Place your bets

In his CAPX piece, William Atkinson raises the question most of us must have asked ourselves.


Will Angela Rayner fall victim to her own class war?

• If Starmer strikes Rayner down, he could make her more powerful than he could possibly imagine
• The Deputy Prime Minister has long been the Tory bête noire – Aneurin Bevan in a power suit
• Many political commentators have been blind to the reality of Angela Rayner

For many of my fellow Conservatives – all five of us – Angela Rayner’s ongoing tax travails have brought a deep sense of satisfaction. Since her election as Labour’s Deputy Leader five years ago, Rayner has been the Tory bête noire – the class enemy writ large, Aneurin Bevan in a power suit, who happily and openly branded her political enemies scum while her colleagues ummed and erred.

Yet there has always been a competing tendency within Tory world – a fascination. For reasons perhaps best left to the comfortable quiet of the therapist’s office, there are many Conservatives who look at Rayner and wonder why she isn’t one of us. Even without her enthusiasm for right-to-buy, her life story could be a triumph of Thatcherite aspiration. To go from leaving school at 16 while pregnant and without qualifications to becoming Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister is no mean feat. For the Tory Anarchist, there is a natural charm about a politician who likes a fag, a drink and a third home.

In the final paragraph, Atkinson tells us where his money is -


Last night, I made a bet with a pair of fellow politicos – that, within a year and a half, Rayner would be Britain’s Prime Minister. Perhaps I am being too bullish about Big Ange. Perhaps my brief career spent largely covering Tory leadership collapses and putsches has blinded me to the reality of Rayner, Starmer and Labour’s positions. Or perhaps, whatever Magnus rules, Rayner will march on.