As the dust settles after a Labour landslide victory, I confess that I have allowed myself to get a little excited following the appointment of Angela Rayner. Her journey from a council estate to care worker to Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is inspiring.
Here are 25 things you should know.
- Birth: Born Angela Bowen on 28 March 1980 in Stockport, Greater Manchester.
- Early Life: Rayner was raised in abject poverty on a Stockport council estate. Her early life was marked by extreme neglect, with her mother suffering from bipolar disorder.
- Carer: From the age of 10, Rayner became a carer for her mother, managing household responsibilities and looking after her younger siblings.
- Education: She left school at 16 without any qualifications but later trained in social care at Stockport College, earning an NVQ Level 2 and learning British Sign Language.
- Career Start: Worked as a care worker for Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council before becoming a trade union representative for Unison.
- Trade Union Involvement: Her work in the care sector introduced her to the trade union Unison, where she became the union’s most senior official in the Northwest.
- Parent and Grandparent: She became a mother at 16 and a grandmother by 37. She has three sons, her youngest, born premature is epileptic and registered blind.
- Humanitarian Focus: Rayner emphasizes the importance of addressing the root causes of deprivation and providing support for families, drawing from her own experiences.
- Ideology: Rayner identifies as a socialist and is part of Labour’s soft left. She describes herself as a pragmatist with strong working-class roots.
- Strong Partnership with Starmer: Despite their contrasting styles, Rayner and Starmer have developed a strong working relationship. She describes them as complementing each other, with Rayner bringing energy and Starmer providing balance.
- Housing Promises: She has pledged to deliver the biggest boost to affordable, social, and council housing in a generation, aiming to build 1.5 million new homes.
- Brexit Stance: Campaigned to remain in the EU but respected the referendum result, opposing a second referendum.
- Workers’ Rights: A strong advocate for workers’ rights, including ending zero-hours contracts and restoring power to trade unions.
- Trans Rights: Supports transgender rights, affirming they do not conflict with women’s rights.
- Palestine Stance: Member of the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, condemning Israeli actions in Gaza and advocating for a two-state solution.
- WASPI Campaign: Advocates for women affected by changes to the state pension age.
- Law and Order: She describes herself as "quite hardline" on law and order issues, influenced by her brother’s service in Iraq.
- Corbyn Frontbencher: Despite criticisms of his leadership in the handling of claims of anti-semetism, Rayner unapologetically served on Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench.
- Tory Scum Comments: Known for her bluntness, she once described Boris and his Cabinet as “homophobic, racist, misogynistic … nasty Etonian... and Tory scum ” but later apologised, acknowledging it was not all Tories.
- Cleared of Wrongdoing: Rayner was cleared of any wrongdoing following an investigation into the sale of her council house.
- Basic Instinct: She was once subject to a smear campaign where she was accused of crossing and uncrossing her legs, “Basic Instinct-style”, to put Tory MPs off in the chamber.
- On Being Pragmatic: “Ideology never put food on my table,” and, “We can’t fix everything overnight.”
- On Trans Rights: “Yeah, sure. We have biological women, and we have trans women. And they’re both women: one is a biological woman through sex, and one is a trans woman who has transitioned.”
- On Labour Being Ready: “We’re match fit. We’ve gone from second division to premiership. We’re ready because we’ve been training for it.”
- On Aging: “I do not want to grow old gracefully. I never want somebody, when I say I am a grandma, to not look shocked.”
Senior Developer @ Santander UK | Software Development
3 个月Rayner hasn't implemented the Earl of Lytton's buildingsafetyscheme.org and maintained the cruel exclusion of 1.7 million leaseholders from protection from ruinous remediation costs. She is ignoring us.
Senior Developer @ Santander UK | Software Development
3 个月Looking forward to meet Ms. Rayner to discuss:: 1. Funding the remediations of all 1.7 million excluded leaseholders liable for potentially ruinous remediation costs if defects are found on their blocks of flats without using more tax payer funds to do so. 2. Ending the partial remediations which condemn people to permanently high insurance and unsellable flats using the watered down PAS9980 standard that allows combustibe materials to remain on existing buildings that are banned on new. 3. Implementing a variable wide construction industry levy for different classes of construction company drafted by expert parliamentary lawyer Daniel Greenberg CB to include the cladding manufacturers levied at a higher rate than developers, as they've largely escaped so far. 4. Identifying all buildings of all heights with cladding and non cladding defects and ensuring the variable rate levy is set to remediate all of these without any cost to leaseholders and to current regulations and not the watered down PAS9980 standard. 5. Discussing the dangers of peppercorn or capped ground rent and blowing up the freeholder backstop in the Building Safety Act unless there is a levy to protect all leaseholders reliant on freeholder funded remediations.
Senior Developer @ Santander UK | Software Development
5 个月Why has the governement made Barratt Redrow the UK's one and only master builder when 1 in 3 of Barratt's blocks of flats have defects that are critical to life safety?
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8 个月Great article