ANDREW PIERCE: Is Angela Rayner's hard-Left boyfriend plotting to put her in No 10 as revenge for his sacking by Starmer's ruthless right-hand man?

Daily Mail​

15 hours ago

On the eve of the Government's difficult Spending Review, Angela Rayner was in surprisingly high spirits.
Drinks were flowing as the Deputy Prime Minister held court, acting as the DJ playing loud 'house music' while her guests danced the night away.
Rayner's office has refused to confirm whether a party took place in her resplendent grace-and-favour apartment in Admiralty House, once the home of Sir Winston Churchill, the night before the Housing Secretary received one of the biggest financial packages of the Spending Review.
Rayner had to battle to the bitter end against Chancellor Rachel Reeves, but the outcome fell in her favour and is a sign of her growing influence.
In recent weeks, there have been reports of Rayner limbering up to replace Keir Starmer as Labour leader, and she has solid backing from members of the soft-Left, as well as the unions. Her victory in the Reeves negotiations is a clear sign that Downing Street is trying to keep her on side.
Little wonder, then, that she indulged in raucous celebrations hours before the Chancellor addressed the Commons, reviving memories of when she was photographed belting out songs behind the DJ's desk in an Ibiza nightclub last summer.
When Rayner, 45, took her place on the benches for the Spending Review, many thought she looked somewhat jaded. The same was said of Blackpool South MP Chris Webb, who was at the party and is one of her closest friends.
A source told me: 'They were celebrating the fact that Ange had won her deal on the Spending Review. She is feeling on top of the world. The settlement showed that Ange is a serious player.
Tarry, 42, has never got over being sacked as a shadow minister in July 2022 for giving a TV interview while on a picket line during a rail strike
'It may look insensitive but it was a private party for a small group of friends and supporters. These party guests will run an Angela Rayner leadership campaign if and when the time comes.'
Rayner's ebullience was in stark contrast to the downbeat demeanour of the dwindling band of Reeves supporters. Her stock has fallen to rock bottom among Labour MPs and members.
And Rayner's soiree will only heighten suspicions in the Downing Street bunker ahead of a potential crunch Commons vote on reforms to disability benefits. As many as 200 Labour MPs are said to be deeply unhappy about Reeves's plans to make £5 billion of cuts.
In public, Rayner says she has no interest in becoming Labour leader. In private, however, I can disclose that many of the party-goers on Tuesday night are working hard to bolster her support among MPs and party members.
Some MPs have dubbed the less-than-covert Rayner campaign Operation Revenge because it is being masterminded by her boyfriend Sam Tarry, 42, who has never got over being sacked as a shadow minister in July 2022 for giving a TV interview while on a picket line during a rail strike. Later that year, he was deselected as the MP for Ilford South.
Tarry, who was part of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership team, blames his downfall on Starmer's all-powerful chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who wants to purge the party of Left-wingers. Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say, and Tarry is pushing for Rayner to be the first elected woman leader of the Labour Party.
In the run-up to the election, Rayner ruled out a tilt at the top job because she knew Labour was destined to win big and assumed that Starmer would be a fixture in No 10 for years.
Since he became PM, however, support for Labour has collapsed faster than that of any newly elected governing party in the past 40 years. Starmer's personal rating is a woeful minus 46 per cent.
And Rayner is popular where it counts – with party members. In a poll by independent party news website LabourList, she came second to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who is not a leadership contender after his disastrous election defeat in 2015. What's more, many Labour MPs believe they must elect a woman for the first time in the party's 125-year history.
Even Rayner's many detractors, who scorn her intellectual ability, concede there is no serious alternative contender. Rachel Reeves and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson have crashed and burned in the eyes of voters.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, another favourite of party members, does not have a Commons seat. And Health Secretary Wes Streeting's majority was cut to 550 by an independent Muslim candidate standing on a pro-Gaza platform. Many suspect he will lose next time.
The man who helped Rayner avoid a similar fate is her close friend Wajid Khan, a former mayor of Burnley. He was instrumental in ensuring no independent Muslim candidate stood against her in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency in Greater Manchester, which she won with a 6,700 majority over Reform.
To the surprise of many, Khan – who was elevated to the Lords by Starmer in 2020 – became Rayner's deputy minister in the housing department.
'Khan was repaid with a ministerial job and he is now repaying her in turn by working discreetly on her behalf,' says a supporter. 'He will be a hugely important link to the Muslim vote which Labour is losing under Starmer.'
All of which helps explains why Rayner has come round to the idea that, if Starmer goes, she should run.
It explains, too, last month's leak of a memo from Rayner to the Chancellor outlining her alternative money-raising measures, arguing for higher taxes on wealthier people and cutting benefits for migrants.
Whoever leaked it – and Rayner's team say it wasn't them – had one purpose: to cast her in a positive light with the MPs and party members who will choose the next leader.
Some MPs say the leak fired the starting gun on a long race to succeed Starmer, which is why it caused such anger in Downing Street. Days later, Rayner had to fight her corner behind the scenes after reports that Starmer would strip her of the housing element of her brief. Flame-haired Rayner is unashamedly combative and, according to a source, 'there was a lot of shouting'.
A darling of the trade unionists, she has the personality to build bridges across the party. Rayner was the special guest at Tony Blair's Christmas drinks last year. She is also close to Gordon Brown and her boisterous birthday karaoke parties are well attended by the Right and Left in the party.
A Rayner associate says: 'If you're a working-class woman like Ange, who is always being written off by the men in the Downing Street bunker, what better way to prove them wrong than by seizing the top job?'
Rayner famously left school aged 16, pregnant and without any qualifications. Her political hero was former Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott.
'Some say she's Prescott in a skirt,' says a supporter. 'Like Prescott, she speaks the language of ordinary voters. She understands them the way the metropolitan elite around Starmer don't. If there's a leadership election tomorrow, she wins hands down.'
Downing Street is aware of the manoeuvring. It may be why, in the past few weeks, Rayner has lost her personal photographer, Simon Walker.
'No 10 thought she was getting too big for her boots, so they grounded her photographer and have now taken the post away altogether,' a source told me.
A source close to Starmer says: 'You can't blame them for reining her in. Keir leads a stable government, a disciplined party, and knows what he wants. Ange would be woefully out of her depth as PM. She's not up to it and MPs know it.'
But Rayner is indifferent to the barbs. She thinks she's on a roll and, judging by the mood of her party guests, they think the same.