ANGELA Rayner has ruled out ever being Prime Minister and said she was “absolutely not” behind a leaked memo which showed her to have pressed for tax rises and cut child benefits.
The deputy Labour leader told Sky’s Trevor Phillips this morning she “never” wants to take over the party.
AlamyAngela Rayner has ruled out ever being PM[/caption] PAShe denied she was behind a memo leak to Chancellor Rachel Reeves[/caption] Rayner speaking to Trevor Phillips todayRayner was asked to dispel suggestions she may have been behind the leak to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in order to grow support for a future leadership bid.
The memo, seen by The Daily Telegraph, was submitted in mid-March before Reeves unveiled her Spring Statement on March 26.
Ten proposals were made, eight tax rises and two benefit changes.
Asked by Phillips if she leaked the memo herself as a “kind of mini manifesto”, she replied: “Yeah, absolutely not, and I don’t want to be leader of the Labour Party.”
Pressed on this, she added: “No, I’m very happy and honoured to be Deputy Prime Minister of this country, and I’ve got a lot in my in-tray to prove that I can do the job that I’m doing and deliver on the milestones for the people of this country.
“That’s what I’m interested in.”
Asked to say the word never, she replied: “Never.”
The leaked document showed housing secretary Rayner urged the Treasury to “claw back” payments from households where the highest earner makes between £50,000 and £80,000 — reversing a key Conservative tax break worth up to £1,300 a year.
The move would wipe out one of the most popular measures from Jeremy Hunt’s 2024 Budget, which raised the threshold at which families start losing child benefit.
Mr Hunt raised those limits to £60,000 and £80,000 respectively — allowing nearly half a million families to keep more of their entitlement.
But Rayner’s proposal, revealed in the March document, would roll that back – hitting teachers, junior doctors, police officers and others who had just been promised relief from rising bills.
The system has long sparked fury among parents, because eligibility is based on individual salary, not joint household income.
That means a single earner on £60,000 with a stay-at-home partner loses the benefit — while a couple each earning £49,000 still qualify in full.
Rayner was also asked by Phillips this morning if the two-child cap limit was a good idea amid reports PM Sir Keir Starmer has allegedly made it clear privately he’s determined to axe it.
Phillips said backbenchers argue such a move would be a “signal of true Labour”.
Rayner said: “It might be a signal but it’s not a silver bullet.
“It’s not going to alleviate the levels of poverty there is – there’s a number of factors – people’s wages not increasing, their employment being insecure, the cost of living crisis that we face, bills going up, and the housing costs going up.
“So, it’s not one particular element that is going to safeguard people from the poverty we’ve seen after 14 years of the Conservatives.”
Starmer is facing a civil war within his party with some MPs threatening to rebel over the government’s welfare reforms after the reversal on the winter fuel allowance last week.
The PM cracked under pressure after a voter backlash, but still refused to say how many OAPs would be spared or whether help will come in time for this winter.
Referring to the potential for lifting the cap, one minister told The Observer: “Keir wants to end the two-child cap – he thinks it’s the right thing to do.
“It’s the best and most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty. The alternatives cost more and are less effective.”
COMMENT: Rayner wants top job and cannot be dismissed - but Labour must not lurch to the left
Ian Austin, Peer and former Labour Minister
IS this the week it began to unravel for Keir Starmer’s government?
That’s the question everyone is asking in Westminster. You can see why.
Though he inherited an economy in the doldrums from the Tories and growth looked like it had finally picked up this week, the next day brought figures showing inflation and borrowing had gone up again too.
Immigration numbers are finally coming down, but only from the shocking highs of the Tory years when they let a million people come to the UK in a year, at the same time as failing to build enough homes for people living here already.
And people are still crossing the Channel in record numbers. Schools and hospitals desperately need investment but there’s not enough cash to go round.
Getting restless
Defence spending has to increase to recruit more soldiers, sailors and airmen and pay for expensive new equipment.
There’s no choice about that when we have a war in Ukraine and Donald Trump in the White House saying America won’t pick up the bill for Europe’s defence any longer.
Keir has excelled on the international stage, rallying Europe more forcefully behind Ukraine, charming Trump into cutting tariffs and striking three new trade deals.
But that hasn’t stopped his own troops getting restless.
There’s nothing Labour lefties like more than moaning about their leaders.
And they’ve been in their element this week, whingeing about everything from benefit cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel payments and much more besides.
Some of them are panicking after the hammering they received in the local elections when Reform won seats and councils Labour had held for decades.
Deputy Leader Angela Rayner ruffled feathers by sending round suggestions on tax increases instead of benefit cuts.
She obviously wants the top job after Keir. That’s fair enough: Every other senior politician would like to be PM too. I wouldn’t bet against it either.
It’s not easy to get to the top in British politics when you’ve had a great start in life at a posh school and top university.
To get there from working as a care assistant in Stockport takes hard work and ruthless determination, so underestimate her at your peril.
Ridiculously, some Labour MPs think the answer is to move to the left.
They must be mad if they believe working class people vote for right-wing parties because they think Labour isn’t left-wing enough.
And look at their hysterical reaction when the PM dared to discuss immigration, one of the voters’ top concerns.
He was right to say it doesn’t make sense to import hundreds of thousands of people when we’re paying so many people already in the country not to work.
Of course people must speak English if they want to integrate, get a job and play a full role in society.
But to listen to the sanctimonious whingers you’d have thought Keir had joined the Ku Klux Klan, put on a white pointy hat and set a cross on fire in Parliament Square.
Some of them are so terrified about so-called Gaza independents, they spend their whole time talking about Gaza.
They pin all the blame on Israel, one of our closest allies and the Middle East’s only democracy, instead of the Hamas terrorists, who deliberately started the war by murdering, raping and kidnapping civilians.
If you think things are difficult now, wait until they try to tackle the benefits bill.
This looks set to be a huge battle with over a hundred Labour MPs threatening to vote against the Government. Again, they must be mad.
We’re paying millions of people not to work and youth unemployment is a national scandal that will blight their lives for ever.
Listen to the voters
When I joined the Labour Party 40 years ago, we fought against unemployment and marched for jobs.
How can they be angry about measures to give young people the opportunity to get off benefits and into work?
There’s nothing that angers traditional hard-working Labour voters than getting up to go to work while a family down the street stays in bed on benefits.
There’s some good news for Keir. However bad things are for Labour, the Tories show no sign of recovery at all.
So this is the key for Keir: Ignore the whingers and listen to the voters. Deal with their priorities — kick-start the economy and cut the cost of living.
Tackle crime. Strengthen our borders and our armed forces.
Get the construction industry moving and build the homes the country needs.
That’s how you’ll turn things round.
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