plans in place for all of those debts. and then there was one that they'd missed that she hadn't seen. and then it got to the bailiffs stage and theyjust didn't have the money recently.

this was recently it didn't have the money, you know, and they were panicking and they were like, they're going to come and take the children's toys. and he said, mum, i don't want to ask you, but, you know, because he's a proud he's a proud man. he doesn't want to ask his mum for support. but it shows the difficulty that people and it reminds me of when i first became an mp in 2015, there was a young lad called cain from my constituency, a care leaver, who he was just they put the money in his bank account for his rent, first rent for his first property as a care leaver, a flat. and wonga had managed to had the ability to just take that money that he owed them in debt straight out of his bank account. so therefore, he didn't have the money for his rent that the social worker had given him, and he hung himself at 18. and ijust think young people are under that much pressure now and people are under that much pressure now that people don't choose their poverty. you know, people don't know, what it's like it's not a luxury to be in that poverty situation. and then i hear people say, oh, well, their kids have got the best clothes. i remember scouring the charity shops. when i was a young mum, i had ryan when i was 16, and i remember

walking to the posh area of our area i lived on bridge on this is bramhall. while people who are stock fortunes will understand the road from where i went to school. i get my income support and i walk for a couple of miles to the charity shops in bramhall and it was like christmas for me. if i got posh, posh area, yeah. and it was like christmas to me. if i was able to get a nice outfit for ryan in the charity shop, i felt like i'd done something. i'd been a good parent and had managed to achieve something. they don't have loads of money. it's the way in which they try and provide for theirfamilies under very difficult circumstances. i can hear the passion with which you talk about this. do you sometimes have to do this with colleagues? because the truth is the labour party has become a very middle class party in recent years. the truth and there aren't that many people who've got your stories or your experience. yeah. and but the truth is there is also across the whole of the house, people that have come from working class backgrounds. but for some reason politicians don't talk about it, whether it's because they think, oh, you know, i do get levelled at me. it's angie talking about her again. it's not about me. it's about the experiences people like me have faced.

and i think it's a good thing that people talk about their experience and background in that way. but for politicians, it's almost as if you're you're not good enough. you don't reach the bar. you know, i get so much abuse for people saying pregnant 16, no qualifications. she must be thick. well, clearly not thick because i wouldn't be where i am and one of the most successful politicians of my generation, you know, my ability and my achievements have been, by any measure, have been as good as anybody else, whether privately educated or not, phd or not. so i'm not stupid. so it's i think the more people can see talent, notjust in terms of you've got this academic qualification, the better it is. but there's another thing they say, isn't it? they say champagne socialist. so dominic raab, when he was deputy prime minister, he is again, of course, now, was up against you at prime minister's questions when you were deputising for keir starmer. and because you've been seen having some posh fizz and going to the opera where most people at glyndebourne in the country are in black tie posh frocks, he called you a champagne socialist. i know. well, again, that's quite comical, because working class people know that you spend your last dime

on trying to achieve and get the best thing. yeah, if you've got a bit of money, if you've worked hard for it, you know, you try and get the best you can. so again, it's the psychology of working class people that they don't understand. and then b it's like glyndebourne is like so much cheaper than glastonbury and nobody bat an eyelid if they saw me wandering round glastonbury in a field full of mud. yeah, that's 350. just to put it on the quote peter mandelson said recently, you know, the target voter for labour's what he called harrow man and harrow woman, sort of aspirational people, people who've made it good small town and they don't want what he calls woke activists or militant trade unions looking down on them and saying they're too rich and they're not liberal enough and they're ideologically unsound. well, i mean, i think the most important thing for our party is about instead of going how we can divide people based on whether it's these so called woke

arguments or whether it says, are you for or against trade unions or whatever else it's about, actually, these are distractions from what you're going to do to improve my life. that's what the voters asked me. well, what are you going to do? i've heard that you don't like the tories ange, but what are you going to do to improve my life? and can you have credibility in delivering it? they certainly have heard you say that you don't like the tories. i just want to play you a little clip of a radio four comedy programme, dead ringers. first in the shop today is angela from westminster. all right, jay, usually when i see a bank virgin full of antique - knick—knacks, i think you were tory scum. | and probably do you. but you've got a flat . cap and i respect that. that was dead ringers on radio 4, which has you saying tory scum. and by the sounds of it, giving somebody a good punch. yeah.

i mean, ithink, again, that's stereotypical of northern people. i mean, we don't go around we don't go around duffing people up. i know. but you did say you did say about that... it was about senior tories at the time and it was about borisjohnson and others at the time who had said some pretty horrible, racist, misogynistic, homophobic things over people. if you're a bus driver, if you worked in some of the low level, low, low paidjobs, you wouldn't work there again for saying the comments that the prime minister said. and that was like the hypocrisy of people and this is my point really, is the hypocrisy of telling people, wagging yourfinger saying, oh, you're wrong for that. but then, you know, they've criminality, fraud in terms of giving off contracts. it's like, yeah, somebody who, you know, is struggling at the low level of income literally talk down to an a criminalized and they get away with it. it's just the hypocrisy of it. so it was it was... it was.

well, i have said i'm absolutely. and that's what i was just just about to say. and i did apologise for it. and it's right that i did, because in no way was that me inciting anyone to abuse a conservative mp. that is not ok. i get abuse myself. it's not ok to abuse politicians. it's part of our democracy. i was saying, and if the whole clip was about motivating our members to understand we have to win elections, there's no point in being there in opposition. if you want to change people's lives, we have to convince the voters and we have to win elections. it's interesting because the other part of that dead ringers impersonation of you, we won't talk about how they do me, by the way, but the impersonation of you is that you're always telling keir starmer to kind of get going a bit. go on, give him hell, keir. stop being so dull. is that really what has to happen? a bit? no, i think keirjust has to own who he is. like, i knew i am, you know, i am who i am. some people will say

i don't like that, don't like the way she speaks. i don't like what she says. and that's fine. that's their opinion. and that's healthy and keir as to own who he is and the way he articulates himself and the way he presents himself. i actually think the country want a bit somebody who's not going to be a spicy, but he's actually going to put the country first for a change. so what do you mean by own who he is, though? because that's his personality. he's not me. you can put me and keir in the room. it's pretty obvious we have very different personalities. we have the same aim and goals and values, but we are completely different people and the way in which we express ourselves is completely different. that doesn't make it wrong, but it just means that we are we articulate ourselves in different ways. i'm sorry to keep quoting peter mandelson at you, but he said keir starmer has made labour safe to vote for again. the question now is what for? you say you're confident of your programme and i put it to you that if you went out in your constituency or in stockport where you grew up, so what does labour stand for?

they wouldn't have much of a clue. they'd know you didn't stand for all the things the tories stood for. yeah, i suppose you know the, the general election, you know, key words and how we are, we are, we fight that is something that will, will be put together when we do it. but i suppose it comes from the bottom up and the work we do in between. so for example, my future work, green paper, huge amount of work done there that will that's ready to hit the ground in a king's speech as soon as we get into government and we'll transform the world of work. i announced a conference around procurement ethics, our new ethics commission. so there's a lot of in—depth work that's been done that means that in all of our departments, we know what we need to do from day one. we know how we'll work together to tackle inequality and to make the country better for working people. now, you said the last time you were on this podcast, you're sometimes treated like a trinket. what are you treated like now? i think i think i've earned respect. i think i've definitely managed to grow. i mean, don't forget,

i mean, in 2015, i came in as a brand new politician. i wasn't a spad or anything like that special adviser. i wasn't in the westminster bubble or anything like that. i think had only been to london a handful of times as a union rep. so i came in very naive to the political process and was thrust onto the frontbench within a couple of months and have been there for seven years. i think the public have noticed me grow, shall we say, in the public eye over those years. now, we mentioned your mum a bit earlier. does she have good politicaljudgment? she has a judgment. my daughter will be running the country in a few years' time. she could do it now if she wanted, said your mum. what mum wouldn't say that about their kid.

yeah, my mum. she met paul brand when i said that he could interview her as long as i could help him edit it because my mum doesn't have a filter button. and i was a bit slightly worried about exposing it to the media. and now she thinks paul brown is the best mate. so every time she sees him on the telly, she says, oh, there's your friend. and i'm like, mummy�*s a journalist. he's not my friend. but she that's the way my mum for people who only listen to the bbc. paul's a very good journalist on itv news. you need to meet my mum and then she'll be every time she sees you on the telly or she, she watch, listens to the radio now like she wouldn't have done before. and she watches prime minister's questions and she says things like, oh, i didn't see you there the other day. oh, i saw you the other day there. so she's much more political than she used to be. no, you're only 42, is that right? same age as the prime minister. that's right. 18 years younger than your leader.

so there's plenty of time for you to be the one that proves that labour can have a woman leader. possibly. or, i can help the next leader to be a fantastic woman leader. i mean, ijust want us in government, nick. and i know that sounds like a cliche. people say, oh, why doesn't she say that? i mean, i could have stood for leader. i chose not to the last leadership because i didn't feel i was ready for that. and i wanted to learn a bit more and have a bit more experience. and i do think there is i've had to prove and earn the respect, and i still think i've got that to do to some voters. you know, i've still got that learning to do, but i just want to do what's right by the country and gets into government. i know what a labour government can do for people. i've seen it. it's changed my life. so being in opposition is not a place to be, so i'll do whatever it takes. i'll help whatever leader we have to have in orderfor us to be listening to the public gain in their confidence and then being in power, being able to change things for them. angela rayner, thank you very much for coming on political thinking. we'll try and get you back before there's yet another change of prime minister next month.

then i'll see you at christmas. you know, labour's challenge in some ways parallels the challenge rishi sunak has how to hold together a coalition of activists, of mps, of voters that can get them to power. the divisions are starker in the tories. they're much more obvious. but there are going to be people on the labour side in the months, maybe a year or two to come, who desperately want to attack rishi sunakfor being a millionaire, who wants to say that he isn't really a symbol of black and asian people making it in this country, and who want to get out on the streets or onto the picket lines to protest against tory cuts. angela rayner and keir starmer are trying to hold them back to appeal to what they think are middle ground voters. it's going to be quite a challenge. thanks for watching. hello. we've seen some exceptionally mild weather over the past few days. in fact, yesterday was the warmest 29th of october on record. we had temperatures just shy

of 23 celsius in london. today, it is still mild, not as warm as yesterday. and it's also quite breezy, unsettled with scattered showers around. low pressure is sitting towards the north west of the uk at the moment and plenty of showers and weather fronts rotating around that. proximity of the isobars shows that it is going to feel quite windy, but the winds are coming in from the south or southwest so again, still a very mild direction with that air flow. monday, a lot of dry weather particularly for eastern scotland. more weather to come for thus far south—west of england too. temperatures in the mid to high teens for most of us and if you plan on going trick or treating a monday evening, should be dry for the bulk of england and wales but rain for northern ireland, northern and western scotland on the far south—west of england. goodbye for

now.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. south korea is in a period of national mourning after more than 150 people were killed in a crush. sobbing: i turn around and i told the crowd, i "you can't come this way, people are dying." as mourners line the streets of seoul to pay their respects, south korea's president promises a thorough investigation. translation: a tragedy and disaster that should l not have happened took place in the heart of seoul. i hope the people who are injured will get better soon. the president of somalia says more than 100 people have been killed in two car bomb attacks on a government building. uk government minister michael gove

says the home secretary, suella braverman, deserves a "second chance" — after allegations