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The chamber had been almost empty at the start of the ministerial statement on Heathrow airport. But by the end, the Labour benches were almost full. Though this was nothing to do with the pull of the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander. It was Angela Rayner who was the main attraction.
The former housing secretary hasn’t been heard from since her resignation in early September. Not in the Commons, nor in Liverpool for the party conference. Better late than never, she was now back to make a personal statement. The leaving speech that would herald her return. She had been missed.
This was no great feat of oratory. Rayner had come neither to bury nor to praise. Merely to be herself. But it was still a moment, nonetheless. A time for Labour MPs to reflect on what they had lost. And, more importantly, to consider what they might have again in the not so distant future.
You can’t overstate how depressed Labour MPs are right now. They know they were given a once in a generation chance in the 2024 election. Now they can feel it all slipping away through their hands. Ange gives them hope.
Rayner began by talking of her pride at representing her constituents. Talking of her socialist values. You don’t hear too much talk of those on the government frontbenches these days. Almost as if they have become a dirty word. Don’t frighten the voters whatever you do. But to the Labour backbenchers this was all catnip. You could sense some of them coming back to life. For months many of them had been cryogenically frozen. Of their own volition. Timed to re-emerge when something good happened.
“The last few weeks have been tough,” said Ange. No shit. It had taken a toll on her personal life. But she understood that public scrutiny came with the job. So no hard feelings. Well, not many. The actual details of her downfall were rather glossed over. She had made a mistake. The forms had been awfully complicated but now she was co-operating with HMRC.
Yes, but it wasn’t really like that, was it? Most people when faced with a tricky tax problem tend to get some professional advice to make sure they haven’t broken the law. Ange rather skipped that step. Just filled in the form in the most advantageous way possible and hoped no one would notice.
In truth, there was only one architect of her downfall and that was Ange. She must have known the rightwing papers would go looking for wrongdoing and it was up to her to be squeaky clean.
So Ange was sorry but not sorry. But it was time to move on to her and Labour’s track record. Houses getting built. The employment rights bill. The Hillsborough law. Now Rayner sounded emotional. Fighting back tears. She cared. Not just about her own future but that of the government. The clock was ticking. Labour had little more than three and a half years to turn things around. Not just to firefight but to get things done. “It always falls to Labour to turn things round for working people,” she concluded.
There were cheers when Ange sat down. A couple of MPs broke with protocol and started clapping before realising their mistake. Rayner had given them a reason to believe. Keir Starmer is a decent man but he struggles to convey a sense of vision. He is a technocrat first and foremost. Dedicated to process. A strangely private man who doesn’t see the need to explain himself. Even when he’s being authentic he somehow sounds awkward.
Ange is Ange. What you see is what you get. She reaches voters that Keir can only dream about. She knows that and Labour MPs know that. Some might have called her resignation statement a leadership pitch.
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An hour previously, prime minister’s questions had been dominated by the unravelling of the grooming gangs inquiry. Four survivors had walked away along with one potential chair. The other would also step down by the middle of the afternoon. Kemi Badenoch had imagined this as another clear win for her.
Yet again she was let down by herself. She has only two settings. Angry or lazy. Nothing in between. There is no nuance. No thought to what she is trying to achieve. When she is angry she goes in shouting. And when she doesn’t get what she wants she just shouts some more. It’s almost childlike.
This was very definitely a shouty PMQs for Kemi. She had begun by accusing Starmer of deliberately trying to sabotage the inquiry. Quoting one of the survivors, she said the inquiry was being watered down, ethnicity was being ignored and that demands for a judge to be put in charge were being ignored.
Keir took it gently. Methodically. Sometimes it helps to be a lawyer. He was sorry some of the survivors felt the way they did. They had suffered horribly. But not all survivors felt the same way. He was trying to do something that was immensely difficult. Something that Kemi had never bothered to do – hadn’t been interested in doing – while she was equalities minister. There would be no watering down. Read my lips.
The problem with a judge was that would preclude further investigations. He also promised Louise Casey would now be involved. He didn’t say how. She’s now doing at least five jobs. Single-handedly rescuing the UK’s GDP.
It turned out that Kemi wasn’t listening to any of this. She never does. She was angry but she didn’t know what she was angry about. Just wanted a chance to try to make trouble. An observer might have concluded that Kemi was basically acting in bad faith. More interested in stoking a row than achieving justice for young women who have suffered sexual abuse.
As it happens there was an observer. Rather than taking his place in the chamber, Nigel Farage had chosen to sit in the gallery alongside Arron Banks. The Bad Boys of Brexit ride again. How proud they must be of what they’ve done.
Nige goes more and more orange by the day. Either there’s a Clacton microclimate on the odd hour he visits his constituency or he’s bought himself a sunbed. Like The Donald. Nige smiled and joked with Banks throughout the session. Unless he’s the centre of attention, he’s just not bothered.
