Angela Rayner is formidable. Until today, that adjective never suited Labour’s deputy leader. She can be combative, authentic, eye-catching and crowd-pleasing — and quite annoying. Clearly she’s as tough as a vintage Land Rover. But at PMQs, she added statesmanship to her roster of qualities.
The session was sparsely attended. The press are in Glasgow covering the Frequent Flyers Summit, aka COP26. Boris came south, by jet of course, to put in a stint at Westminster.
He was met by Rayner, soberly dressed and steely-eyed. Her tactics were well prepared in advance. She used feints and misdirection to keep Boris guessing and she varied long rhetorical assaults with punchy killer-blows.
She began with a couple of questions about the alleged misconduct of Owen Paterson. Her third question developed this point and then turned into a generalisation about the Tories ‘wallowing in sleaze’. She tossed out some chaff about rising bills in the budget.
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