One is an urban, Oxford-educated North London barrister, the other is a fat, working-class Northerner prone to trouble speaking his mind.
We may be talking about Tony Blair and John Prescott here, but this description also fits the current Labor leadership of Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner perfectly.
In a week when Ms. Rayner is under more scrutiny than ever because of controversy over her home sale, the same questions are being asked about her as were once asked about Prescott: Is he an invaluable asset to the party or a hopeless liability?
Ms Rayner brings a kind of originality to the Labor front bench that no colleague can match. While the party’s image makers like to remind people of her rise from teenage single mother to shadow deputy prime minister, polls suggest her appeal to a wider public stems from her perceived honesty.
Pollsters say he adds flavor to politics at a time when main party leaders are as spicy as mashed potatoes, and his flat Stockport vowels are a useful counterbalance to Sir Keir’s lawyerly delivery.
So far, his unique brand has proven immune to controversies, such as his description of the Conservative Party as “scum”. This was the verbal equivalent of John (now Lord) Prescott punching a member of the public in 2001, to which Blair (now Sir Tony) shrugged and said: “John is John.”
Simply saying “Angela is Angela” will not be enough to diffuse the crisis facing Labour’s current deputy leader because her house sale is being scrutinized by the police and her popularity with the public could wane in a general election year. a real danger.
James Frayne, co-founder of policy research agency Public First, says Rayner has been a “wildly great asset” to Labor so far, but his popularity could be damaged beyond repair if voters decide he is not as honest and forthright as they think. she was.
He said: “Four or five years ago it got a mixed reaction in focus groups, some people really liked it, some people really didn’t, but two or three years ago it started to get a lot of unsolicited aggravation in focus groups, particularly when it came to being categorized as working-class undecided voters.” depending on who you can contact.
“They described him as honest, original and refreshingly different, and even now he is the only politician in any party that working-class voters have named as someone they like.”
However, this may change depending on the outcome of the police investigation into his financial affairs.
To recap: Ms Rayner, who bought the council house under the Right to Buy scheme in 2007, sold it in 2015, making a profit of £48,000. She says this is his primary residence, so he is not liable for capital gains tax on profits.
That too would have been the end of it if, after marrying Mark Rayner five years ago, she had not re-registered the births of her two youngest children at Mark Rayner’s address; actually his main residence.
If this were the case, the former council property would be a second home and liable for CGT, as under HMRC rules married couples can only count one property as their main home.
Ms Rayner, who became MP for Ashton-under-Lyne the year she sold the property, said she had put her house up for sale like everyone else, used a lawyer and an estate agent, and was unaware of the situation. There are HMRC rules then.
Since the tax issues arose, he says he has received “categorical” advice from a tax professional that I do not owe capital gains tax.
Sir Keir backed his deputy’s decision not to publish the tax advice and said he had “full confidence” in him.
Greater Manchester Police, which initially said Ms Rayner would not face an investigation, is now re-examining the case and appointed a detective chief inspector to re-evaluate the matter after Tory deputy leader James Daly complained that officers did not contact or examine witnesses. in the relevant documents.
Whatever the outcome, Sir Keir will not be able to sack Ms Rayner as deputy leaders are elected directly by Labor members. Whether he wants to or not is a more interesting question.
Sir Keir removed Ms Rayner from her role as Labour’s campaign co-ordinator following the 2021 Hartlepool by-election in which the Conservatives won the seat from Labor by a huge margin.
There were even rumors that Ms. Rayner might challenge him for the leadership. The following year he told the BBC that Sir Keir needed to put something “healthier” into his speeches and suggested tensions were not far below the surface.
Labor insiders say Sir Keir has now come to accept Ms Rayner, whom he trusts to replace Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister’s Questions while he is away, and can see that she, like Prescott before him, is a clear asset to him.
Frayne says that Mrs. Rayner is much more popular and useful than Prescott.
For starters, Sir Tony was far more popular than Sir Keir and hardly needed to be supported by a shaggy Left winger.
Prescott’s primary role was to form a bridge between New Labor and old Labor, particularly the unions, who had always been skeptical of the privately educated Sir Tony and preferred to work with an outspoken former shop steward in the form of the then MP for Kingston upon Hull. East.
Rayner, by contrast, acts as a bridge between the North London dinner party scene that dominates Labor ideology and the Red Wall seats that defected to Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in 2019 and which Sir Keir must win back.
Added to the mix is the fact that Sir Keir is no Sir Tony. It is no coincidence that Rayner’s sudden rise in popularity coincides with the era of Starmer and Sunak, two leaders who appear indistinguishably soft in the eyes of many voters.
“Prescott was useful for talking to the party machine, Rayner was useful for talking to the public,” says Frayne. “Whether he can maintain his popularity depends on whether the issue with his house affects how people view him.
“His call is not based on politics or anything ideological; it is because he is seen as tough, honest and truth-telling, and if people decide that is no longer the case, there will be no going back.”
The person who knows how this works is Mr Sunak. During the pandemic, he was viewed by the public as honest, different and fresh as he planned his furlough, but his involvement in Partygate and controversy over his family’s finances turned voters against him and his poll scores never recovered.
Whether Ms Rayner’s personal popularity will follow suit now appears to be in the hands of Greater Manchester Police.