Angela Rayner has complained privately about hostile briefing about her position in government, i understands.
The Deputy Prime Minister – who is also the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary – has voiced frustration about negative briefing appearing in the press, which she sees as a distraction from the work of government.
Within days of Labour’s landslide general election victory in July, claims appeared in the media that she was being “frozen out” of decision-making on issues which she had previously led on.
Anonymous sources said she had lost control of Labour’s employee rights’ package to the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, and planning reform to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Last week, news that use of the grace-and-favour mansion of Dorneywood had been given to Reeves was accompanied by suggestions that this was further evidence Rayner was being marginalised.
i understands that Rayner has privately complained to her allies about such stories, regarding them as an unhelpful distraction.
That frustration spilled into the public during an interview with LBC on Tuesday. “I’ve heard stories that I’ve been like passed over for Dorneywood and all this sort of rubbish,” she said. “I don’t care about a mansion. I care about looking at the British public who have entrusted me, from my background, to get to where I am.”
In the interview, Rayner also defended the Downing Street chief of staff, Sue Gray, who has been another subject of negative briefings.
“Sue Gray is another working-class kid that’s worked her way up through the ranks, and I wouldn’t underestimate her, she’s very formidable,” she said.
During the interview, Rayner was asked whether criticism of Gray came from “entitled men” who are “miffed” at her power.
In words that appeared equally aimed at her own critics, the Deputy Prime Minister said: “I’ve met a few entitled men in my time, but what I would say to anyone who does that to Sue Gray is… underestimate her at your peril.”
A Whitehall source said that the negative briefings were not believed to come from Cabinet but from the “advisers’ level”.
“It’s the machine and operation that was in Labour and now in Government where there’s infighting,” they said. “It all seems to be coming a level down from the actual elected politicians.
“At a political level it’s actually quite harmonious.”
That view was supported by two Cabinet ministers who dismissed the notion that Rayner was being marginalised.
One of the ministers told i: “She definitely gets more flak than she deserves.
“Angela’s brilliant. She’s often underestimated… she’s a good communicator, she connects with people.”
Contrary to claims that Rayner and Reynolds were at loggerheads, the minister said that the two politicians had “worked really closely together” on the employee rights’ package.
“The idea that Angela is not making things happen or effective I think is for the birds really,” they said.
Rayner’s allies point to the fact that her Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has with the Department for Transport the joint highest number of bills being worked upon, as well as continuing responsibility for the strategically vital area of planning.
Dorneywood meanwhile has not been occupied by a deputy prime minister for nearly 20 years, with John Prescott relinquishing the country house in 2006 after controversy about his use of the property.
The Whitehall source said that Rayner was the victim of a wider indiscipline afflicting Labour as it adjusts to being back in power. “People are doing stuff and briefing stuff and drawing other people into it,” they said.
Sources across government, Whitehall and the Labour Party said they believed speculation about Rayner’s position was being amplified by a mixture of structural factors and personality differences.
Rayner is the member of a “quad” of senior figures – along with Keir Starmer, Reeves and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden – which was instituted by Gray to lead the work of government.
However, one government source said that the quad concept was “bullshit” because Rayner did not have the same institutional machinery at her disposal as the other three.
They argued that with Number 10 calling the shots, the Treasury holding the purse strings and the Cabinet Office connecting the government together, if a big figure occupies the later – as is the case with McFadden – these would inevitably be the three principal centres of power within Whitehall.
But the source still thought that Rayner was “the most powerful deputy prime minister since Nick Clegg” thanks to her mandate from Labour members – who voted her into the position in 2020 – and her power base in the union movement.
A Downing Street source meanwhile said it was unsurprising that some areas of policy had become more “siloed” within departments now that Labour are in Government, meaning that Rayner has for example had to share decision-making with Reynolds on the workers’ rights package.
Rayner chairs the cross-Cabinet committee for Labour’s “plan to make work pay”, but the employment legislation is administered through the Department for Business and Trade because that is where the labour market team sits within the civil service.
The Whitehall source said that as Deputy Prime Minister, there was the “added complication” that the status of the role is less firmly established than some other Cabinet positions. It was kept vacant from 2007 to 2010, and again from 2015 to 2021.
The source said: “What is the role there? It is a little bit of an ill-defined thing, what a deputy prime minister is. There hasn’t always been one.”
They also thought personality had a role to play in the narrative surrounding Starmer and Rayner’s relationship.
“Obviously Rayner and Starmer are very different people,” they said. The source said that while the two were not necessarily in “absolute harmony” on every issue, they did not think there were any significant tensions.
They said: “People look at it and try to make something of it because you look at Angela and you see Starmer and you think ‘well how can they possibly get on, and how could that work?’”
Some people also believe that the commentary reflects a Westminster bubble which has become addicted to psychodrama after the turmoil of recent years.
A Labour source who claimed reports of division within the government were “overplayed” said of the narrative: “It’s all very House of Cards.”
