“I’m a pretty young woman with lots of red hair, and everyone expects me to be stupid when I walk into a meeting for the first time.”
Angela Rayner
Introduction
Growing up on a rundown council estate in Stockport where money was scarce, your mother had bipolar disorder, was prone to self-harm, and your father never had a job. Pregnant at 16 and juggling the responsibilities of being a mother with three children, having to resort to taking your children to your grandmother’s flat once a week to bathe because the family couldn’t afford to pay for hot water. A teenager who was told that when she left school and became pregnant, she would never amount to anything in life. Yet despite this thin edge of the wedge, Angela Rayner proved her critics wrong.
A Remarkable Story
Angela Rayner is a woman who shoots from the hip, a proud Socialist who rolled up her sleeves in life and braved the storm of aversion that rained down on her. After studying part-time for a vocational qualification, she became a care worker for the local council. She soon proved her worth, singled out as having the aptitude to be a union representative. She earned the role by being mouthy and prepared to call out the wrongs in the workplace. It was an opportunity that would springboard her to more incredible things—a grafter ready to start at the bottom and work her way up.
Angela would soon become a full-time union convener for UNISON, and during this time, she decided to take the plunge into the world of politics. This courageous move won her the safe Labour seat of Ashton-under-Lyne at the 2015 general election. Identified as a politician from the left, Angela didn’t take long to get a Shadow Cabinet position. Jeremy Corbyn appointed her to the post of Shadow Pensions Minister in 2016.
One of the few MPs to stick by Corbyn, she was rewarded with the post of Shadow Education Secretary after Corbyn survived a bruising Brexit Referendum and a challenge to oust him. In the aftermath of Labour’s disastrous 2019 campaign, Angela stood for Deputy Leader and won. An election where Sir Keir Starmer became the new leader of the party. An at-times fractious relationship where the two have not always seen eye to eye. She was removed as party chairwoman after the 2021 local elections and given a series of roles under the title of Shadow First Secretary of State. In other words, Deputy Prime Minister. A role that Angela made her own. An effective deputy at PMQs and someone many Conservative MPs secretly admired and feared. She survived a police investigation into her living arrangements in her council house in 2010, saying that she owed capital gains tax on selling her former council house in 2015.
Holding Office
Angela ran an effective campaign in the 2024 election, and Sir Keir Starmer had to bite the bullet and appoint this fiery lady to the position of Deputy Leader. One that the unions and the membership elected her to. Reminiscent of the Blair/Prescott partnership that worked surprisingly well, it binds the party’s two wings and creates an influential voice. Rayner is a woman I greatly respect and admire. She came from nothing and now holds the second-highest office in the country. A lady who is in touch with her trade union roots and who isn’t afraid to speak out. A 44-year-old woman with nerves of steel and a mother who defied the odds and came up trumps.
