Angela Rayner’s woes are testing the patience of frustrated teammates. Bridget Phillipson again loyally defended the Deputy PM on TV, but the Education Secretary’s aides privately grumbled their boss was frustrated it was the third occasion that fielding hostile questions about Rayner had overshadowed her own announcements, this time on attendance issues of kids in schools. The first was Rayner’s “Tory scum” outburst; second was a Tory-press row last year about a house she sold many moons ago; and now the same papers are creating a brouhaha over the purchase of an apartment in Hove. While Rayner takes on the flat, colleagues take the flak.
With his gleaming prominent forehead and tight beard, Jonathan Reynolds could pass for a long, lost relative of Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II. And the Durham pit village lad currently toiling as Business Secretary in Keir Starmer’s spluttering regime is suddenly tipped by colleagues to rule Britain as a potential successor to his struggling line manager. Reynolds has greatly impressed cabinet colleagues with his assured handling of a steel crisis, negotiating trade deals and confident media performances. His northerness is also seen as an authentic antidote to privately educated Nigel Farage’s boozy pitch. Reynolds enjoyed a good summer by staying away from the front line while Labour was battered by surging racism – and his 8,500-plus majority in his Greater Manchester constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde could be the clincher. He won more than double the Reform vote in last year’s election, giving him a decent chance of surviving a Faragist tsunami.
More Blairite than even his declared political hero Tony Blair, Darren Jones was the first Darren elected to parliament and now is the first chief secretary to the Prime Minister. Starmer inventing the role and appointing a vegan to give No 10 bite in yet another reshuffle smacked of desperation. Jones is dull if studious, and considered aloof – dubbed “Mogadon Man” by MPs who felt talked down to by an egghead fond of reminding them he possesses degrees in bioscience and law. One quipped Jones probably quit a job as a BT corporate lawyer because he found it too exciting.
Peter Mandelson may be all over Donald Trump like a rash, but that hasn’t stopped the acid-tongued president giving our man in Washington an unflattering nickname. Trump calls him Sneaky Pete. Mandelson loathed his old Prince of Darkness moniker. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all, eh Mandy?
Tory peers observed a heated discussion in a corridor between Labour’s Lords leader, Angela Smith, and Harriet Harman. While the pair were not overheard, an informant insisted the body language was fractious. Harman, a former Labour deputy leader, is known to be critical of this government’s failure to tell a compelling story and defuse Farage – and a growing number of Labour peers and MPs are similarly distressed.
Conservative peers are waiting to discover who Kemi Badenoch will crown as their opposition leader in the ermined chamber should Lord “Nicky” True be released, as expected, from duties. The old Etonian one-time cabinet minister George Young, Lord Young of Cookham, is considered by blue barons and baronesses as the most suitably qualified – yet he’s made it known he wouldn’t touch the job with a barge-pole-length mace. State-school boy Tariq Ahmad, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, has blue champions, according to my snout. Ambitious Stephen Parkinson, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, who fancies his own chances, is considered inexperienced by his peer peers. And he’d need Badenoch to be in a forgiving mood. Parky challenged her for the Saffron Walden seat that she won in 2017.
Issued marching orders by Gloucestershire voters, Tory ex-MP Jack Lopresti’s midlife crisis saw the 56-year-old former army reserve corporal decamp to Ukraine to join the International Legion. He appeared in uniform on a video link during a family hearing with his estranged wife Andrea Jenkyns – another discarded Conservative MP – who was elected Greater Lincolnshire’s Reform mayor in May this year. Buying a motorbike or sports car would surely have been simpler.
It’s no secret Labour strategists are increasingly obsessed with Reform as the hard-right rival cements itself in the polls as the true opposition. But one thing amusing government insiders is the party’s decision to set up constituency branches all over the country – resulting in infighting and discontent over Nigel Farage’s top-down control of the machine. “Have they learned nothing from our own CLPs [Constituency Labour Parties]?” laughed one Spad. “Take it from us – you don’t want to structure your party that way!”
Thirsty MPs returning to Westminster from the summer recess for a largely pointless two-week sitting before another break during the party conferences spluttered into their beer inflation-topping price hikes in the Strangers’ bar. “It’s more expensive than my local Wetherspoon’s,” foamed one northerner into his pint. He might be spending more time in that Spoons after the election unless Starmer improves Labour’s fortunes.
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[See also: How Labour learned to love the flag]
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This article appears in the 03 Sep 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Age of Deportation
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