Mail hits back at Speaker

After cross-party condemnation and a Commons summons by Lindsay Hoyle, it was only natural that the Mail would hit back over its Angela Rayner story. The Daily Mail has today ridden to the rescue of its sister newspaper the Mail on Sunday, aiming a double-barrelled blast at both the Speaker and Labour’s deputy leader. In a typically strident front page splash, it roars ‘No, Mister Speaker!’ declaring that David Dillon, the editor of the Sunday paper, will not appear before Hoyle to explain a report which suggested Rayner tries to distract Boris Johnson at PMQs, in the manner of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

The Daily Mail claims that three more MPs have now come forward to privately back up a report by the Mail on Sunday’s political editor Glen Owen that Rayner was the original source of claims that she had uncrossed her legs in the Commons to distract the PM. In addition to the original Conservative MP who first spoke to the newspaper, three other MPs allege that it was the deputy Labour leader herself who joked about her ‘tactic’ during a night on the Commons terrace. The Mail on Sunday now claims to have spoken to four MPs, who all gave the same account of what she said, including the use of – what the paper calls – a ‘startling slang colloquialism.’

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Separately, the Daily Mail also reports that Rayner herself made light of comparisons to Stone in a podcast with popular political comedian Matt Forde in January. The paper notes she volunteered the fact that her appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions that month had drawn comparisons with the Basic Instinct star, joking that it had sparked online commentary about her crossing and uncrossing her legs. Forde asked if the suggestion was she was trying to distract the Prime Minister to which Rayner laughed and replied: ‘It don’t take much does it? I don’t need to do that.’ 

The Mail published a transcript of the conversation between the two which ran as follows:

Rayner: ‘Every time I do a PMQs somebody has an opinion on what I wear. Did you see the meme about Sharon Stone like I was doing it at PMQs? I was mortified’ [laughs]Forde: ‘You what?’Rayner: ‘Like they did this whole like meme about me apparently doing the whole, you know whole, the old… [she and audience laugh] I was like when did I do that?’ [laughs]Forde: ‘I’ve not seen that at all.’Rayner: ‘Did you not see like the whole Fatal Attraction thing? When she did the whole g*****r thing?’Forde: ‘I’ve seen the film but I wasn’t aware…’Rayner: ‘I wasn’t aware I did it but apparently like there was this whole meme about how my dress was like a bit revealing but I didn’t think it was think it was. It was a perfectly suitable Karen Millen – in the sale by the way’ [laughs]Forde: ‘But what was the theory? That you were doing that to distract Boris?’Rayner: ‘I don’t… [she and audience laugh]. It don’t take much does it? I don’t need to do that.’ [laughs]

Away from the politics of who said what when, the episode highlights an interesting bit of Kreminology at Mail towers. Media commentators pointed out that the cross-paper collaboration on this story highlights how the daily and Sunday papers are slowly but surely coming part of the same seven-day news operation. Admiring hacks told Mr S that Daily Mail editor Ted Verity returned from holiday yesterday to spearhead coverage of the ‘Rayner special’ – something which his former deputy and current Sunday editor, David Dillon, will no doubt appreciate.

Speaker Hoyle now seems to be having second thoughts about his Commons summons, releasing a statement last night which appeared to back away from suggestions he could ban the Mail on Sunday’s political editor from the Commons. And with the discovery of the podcast and the testimony of four MPs, will Rayner’s position alter on what she has previously described as ‘desperate, perverted smears’?