Angela Rayner was always coming after Keir Starmer. Yesterday, she struck.
Angela Rayner thinks she’s on her way to Number 10. But there’s a problem… (Image: Getty)
Her bombshell intervention over the crunch Commons vote on Peter Mandelson forced the PM into a humiliating climbdown. Starmer had been fighting to bury documents relating to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington. Rayner demanded they be released. Starmer folded. As even Labour MPs turn against him, he’s now finished as PM. Rayner struck the killer blow.
She even made it clear she was prepared to vote with the Conservatives against her own leader. Yes, the same Tories she has previously dismissed as “scum”. Proof, if any were needed, that in politics, revenge and ambition top principle every time.
I warned you she’d be back. Last September, just hours after she’d been cast into the political wilderness for dodging stamp duty on her £800,000 luxury flat in Hove, I wrote: Angela Rayner won’t be gone for long – and she’ll be back with a vengeance.
The Mandelson scandal is a gift to Rayner. After yesterday’s intervention she’s a big step closer to replacing him as PM. Labour members and activists would love that.
Rayner is bright, colourful, earthy, and while her grammar may not always be perfect, in contrast to Starmer, she speaks human. But there’s a huge problem.
Labour is now the party of sleaze. Both Starmer’s regime, and Tony Blair’s New Labour project, are tainted by the biggest political scandal in a generation.
Mandelson isn’t just a slimy creep, he’s a treacherous slimy creep. He’s shared cabinet-level secrets with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender and trafficker, while simultaneously seeking favours and cash.
Back in the day, he’d be shivering in the Tower of London, begging for clemency.
Everyone knew he was slippery. He was dubbed the Prince of Darkness decades ago. He’s been forced to resign from Labour cabinets twice, yet Starmer invited him back into the inner circle.
Why do disgraced politicians think they can simply sit it out for a while, then sneak back with an even better job? That doesn’t happen in any other line of work. Which brings me back to Rayner.
Rayner, to be fair, isn’t a Mandelson. She didn’t consort with a known child sex trafficker. All she did was dodge £40,000 in stamp duty, then try to wriggle out of it. But for a politician who’s so keen to raise taxes on everyone else, it was a terrible look.
Especially today, when Labour desperately needs to clean up its act. Appointing tax dodger Angela Rayner as party leader is not the way to do that.
Think of that poor bus driver who was sacked for chasing a mugger. Now he’s a true working class hero, who did nothing wrong. We can be pretty sure he won’t come back as head of the bus company.
Rayner may think she’s heading for Number 10, but Mandelson’s fall will remind voters that she isn’t fit to lead the country either. When politicians are sacked for dodgy dealings, they should be sacked for good. Not put in charge.
