Angela Rayner: ‘Victim of misogyny’ or ‘freeloading’ deputy prime minister?

To her most savage critics – from Tories to the far left – she’s “Rotten Rayner”, a tax evader, freeloader and a “low life… on the make”.

To her trade union friends, she’s a victim of misogyny who right-wing politicians are attempting to hound out because she’s working class.

And after her tearful interview on Sky News, even among some of her political opponents there’s a degree of sympathy for Angela Rayner too.

Politics latest: Why the deputy PM nearly resigned

But amid the rancorous debate among MPs about whether she should stay or go, there’s one part of her defence that is attracting scepticism from friends and foes.

That’s her claim that she was initially given duff advice by a solicitor. Really? If she has evidence to substantiate that, she may be in the clear, though there’d no doubt be accusations of an establishment stitch-up.

But if not – and the city grandee who’s the PM’s ethics adviser – the Eton and Oxford-educated baronet Sir Laurie Magnus – rejects her defence, she’ll almost certainly have to go.

And with her resignation – or sacking – would almost certainly go her hopes of succeeding the increasingly unpopular Sir Keir as Labour leader, despite her popularity with the party’s activists.

When she arrived for Prime Minister’s Questions, just half an hour after her bombshell confession, the Labour high command placed a collective arm around her.

Sir Keir Starmer, who told MPs he was proud to sit alongside a deputy PM from a working-class background, put his hand on her left shoulder.

Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, sitting the other side of the beleaguered Ms Rayner, did the same on her right shoulder.

Rachel Reeves, who also knows all about being beleaguered and shedding tears in public, looked across at her and smiled sympathetically.

If Labour feared a brutal PMQs onslaught from Kemi Badenoch, they needn’t have worried. “Why is she still in office?” the Tory leader began. So far, so good.

“If he had a backbone he would sack her,” she said in the second of her six questions. But that was it. “But let us get back to borrowing,” she continued.

Inexplicably, the Tory leader ploughed on with her pre-prepared questions on government borrowing. Labour MPs couldn’t believe their luck. Cue numerous jokes about missed open goals.

After another dud Kemi-Kaze performance at PMQs, some MPs were even speculating that Ms Rayner’s survival prospects – slim, at best – remain better than those of the Tory leader.

But in the cruel world of social media, Ms Rayner was not spared a vicious onslaught from critics from across the political divide. You’d better keep your phone switched off, Angi.

From the spiky shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, Ms Rayner was “the property tax dodging, freeloading deputy prime minister” who had “finally admitted breaking the law and evading paying taxes owed”.

There was more. “She says that’s she’s sorry,” said punchy Priti. “But she’s only sorry that she was caught out. Rotten Rayner should go.”

But it wasn’t just Tories – who let’s not forget were denounced as “Scum!” by Ms Rayner back in 2021, in what she described as “street language” – who were brutal.

Read more:
Rayner admits she should have paid more stamp duty
Rayner came out fighting in Sky interview
Rayner’s tax affairs statement in full

The acerbic George Galloway declared: “She’s a lowlife”. For good measure, he claimed she was “on the make” and on “Supermarket Sweep, piling her trolley full”.

However, from the trade union movement, which campaigned hard for the DPM’s workers’ rights legislation, there was unequivocal support.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak told Sky News: “Angela Rayner comes under sustained coverage because she’s a working-class woman in a way that frankly Nigel Farage, leading members of the shadow cabinet, never would.

“I think there’s a real heavy dose of misogyny when it comes to Angela.

“I wouldn’t want to see a hounded out of an important role by right wing politicians and the right wing media who frankly can’t handle the fact that a working class woman is our Deputy Prime Minister.”

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

But there was sympathy from one party leader, Sir Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats, who said that as a parent of a disabled child “I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son’s care after we have gone”.

Shortly after PMQs, opening a Tory debate on, yes, property taxes, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride opted for ridicule and mockery. “I’m absolutely certain that the deputy prime minister had a good recess,” he began.

“We saw many photographs of her down at the seaside, just off the coast in a rubber dinghy, rather like many of the other photographs over the summer given the reckless policies this government has towards illegal migration.

“She was probably celebrating the acquisition of another property for her property empire, but perhaps also slightly tinged with that nagging doubt as to whether she had indeed paid enough stamp duty.

“Well, we’ll get to the bottom of that in due course.”

Quite so, Mel. We will.

Let’s also reflect that on Monday Sir Keir Starmer proudly announced: “Phase two of my government starts today.” On Tuesday, he informed MPs, he was “speaking at length” to Ms Rayner. Must have been awkward.

And on Wednesday, the PM had to watch her tearful confession, just minutes before facing MPs in the Commons.

Not a great start to phase two, prime minister. Nor for his embattled and tearful deputy, who’s now fighting for political survival.