Snobbery over Angela Rayner’s debating skills isn’t just vile, it’s plain wrong

Labour’s deputy leader is combative and quick-witted enough to thwart Johnson on her own terms, writes Sean O’Grady

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions (PA Media)

As vile as the sexism in The Mail on Sunday’s now notorious attack on Angela Rayner was, what has attracted a bit less attention is the no less ugly classism that also infuses the piece.

The still-anonymous Tory MP who was quoted by the paper suggested that Rayner has to resort to such tactics as flashing her legs at the prime minister because she lacks his “Oxford Union debate training”. This is not only sneery – it’s plain wrong.

On the occasions when Rayner has stood in for Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs, going up against either Johnson or the nominal deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, she has been outstanding. She may have missed out on the overrated union debating society experience, but she has all the brains and passion she needs to floor the rogue prime minister in open combat. She isn’t afraid of him, though he always seems to be slightly at odds as to how to deal with a woman who can’t be patronised.

In truth, his Oxford Union days were of limited use to him, as he isn’t usually that good at standing up to Starmer. In their last major confrontation on Partygate, Starmer put in his best performance to date. All Johnson has to throw back is a curious line about Starmer being a “Corbynista in an expensive suit”, as if good tailoring were nowadays offensive to the Tories (though Johnson would contrive to look rumpled in even the finest Savile Row threads). The fact is that Johnson was only ever good when he was up against Corbyn, who combined weak policies and poor delivery in a way few could rival. Johnson probably misses the old Trot.

Rayner’s media appearances also display an admirable tendency not to take any nonsense from journalists. She’s rare for someone on the left in being willing to go on the offensive, and for not apologising for not being a Tory. She’s reminiscent, in that respect, of Ken Livingstone and Tony Blair — people who would engage in argument. She also has a line in working-class, small “c” conservatism on crime, antisocial behaviour and terror. This is no Islington lefty. She’s combative and quick-witted, and it’s this that discombobulates Johnson.

In fact, Rayner went to a rather better finishing school for aspiring politicians than even the Oxford Union – she was a Unison shop steward. As a union rep she learned how to deal with entitled blokes, how to make and win an argument, and above all, how to think on her feet and throw in the occasional sharp barb – like when she teased Johnson about ambition being no bad thing, and how she actually fancied his job rather than Starmer’s (there were rumours about friction at the top of the party). Rayner is better than most of either of the front benches in debate, and has thrived in her new role. After Starmer was diagnosed with Covid last year, she took PMQs with about an hour’s notice – and stormed it.

There are plenty of cliches to be wheeled out about Rayner’s personal back story, and her experiences as a single mum and the rest no doubt shaped her ideas and personality. It’s not immediately obvious how a public school education and an Oxbridge degree would have made her a better politician. It just seems to be the case that some people in politics and the media are unwilling to accept that someone like Rayner should be where they are. It was the same snobbery that looked down on Alan Johnson and John Prescott.

The sort of casual classism inflicted on Rayner may be more or less pernicious than sexism – or racism for that matter – but it also surely disfigures public life. Maybe when Rayner called Tories “scum” it was these critics she had in mind.