Why Angela Rayner Is Well Placed to Become our Next Prime

What a week of political intrigue! One of the things that has really irritated me is the number of my fellow political commentators, who refuse to give an opinion on what is likely to happen. Ok, sometimes we get things wrong, but at least we’ve nailed our colours to a particular mast. Even politicians are falling into this trap now.

I was on Newsnight on Monday with a Stermer-critical Labour MP called Jonathan Hinder. He’s the MP for Pendle and very much of the ‘you can trust me to tell the truth cos I’ve got a northern accent’ school of MPs. I liked him and he eloquently explained why Starmer needs to go. But when Victoria Derbyshire asked him who he wanted to succeed him, he was all over the place muttering inanities like ‘I need to hear what they’ve got to say’ or ‘let’s see their manifestos’. Why on earth would you seek to topple a prime minister if you had no idea who you wanted to replace him with? Bizarre.

The key to who will win is who Labour Party members vote for. Once the contest has been triggered – and it will be – MPs don’t really matter anymore. They have one vote, just as Labour members do. So who are Labour Party members?

There are far fewer of them than there used to be. They’re less left wing than they used to be. The hard left has largely, but not wholly, buggered off to the Greens. Having said that, the membership is still far more left wing than the general public as a whole. And this is where both Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham have a problem. Wes is unashamedly on the Blairite right of the party, whereas Andy Burnham is anything you’d like him to be at any particular time. He served in the Blair and Brown governments and was always seen as on the right, especially when he put in place the privatisation of a hospital while Health Secretary. And then when he failed to make a ripple in the 2015 leadership contest he served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. He shouldn’t be allowed to gloss over that. Of the three likely runners and riders, Angela Rayner should have the left or soft-left vote sewn up.

Labour members should remember that they are not just electing a party leader, they’re electing a prime minister. They would do well to do the exact opposite of what Tory members did in 2022, when they elected Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak.

Andy Burnham may be the King of the North, and I think he has done a great job as Mayor Manchester, but running Manchester is not the same as running the country, and at least he has the experience of actually running something. However, he suffers from the same affliction as Keir Starmer – he has no fundamental ideological groundings. He is, however, excellent at the sales and marketing aspect to the job, something Starmer is also terrible at. My instinct is that he will lose the Makerfield by-election and Reform UK will throw everything at it, with the Tories and LibDems effectively sitting it out. They will field candidates, but only make token efforts to campaign. If he loses, Andy Burnham can’t run, leaving the way open for Ed Miliband to stand, if he comes to the conclusion that Angela Rayner’s candidacy doesn’t cut the mustard.

It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Bridget Phillipson, Darren Jones or Al Carns could throw their hats into the ring, but that will probably not come until the by-election result is known.

So, no fence-sitting for me. I have no doubt in saying I think the best prime minister out of all the likely candidates would be Wes Streeting, even though I certainly don’t agree with a lot, and indeed most, of his policy utterances.

My hunch and prediction, though, is that Angela Rayner will win out in the end and become Britain’s first Labour female prime minister.

Go on. Shoot me down.