News that Angela Rayner privately demanded the Chancellor deliver a suite of tax rises on wealthier households rather than cut spending has caused an immediate headache for the Prime Minister.
The document, leaked to The Daily Telegraph, gives the clearest suggestion of Cabinet tensions, as unrest in the rank and file grows over benefit cuts and means testing the winter fuel payment.
Speculation is now rife that Rayner is willing to step beyond her brief. Is this the next move in her play to be the next leader of the Labour Party?
Nearly all politicians harbour a dream of becoming prime minister, and Angela Rayner is surely no exception.
But her efforts to influence Government policy are not about that. Because if she does want to become Labour leader – and, crucially, do the job well – she knows it can only happen when the party is in a much stronger position.
Imagine Sir Keir Starmer is forced out through some sort of rebellion. Any successor would be a sort of Rishi Sunak figure: flailing to manage a party in chaos and paper over internal divisions.
What Rayner is trying to do is to make the Government work better and restore its tattered popularity. Only by allowing Starmer to step down as a successful PM, many many years in the future, will she have any chance of being a half-decent Labour leader.
Hugo Gye is political editor
Chloe Chaplain: ‘Rayner is not to be ignored’
Angela Rayner’s “manoeuvres”, as they are so often described, are probably the result of being frozen out of the Prime Minister’s inner circle.
It is no secret that Rayner and Starmer are not natural political allies. It was the party members voting her as deputy leader that forged this unlikely alliance between the two.
Rayner still had to dig in to secure her position as Deputy Prime Minister and use her political leverage to ensure she has the big government departments and projects she wants to prioritise: workers’ rights, housing, local government.
The view among some MPs is that Rayner’s apparent lack of influence over party direction does not reflect her status. Some say she is more tuned into what Labour MPs and voters want and therefore should be listened to by the Prime Minister more.
The leaks this week, and the response to them across the party, are a way of showing Starmer that she is not to be ignored.
Chloe Chaplain is senior political correspondent
Describing political ambition, Boris Johnson once said: “All politicians in the end are like crazed wasps in a jam jar, each individually convinced they are going to make it.”
Does Angela Rayner dream of becoming Prime Minister? Of course she does. Because all MPs do.
That’s not to say she’s planning to oust Sir Keir Starmer. But interventions like her leaked proposals to jack up taxes on the wealthy will only help burnish her appeal among MPs on Labour’s left-wing and “soft-left”.
Of course, Rayner’s camp vehemently deny leaking it. To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies, well they would, wouldn’t they? One jaded government source said that most leaks require “plausible deniability” – something they think Rayner lacks in this case.
Will Hazell is Whitehall correspondent
Vicky Spratt: ‘Others should learn from her and get on with their jobs’
Once again, it seems as though someone from within the Labour Government’s ranks has been briefing against Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary. And, perhaps, others are briefing in her defence.
Polling conducted by More in Common recently showed that the policies Rayner is responsible for – workers’ rights, renters’ rights and planning reform – are far more popular than other Labour policies, such as their botched welfare reform announcement or now-cancelled winter fuel payment cut.
More than that, she and the department she oversees are getting on with delivering manifesto promises. Something that can’t be said for other areas of government.
Could the problem be that Rayner is doing well? Over the years, “Ange” has been subject to relentless and sneering comments about her class, about being a woman, about daring to exist.
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Now, as Deputy Prime Minister, all that’s written about her is that she’s too far left of the Prime Minister or somehow secretly plotting subterfuge so she can take over.
It’s no secret that more right-leaning or centrist members of Starmer’s team don’t like Rayner’s politics. But this is all so deathly boring.
Being surprised that someone who puts themselves through the brutal process of becoming an MP wants to change policy is like buying a watch and being shocked when it tells the time.
We’re wise to approach politicians with a healthy dose of scepticism. But at the same time, this cynical view of politics and politicians corrodes the public conversation surrounding what goes on in Westminster and, ultimately, public trust in politics.
The Labour Party has been at war with itself for years because it cannot unite its left, right, and centre. Rayner is one of the few people who has been able to do that. Others should learn from her and get on with their jobs. That’s what they were elected to do.
Does Rayner want to be Labour’s leader eventually? Maybe. But a better question is, why shouldn’t she be?
Vicky Spratt is housing correspondent
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