Express assistant news editor and Conservative councillor Mieka Smiles says that success and failure should never be about class.
Conservative councillor Mieka Smiles has little sympathy for the former deputy PM (Image: Getty)
Every time I see it, I cringe. She’s northern, she’s working class and, God help us, a woman – and therefore many believe Angela Rayner has some kind of a pass.
This is the weird rhetoric that I have seen since the deputy PM’s departure yesterday. Caroline Lucas – former leader of the Green Party – tweeted that the “right wing media has had it in for Angela Rayner from the start” and added “they couldn’t bear a working class woman being so powerful and dynamic.” And Labour regional mayor Kim McGuinness dubbed Angela, and I quote, “Working. Class. Warrior.”
Not to put too fine a point on it: but UGH.
Rayner grew up in very tough circumstances in Stockport, Greater Manchester, on one of the area’s poorest council estates. From an early age she was caring for her mother, who had bipolar disorder and suffered from depression. Her journey to deputy PM is therefore absolutely remarkable. But any job she has secured is surely down to her tenacity, intelligence and her ability to do the job well.
Of course my story is nothing like as tough as hers. Yes, I’m northern and certainly had a working-class upbringing – but who really cares? What I can tell you for absolute certain is that if I found out any door had opened for me for any other reason than that I was the best at what I do, then I’d be seething. The fact she has now lost her job is because she has messed up – not because of her background. Simple as that. And on so many levels.
From the fact that she’s effectively abandoned her constituents by moving 200+ miles away – the very people who allowed her to live the life she currently has – through to her inability to make sure that in the esteemed role of Deputy PM she has her tax affairs in order. It’s laughable.
What’s more is this murky trust business. Angela: We all want to look after our kids’ futures – and, dear Lord, absolutely that drive is perhaps even stronger if your child has a disability for life. But your party is taking the right of many of us to do that away…Unless, that is, you have clever people to circumvent inheritance tax.
We have all seen the countless clips – cleverly compiled, I have to say – of Angela going down the throat of anyone who dares to gain any capital whatsoever. Can you imagine what she would have said about herself? £800k on a second home, using her son’s trust fund, at the other end of the country.
Even as a humble councillor, which I am, you have to be spotless. Crikey, in my role, claiming a penny more than you should can open an absolute can of worms. I’ve been offered nice things and thought very much better of it. My voters would expect nothing less. The question is: am I acting for them or for me?
But I suppose maybe as “Tory scum” like I am, then different rules apply. If I – by some kind of miracle – ended up as deputy PM, would Angela Rayner show me any sympathy if I was in the same position? Would she bloody Nelly. She has carved out a career as a Labour attack dog and – like my dad says – if you live by the sword, then you die by it.
I love women. Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing someone smash through the walls that are often put in our way. However that’s because women can obviously be the best. Not because they rely on class-baiting rubbish.
