Angela Rayner defends accent and vows never to change Angela Rayner has vowed never to change how she speaks after claiming she was verbally attacked for having a regional accent. […]

Angela Rayner has vowed never to change how she speaks after claiming she was verbally attacked for having a regional accent.

The Stockport-born shadow education secretary said that she had been called “thick” after taking part in an interview on BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.

“Anonymous hard right accounts attacking my accent again saying I am thick etc, I will reiterate I am proud of my accent and will not change!”

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“Attacks on Angela Rayner because of her accent says more about the attackers than her.”

Ms Rayner, who now lives in her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, was speaking on the show about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s comments on wiping out the current student debt.

She was realistic about fulfilling such a goal.

Rayner on Marr

“Jeremy said that that’s an ambition, it’s something that he’d like to do. It’s something that we will not announce that we’re doing unless we can afford to do that.

“It’s a big abacus that I’m working on with that, it is a huge amount, it’s £100 billion, which they estimate currently, which will increase. It’s a huge amount of money but of course we also know that a third of that is never repaid,” she added.

Following the interview, Ms Rayner claimed she experienced online abuse about the way she sounded.

Accent defended

Some people defended the MP, with one person saying: “Attacks on Angela Rayner because of her accent says more about the attackers than her.”

One woman on Twitter claimed that she had had a similar experience to Ms Rayner.

“As a Yorkshire woman down south, I still get this sort of thing,” she said.

“During my teacher training I was told by one teacher to lose my accent in case the kids didn’t respect me,” she added.

Ms Rayner replied: “Much love to you Steph and I hope you return to teaching when we undo this horrible mess the Conservatives have got us into.”