No one enjoys a healthy pisstake more than I. And there’s certainly no more inveterate snob than the one I glimpse increasingly despairingly in the bathroom mirror every morning. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner (‘Ange’ to the TNC faithful), is a regular feature of these pages, in what I hope is somewhat harsh – but always justifiable – lampooning.
Back in July, I observed the following on Labour’s proposed votes at 16:
“First up was wannabe leader Ange Rayner who, unlike most of the Cabinet left school up the duff at 16, and is therefore unusually well-acquainted with this particular demographic. “16-year-olds contribute to society” she said, “they should be able to vote”. So do illegals working in the black economy luv, but no one’s suggesting they should be given voting rights are they? My bad, of course they are!”
In January, it was the turn of Alastair MacMillan, who brutally took Rayner to task in his open letter:
“You clearly have never had the experience of firstly recruiting and then employing people, because if you had I suspect you would not be going down this path. Employing people is a nightmare already and your plans look set to make it even worse. Is it surprising that many business owners consider it easier to simply import their product or service, rather than go through the hassle of employing UK workers?”
Late last year it was the turn of Deputy Editor, Professor Roger Watson, who playfully alluded to Rayner’s self-appointment as “John Prescott in a skirt” in his piece A very wooden cabinet:
“Next to Starmer are three women, none of whom any sensible person would sit next to on a bus. First in line after the PM is Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. The current occupant of the position once occupied by John Prescott does her best to emulate her predecessor for verbal eloquence, politeness and intellect. We have yet to see her right hook, but I am sure she could lay out an egg thrower with aplomb, just like ‘Two Jabs’ himself. Given the popularity of the Starmer government, she may not have long to wait before the eggs start flying.
So far I trust, all fair and above board. It should go without saying that Rayner would always be welcome to her right to reply, and would be positively encouraged to refer to me as a “penniless, balding, never-has-been”. I must confess however, that the recent public attacks on the Deputy PM have disappointed me. While this weekend’s actual story about Rayner was her hypocritical third property, the reporting seemed more a critique of her ‘sea-legs’, and her penchant for living it up:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the choice of photography and its ubiquity across social media suggests to me that the principle objection to Angela Rayner as Deputy Prime Minister is the thinly-veiled disapproval that she is unashamedly tattooed, unattractive, overweight, badly-dressed, ill-coiffed, enjoys a smoke and a drink, and is evidently working-class. But surely, those are all the best things about her?
Parliament was hardly lacking in these qualities before she came along – politics being famously, ‘show-business for ugly people’. Hairdressers’ nightmare, Boris Johnson, has made a career out of looking underdressed for a rubbish dump. Come election night, Nick Clegg was always ‘back on the fags’. And as for drinking, I suspect Ken Clark, William Hague and Charles Kennedy could have given Ange more than a run for her money.
But even the reasonable critique of hypocrisy over Rayner’s reported three properties (one of which is a grace and favour apartment in Admiralty House), seems a little pedantic. Are we really surprised that MPs are, if not blatantly ‘on the take’, at least firmly ensconced with their snouts in the trough?! Westminster is hardly alien to those with enormous property empires (Tony Blair, Lady Nugee and Nadhim Zahawi off the top of my head). MPs are three times more likely to own a second home than the general public, and the two MPs with the largest declared property incomes are the malingerers on the Labour benches. Personally, I’d never be too concerned that my MP was feathering their nest – provided I was guaranteed a little competence and patriotism in exchange.
Which brings me to my genuine beef with Ange:
Education
Having left school at 16, pregnant and without qualifications, Angela doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that she possesses either the requisite responsibility nor intellectual rigour for the demands of high office.
Car crash interviews
The ability to think on your feet is perhaps the greatest tool in a politician’s arsenal. It’s also undoubtedly the greatest test of their knowledge on a given subject, temporarily denied access to the soothing talents of scriptwriters and spin-doctors. The only possible contender for more car crash interviews than Angela Rayner is the one and only Diane Abbott; not exactly august company.
Ideological extremism
As a self-declared socialist, Rayner’s hardline policies such as banning zero hours contracts (despite their popularity), increasing workers’ rights and boosting union membership alongside the disastrous notion of a wealth tax, suggest she has zero understanding of the reality of employment.
Begging Muslims for votes
In the run-up to last year’s general election, I thought it was utterly shameful watching Angela Rayner raffle off British foreign policy in exchange for votes:
“I know that people are angry about what’s happening in the Middle East… If me resigning as an MP now would bring a ceasefire, I would do it. I would do it. If I could effect change.”
The push to formalise a definition of Islamophobia
Rayner’s plans to come up with a description for the ‘unacceptable treatment, prejudice and discrimination against Muslims’ will likely sound the death knell for free speech, introduce blasphemy laws by the back door, bolster the already blatant existence of two-tier justice, and accelerate the civil unrest simmering on our streets.
With Keir Starmer’s popularity sinking to its knees faster than a Ukrainian rentboy in the vicinity of SW1, the farcical prospect of Ange taking the reins is all too real. Her rivals claim she is ‘primed’ and ‘ready to take over’, while her allies suggest Starmer will be ‘gone in a year’. The most damning evidence, naturally, comes from Rayner herself, when she claimed she would ‘never’ consider putting herself forward as Prime Minister.
While the keys to Downing Street may have been regularly won on the ‘playing fields of Eton’, I’m not convinced that the likes of Cameron or Johnson have taken Britain in a positive direction. Give me a working-class MP any day of the week: David Davies, Frank Field or even John Major for that matter. Similarly with Ange, I like the fact that she’s a real person. I admire that quality within her in much the same way I admire it in Jeremy Corbyn or even Anjem Choudary – you know exactly what brand of poison you’re getting. The trouble with Ange isn’t that she’s working-class, it’s just everything else about her.
Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West and The Frank Report, which you should probably subscribe to.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
(Photograph: UK Government, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Everything you state is true but ignores the fact that Angie is just one of the legions of moronic peoples allowed into politics. Picking out Ange may make us, and Starmer, feel a bit better for a few minutes, but resolves absolutely nothing that is killing this country and our culture. It’s a sound off with no lasting benefits. We don’t need more obvious reports on the idiot class, we already collectively understand how bovinely stupid they all are, how hardly any hold worthwhile qualifications to even know what trouser leg goes where, but instinctively know the three politically important treasures: “where’s the free bar, free food trolley, expenses form”.
I humbly suggest, as a radical it seems, that all efforts in stating the “bleeding obvious” as Basil Fawlty would say, are wasting important time. Would it not be better to raise the awareness profile on our urgent need for less Legislation and more System change? The unelected power base in this country is appallingly out of control. Many of these unelected twonks in office have second+ homes and pensions and packages that are beyond the reach of us who are forced to pay these destructive vacant signs that hardly work anyway. The unelected blob knows the three rules of “free drinks, free food and expenses” as well as any elected empty suit. The clowns elected passed the legislature to the unelected clowns. Judges are proving my point almost on a daily basis, whilst dressed in 17c costume but so far avoiding the red nose and being able to raise their ridiculous wigs with the all so obvious strings.
So, pick on Angie, or Boris, or Starmer or Davey, or anyone in that infamous circle of stupidity and freakish characteristic. But it is now an irritating distraction. We need to have systematic change if we are to survive. Legislation is a vehicle for these insane, unhinged lunatics to find ways around the intent. It’s the only “skill” they have and it’s deep ingrained. Please, next time, use your skills to look at the real underlying diseases, not the obvious. You may even become radical and think about the Windsors role in the current public rage going around? After all, they also have plenty of very large expensive homes and yet cannot seem to either keep it clean or do their promised duty? Angie, Chas, Andy Pandy? All the same grifter class.
Yes….you’re right..focusing on these caricatures of politicians might make one think there are but a select few of these disreputable ignorant ‘milkers’ of our taxes. As you have referred to, there are legions of the same lurking under the radar. Most definitely shine a laser like beam on the Windsor ‘firm’, bathed as they always seem to be in unalloyed gratitude for doing very little. They could do even less by keeping their opinions on political matters to themselves.
Pingback: Will Starmer Regret Rayner’s Resignation? - The New Conservative