I don’t know about you, but I would quite like my senior politicians to be sympathetic, regular people, or, in the modern idiom, relatable.
Instead of being ruled by a coterie of Old Etonians, let’s imagine that among the people making the decisions in this country, would be hard-pressed single parents who understood what it is like to be poor, or disadvantaged. People like Angela Rayner, for example.
The story of how a woman who grew up on a council estate in Stockport, had a baby at 16 and left school without any qualifications, yet rose to be Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is well enough known, and should be celebrated as one of the best examples of our (supposedly) meritocratic political system. It’s a heartwarming story, yes?
Well, no, actually. Instead, Rayner has become one of the most scrutinised, and indeed personally vilified, characters in our public sphere, and has become a particular bête noire of the right-wing media.
square ANNE MCELVOY Angela Rayner may have done nothing wrong, but she still can't win
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It is her housing arrangements that have attracted particular interest of late, with the discovery that she has purchased a flat in the seaside city of Brighton and Hove (to go with her constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne and her grace-and-favour apartment in London that comes with her status as Deputy Prime Minister). “Three Pads Rayner” ran the somewhat obvious, smeary headline.
Thus far, she has not been deemed to have contravened any tax or parliamentary rules, and I very much doubt she’ll be found guilty of anything.
Like a lot of divorced people who have complicated lives – she has three children, an ex-husband, a current partner (who lives near Hove), step-children, and a job that requires a lot of travel – Rayner has a less than straightforward domestic life.
But her public persona is not that of a heroic woman balancing all these (easily relatable) issues; more of mouthy, tax-dodging hypocrite.
She has been firmly in the cross-hairs of her political opponents ever since she called Conservative ministers “a bunch of scum” (she later apologised for her strong language).
The truth is that a plain-speaking northerner (John Prescott, for example) is generally admired, but not if they threaten the established order of things.
square BEN KENTISH The confected outrage over Angela Rayner's new property is nothing but snobbery
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Northernism is one of our least-recognised prejudices, and one of which I have experience myself. When I – the product of a Lancashire grammar school – became editor of The Independent newspaper back in 1998, my appointment attracted an adverse reaction from some who expect our national newspaper editors to come from a more refined, Oxbridge stock.
In her maiden speech to Parliament in 2015, Rayner told the House of Commons that she “will always tell it how it is – and I’ll do it in my own little northern way”.
She has been as good as her word, and her appearances at the despatch box have the authentic timbre of someone who is proud of her roots. Nevertheless, much of the online abuse she receives is about her background.
“Anonymous hard-right accounts attacking my accent… saying l am thick,” is how she put it.
I believe the antipathy towards Rayner is unreasonable. She may not always present well in the modern, image-driven world of politics, but her heart is in public service and why should we begrudge her some of the comforts that come with high office? She has had few advantages in her ascent up the greasy pole.
It may be sexism or classism, or indeed the metropolitan bias of our media, but you cannot argue that Angela Rayner gets a rough ride in the way that a public school-educated person from the Home Counties would not.
But, then again, I might be a chippy northerner, too.
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