Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com
“My daughter will be running this country in a few years’ time…she’ll be the prime minister soon.”
When Angela Rayner’s mother, Lynne, uttered these words during an ITV interview in 2020, even Rayner sniggered. But as the Bob Monkhouse quip has it, she’s not laughing now. The self-styled Queen of the North, who left school aged 16 with no qualifications and a baby on the way, really could follow in the footsteps of Churchill, Attlee, Thatcher and Blair.
This possibility will delight some voters and it will horrify others.
But who is Angela Rayner and is she suited to high office?
I first thought of writing her biography in the summer of 2022 after she gave an interview at the Edinburgh Festival. It was hard not to be interested in this direct politician who spoke so openly about her tough childhood and tricky path to Westminster.
By then, she was Labour’s deputy leader, and often courted controversy. Whether calling Tories “scum” or describing Jeremy Corbyn as “a thoroughly decent man” after the Equality and Human Rights Commission concluded anti-Semitism in Labour had thrived under his leadership, she had an undeniable presence.
Yet little independent research into her background had been done. In the autumn of 2023, when the Conservative government was on thin ice and Rayner had just been promoted to shadow deputy prime minister, I began work.
It was soon clear that what she lacked in academic credentials she made up for in ambition, though I found her a more brittle personality than some might assume.
She was born in Stockport in March 1980, the second of three siblings. Her childhood was materially deprived and emotionally fractured. Her mother suffered from bipolar disorder and Rayner helped to look after her; her father, Martyn, had no steady profession. The family settled on a crime-ridden housing estate and were supported by Giro cheques. Her grandmother, Jean, was a strong influence and Rayner was an enthusiastic Girl Guide. But she was bullied at school and by 13 was nightclubbing in Manchester and, in her words, “getting into scrapes”.
After giving birth she moved to her own council flat and made ends meet selling flowers in pubs, then at 18 became a private Home Help for six months. From 2000, she did the same job for Stockport Council. I remain amazed by her claim she was a Samaritan between the ages of 17 and 20.
She once said she had been a carer “for almost a decade”. In fact, she did the job for a maximum of five years. At Stockport council she joined the trade union UNISON and by 2005 was working for it full time. She bought a house in 2007 and met UNISON’s assistant branch secretary, Mark Rayner. Their 17-year age gap was no barrier to love and he steered her through UNISON’s ranks, ultimately starting her political career.
They had a son in 2008 and another in 2009 before marrying in 2010. Yet their marriage certificate suggested all was not as it seemed. It stated they lived at separate addresses a mile apart. According to the electoral roll this continued until 2015. Why hadn’t they lived together as a family? Odder still, the roll stated Rayner’s brother, Darren, lived with Mark Rayner and the children from 2010 to 2015.
Neighbours disputed this, saying the Rayners did all live together, while Darren lived in his sister’s house.
And when Rayner herself re-registered her sons’ births in October 2010 – a month after her wedding – it was written on their new birth certificates that she lived at her husband’s address, too.
I established the house she’d bought in 2007 was purchased under Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme with a £26,000 discount. She sold it in 2015 at a £48,500 profit. In a 2023 interview, she said that in government she wanted to cut right-to-buy – a policy despised by the Left. But she didn’t mention she’d been a right-to-buy owner. Wasn’t this hypocritical? Had she breached electoral law? What about her council tax status? Answers were needed.
When my book, Red Queen?, was published in February 2024, a lengthy storm erupted around this story. The police got involved (no action was taken). Rayner said she’d taken independent advice about her property and finances that cleared her of wrongdoing – but she refused to publish it or to say from where it had come. She maintained I had an “unhealthy interest” in her family and – offensively – said I “kick out at those who graft to get on in life.”
The affair and its aftermath revealed something of her character. Her default setting to attack rather than explain does not bode well.
Elsewhere in the book, those who worked closely with her after she became the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne confided that while she was good at presenting an image of competence they found her pompous, tight-fisted, insecure, manipulative and controlling. Her nickname was “the Diva”.
One source was disgusted to find her computer password was VomitBreath69, inspired by her first date with her future husband when they were both sick after eating a bad curry.
Her loyalty was questioned, too. Her chief adviser, Matt Finnegan, fell ill in 2017 with Type 1 diabetes. While on leave, he was sacked. He went to an industrial tribunal with written communications from Rayner that were considered to be so damaging to her, Labour gave him £20,000 hush money.
Rayner began to say increasingly outrageous things, using interviews to talk graphically about her breast enhancement, her childhood menstruation and her 12-hour vodka-fuelled raves. True, she was not just another plastic MP who had rolled off the Westminster production line, but some felt she was marketing herself like a celebrity.
Politically, she has always been hard to place, working for the hard Left Corbyn and then Starmer, praising centrists Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, while also declaring “ideology never put food on my table.”
Yet while she has no strong view on Brexit she is rampantly pro-trades union. She is untested when it comes to global affairs and the economy.
She’s also uncompromising. When the Tory politician Esther McVey said parents had the right to take primary school-aged children out of lessons on same-sex relationships, Rayner responded she was “not fit to be an MP”.
Before her spell in government ended last September after failing to pay £40,000 in stamp duty, she found it hard going. As Housing Secretary, she was set the impossible target of overseeing the building of 1.5 million homes by 2030. As I revealed, she became so frustrated she threatened to quit, only staying put after Tony Blair dissuaded her.
She was also behind changes to employment rights which have proved highly contentious and crushingly expensive. Her attempt to create an official definition of Islamophobia remains under fierce debate amid fears it will usher in a blasphemy law.
It is hard to imagine Britain under her wouldn’t turn to the Left.
Polling I have done suggests she’s a more divisive figure than Starmer. Last December people were more than twice as likely to say she would make a worse PM than Sir Keir as to say she would be better. But while Conservative and Reform UK voters were of that view, Labour supporters were more likely than not to think she would be an improvement.
In my focus groups, voters often say they find her background and her blunt approach a refreshing change. But not everyone is convinced. While she seems unlikely to win new converts to Labour’s cause, a Rayner premiership could galvanise voters on both sides.
I don’t know whether Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage would rather face Starmer or Rayner in the Commons chamber, but I do know that successful prime ministers have a certain je ne sais quoi. And for all Rayner’s strengths, I can’t help wondering whether her lack of experience and impetuous nature would do more harm than good.
Nonetheless, I would still like to have a coffee and a chat with her.
