As Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner is understandably acutely aware of her picture. Which maybe explains why she helped to burnish it with hundreds of kilos’ price of free garments from rich donors.
Together with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, she has been compelled by the ‘Wardrobegate’ scandal besieging Labour to concede she’s going to not settle for any additional donations for clothes.
As as to whether she’s going to take any extra free holidays following her five-day keep in New York courtesy of Labour donor Lord Alli, we must wait and see.
Over Christmas and New Yr, she luxuriated within the media tycoon’s magnificent 56th-floor Manhattan condominium – a break which could have seen her breach Parliament’s guidelines by failing to reveal she stayed there with Sam Tarry, who was additionally a Labour MP on the time.
Now I can disclose that Rayner has been enhancing her profile at public expense in addition to personal. She seems to be the primary Deputy PM to have her personal chief photographer paid for from the general public purse.
Angela Rayner chats with Simon Walker who has been given the title of Chief Photographer to the Deputy PM and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Native Authorities on August 27
Rayner visiting the Johnnie Walker Whisky Expertise in Edinburgh final month. The {photograph} was taken by the brand new photographer
Angela Rayner pictured with Sam Tarry in June 2022. She has been concerned in a row for taking a break with him in a luxurious Manhattan condominium owned by millionaire donor Lord Alli
Sam Tarry (pictured in June 2022) flew out to hitch her for the festive keep within the 56th flooring Manhattan condominium, with a fitness center, jacuzzi and pool
His position is to create ‘Model Ange’. The photographer, Simon Walker, additionally works for the housing division the place she is the Secretary of State.
Walker, who used to work for Rishi Sunak when he was Prime Minister, is paid round £68,000 by the taxpayer for doing the 2 jobs. His official title is Chief Photographer to the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Native Authorities.
He has already launched a sequence of pictures of Rayner. In some she’s internet hosting high-powered conferences, in others she’s on housing websites. However the snaps all have one goal: to point out the Deputy PM and housing minister in probably the most constructive gentle.
The Tories seized on the newest disclosures. One supply mentioned: ‘What a big sum of cash to enhance the picture of our Deputy Prime Minister.’
They identified that Rayner was some of the vociferous critics of Boris Johnson in No 10, after it emerged {that a} Conservative donor was paying for Downing Road wallpaper.
‘How Angela Rayner used to sentence us for squandering public cash on self-importance tasks,’ the supply mentioned. ‘Is there any larger self-importance mission than a Deputy Prime Minister together with her hundreds of kilos of free garments, a luxurious free vacation, and now a publicly paid photographer?’
Rayner was given the free vacation in New York courtesy of Labour donor Lord Alli (pictured)
Rayner arrives for the Labour Occasion Convention 2024 in Liverpool on September 22
Keir Starmer congratulates the deputy PM after her speech at convention on Sunday
A supporter of Rayner countered: ‘It’s important to perceive she’s the Deputy PM however she is all the time overshadowed by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who bought the Dorneywood grace-and-favour nation mansion she thought may be coming her manner.
‘She additionally usually feels marginalised by No 10. That is her manner of constructing her mark on authorities.’
Walker was Sunak’s ‘digital content material editor’ when he was Chancellor, employed as a part of a group to assist enhance his social media output.
He turned official photographer to the Prime Minister when Sunak was in No 10, earlier than quietly switching to working for Rayner final month.
The custom of senior ministers having an official photographer is relatively new.
In 1997, Tony Blair requested that an official photographer be employed by the Civil Service after he moved into No 10.
However this was blocked by the then Cupboard Secretary Sir Richard Wilson who mentioned it was an ‘unjustifiable use of taxpayers’ cash’.
David Cameron had one when he turned Prime Minister in 2010. However after his authorities launched ‘austerity’ measures, he introduced he was taking photographer Andrew Parsons off the general public purse as a result of he thought it despatched out ‘the incorrect sign’, and Parsons was employed as an alternative by the Conservative Occasion without charge to the taxpayer.
Following the choice, Ed Miliband, Labour chief on the time, pompously declared: ‘It was a clever judgment when the Prime Minister is telling everybody else to tighten their belts.’
Whether or not Miliband will upbraid the Deputy Prime Minister for utilizing taxpayers’ cash on this manner throughout a price of dwelling disaster stays to be seen.