One evening last week I came home, flipped on the TV and saw on the news what must surely be a eulogy for some sainted figure who had been taken from us prematurely, such was the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Mother Teresa, I wondered? Isn’t she dead already? Only as I sat down with my cup of tea and saw a photograph of a woman with what looked like a dead fox on her head did I realise that the lamenting was on behalf of Our Blessed Lady of the Ginger Growler and the Vapes who had, apparently, resigned.
It would not have surprised me, from the tone of the coverage, if the BBC had organised a shrine to our former deputy prime minister, where desolate members of the public could leave commemorative mementos, garlands of flowers, detailed advice on property taxation, etc. There were snapshots of the woman when she was a toddler and endless panegyrics to her Heroic Struggle Against Poverty and Oppression – a case of The Ragged Growlered Philanthropist, then.
Much was made of her difficult home life with a disabled son and her lowly beginnings. Yes, she was indeed a working-class northerner, a species of person BBC journalists know about solely by repute, having never met any and being, in general, scared of them. But the rest of the sympathy seemed to me extraordinarily misplaced – especially that which followed the next day from similarly middle-class journalists, usually female, saying the usual stuff about how everybody cheats the system but working-class women are, uniquely, not allowed to get away with it. Remarkable stuff. I suspect that the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch guessed in advance that there would be an outpouring of grotesquely misplaced love for Ange and so toned down her assault at Prime Minister’s Questions, for which she was, I think, unjustly criticised.
I am neither a cyborg nor an insect: I am capable of empathy. Any politician whose flaws are displayed for public gratification after having done something naughty, be it with rent boys or accountants, immediately has my sympathy because it is not pleasant to be derided by the entire country. But
Mrs Growler surely rather less than most, for the following reasons. First, it seems to me that she knew that the flat she purchased in Hove could not possibly be her primary residence, given that her work involved a shuttling between her grace and favour pad in London and the supposed family home in her constituency. Either that, or she had no intention whatsoever of representing her constituents in person henceforth. But secondly – and I grant you this is a tricky issue – there is the sympathy she has received for having a disabled son. Yes, much of that sympathy is deserved – it must be both heartbreaking and a burden. But Rayner took £160,000 from her son’s trust fund (in exchange for her share in the family home) to put down the deposit on a second-floor flat – no lifts – some 250 miles from where her son lives. For she is not the primary carer for the lad.
It would not have surprised me if the BBC had organised a shrine to our former deputy prime minister
None of that seems to me deserving of much in the way of sympathy. Put brutally, it does not seem at first sight that in deciding to use her son’s money for that nice seaview flat that he was necessarily the primary focus of her concern, despite having been the reason she was able to put down such a sizeable deposit and thus reduce the interest rates she would have paid with a smaller deposit.
Incidentally, I have no objection to Angela Rayner owning a multiplicity of properties. The person who objects to people doing that kind of thing is, of course, Angela Rayner, among others. If I have made any wrong assumptions here then I apologise: it’s just that this is how it seems to me.
Where the Growler can be commended, though, is in the inadvertent, lethal blow she has inflicted on the Prime Minister. Lining up to replace Rayner are very bad options and worse options, perhaps the worst of all being Bell Ribeiro-Addy, former chief of staff to Diane Abbott, former National Union of Students officer, derangedly pro-Palestine, anti-Nato, everything the nut-job left adores all wrapped up in one self-satisfied ball of racially and politically motivated spite.
The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is in the running and will undoubtedly make much of her own Strong Northern Woman Born Into Poverty schtick, while being, on paper at least, the most amenable of the candidates, given her membership of Labour Friends of Israel and her sensible approach to trans issues. Paula Barker, raised in a single-parent family in Liverpool and deeply committed to allowing us to kill ourselves as often as we want, will also play the tough northern upbringing card, a feat which will be a bit tricky for Dame Emily Thornberry, aka Lady Nugee, although she’s tried similar tactics before, to general hilarity. Scouser Blairite Alison McGovern is both too intelligent and too moderate to come anywhere near winning the support of the majority of Labour activists, who are all demented and the chief reason this country is in the state it is in.
The pragmatic thing for Keir Starmer to do now is lean to the left, seeing that he will make scant headway against Reform by tilting to the right and there are large quantities of votes to claw back from the benighted, awful southern liberals who are currently poised to vote Lib Dem, Green or Your Party because Starmer has not been sufficiently radical for their liking. But I suspect he will not do that and the party will continue, then, to haemorrhage votes at both ends.
I also suspect that it will take not much short of a miracle for Starmer to remain in power until 2029, and that propelled on his current trajectory we could quite easily see a vote of no confidence within two years. I’m sure Paula Barker would concur that a swift, painless end would be the merciful answer.
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