Lara Bird, also Lara Bird-Leakey, also Pyla Bird-Leakey, the new SNP MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, has caught growing attention for her disparate accents and dumbing down of her name. Twas ever thus…
Bird-Leakey is an English lawyer and sits on the Executive Committee of the pro-Palestine Balfour Project. Here’s the Wikipedia page for the Leakey family…
She was conducting PhD research at King’s College London on International Humanitarian Law and staffed in Westminster for the SNP prior to her selection in the by-election seat. Presumably she has to pick one accent going forward…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”