Do we like Angela Rayner?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A consistent record backing trans and gay rights and ordinary renters, held back by a rude outburst she apologised for and a tax slip-up that cost her the job once.
Rayner grew up on a council estate near Stockport, left school at 16 with no qualifications, and became a care worker for the local council. She got involved with the union Unison, rose to its senior regional role, and used that to launch an MP career: she won Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015. Hardly the usual route into the cabinet.
The big stoush was her own tax. In 2025 she admitted underpaying about £40,000 in stamp duty on a Hove flat, referred herself to the ethics adviser, who found she had fallen short of the highest standards, and resigned as deputy PM in September 2025. The adviser said he believed she acted with integrity. In May 2026 HMRC found no deliberate wrongdoing or carelessness and no penalty, though she paid the tax, and she said the whole thing had “clipped my wings”.
Earlier, a 2024 police probe followed complaints from a Conservative MP about her old council house. Greater Manchester Police took no further action on the electoral law claims and passed tax questions to the council and HMRC, and Rayner called the complaint "desperate tactics". It's the sort of row that sticks to a politician, but nothing was ever found against her.
On the harm test she does well. She voted in 2019 to extend same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland, and in 2022 she told a trans caller that “Transgender women's rights are women's rights”. The catch: PinkNews reports some trans people criticised her for not speaking out after the 2025 Supreme Court ruling on the legal meaning of sex. We found nothing on her record about climate, and no dodgy company she keeps.
Her temper is the other mark. In 2021 she called senior Tories “scum” at Labour conference, first held off apologising, then said she would “unreservedly apologise for the language I used” and wouldn't use it again. Mind you, she's been blunt with her own side too: in March 2026 she called Home Office plans to move the goalposts on migrants' settlement “un-British”, which put Downing Street on the back foot.
The good stuff is practical. Over Christmas 2020 she started a crowdfunder to replace a constituent's burned-out mobility scooter and hit the £1,200 target in hours. As Housing Secretary she oversaw the Renters' Rights Act and changes to Right to Buy to protect social homes, per the housing institute's roundup. Whether the homes actually get built is the open question.