Taxpayers fork out £68,000 for Angela Rayner’s ‘vanity photographer’ as pensioners freeze
As the Labour Party continues to shoulder criticism amid a sea of scandals including scrapping the winter fuel payment for all but the poorest pensioners and the PM himself having accepted numerous high value freebies – the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner hasn’t walked away unscathed after it emerged she had hired a taxpayer funded photographer to boost her image.
Deputy PM Angela Rayner has been awarded her own personal photographer (Image: Getty)
Photographers for the Prime Minister are hardly new, with Downing Street having employed numerous photographers over the years to document the PM’s activities on official engagements – however this is the first time that a Deputy PM has been awarded one of her own.
Simon Walker has been given the title of Chief Photographer to the Deputy PM and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and is now set to earn a salary of £68,000 a year to snap Ms.Rayner as she goes about her duties.
Yesterday Ms.Rayner yesterday acknowledged that voters were “angry” about the number of senior political figures including Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves that had benefitted from freebies worth “thousands of pounds” such as clothes, holidays and tickets, from wealthy donors.
However, she defended accepting them and argued that donations have been a “feature of our politics for a very long time” while also insisting that she didn’t believe she had broken any rules.
Earning £68k a year, Ms Rayner’s photographer will earn the equivalent of 226.6 winter fuel payments (Image: Getty)
Despite her insistence however, the Conservative Party were not convinced andlast night urged the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to investigate whether Ms Rayner breached Commons rules, after she failed to declare that former Labour MP Sam Tarry had joined her on a trip to New York, when she stayed in a Manhattan apartment owned by millionaire donor Lord Alli.
A Tory source told the The Daily Mail. : “Are there any greater vanity projects than the Deputy Prime Minister with her thousands of pounds of free clothes, her luxury free holiday, and now her publicly paid photographer?”
Ms Rayner’s decision to hire a personal photographer amid the ongoing controversy is just one of several actions in her attempt to promote what she describes privately as “Brand Angela” amid speculation she is being “marginalised” in government.
A spokesman for Ms Rayner’s Housing, Communities and Local Government department said: “Many government departments employ official photographers to share the work of the department and ministers with the public.
“This is a civil service role and will be part of the department’s communications team.”
The controversy is the latest in a long list of scandals to hit Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party (Image: Gett
Since assuming office earlier this Summer, plans for a huge ‘office of the Deputy Prime Minister’ have been scrapped, with several hefty chunks of her brief hived off to other ministers, such as Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds who will be taking the lead on employment rights.
She also narrowly missed out on a grace-and-favour residence tucked away in Buckinghamshire, after Downing Street decided to award the 21 bedroomed sprawling Dorneywood mansion to Chancellor Rachel Reeves instead of the Deputy PM.
However, despite the optics, Ms.Rayner insisted she wasn’t being sidelined as she told the BBC: “I’m not being pushed out.”
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Angela Rayner could face bombshell investigation over one controversial freebie
Angela Rayner arriving at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool (Image: PA )
Angela Rayner is facing potential hot water over a donation that saw her use a of luxurious £1.8 million apartment to celebrate New Year in New York.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today the Deputy Prime Minister shed tears of joy as she spoke to party faithful about how she intends to “fix” the Right to Buy housing scheme and make it a “fair system” for taxpayers and tenant.
But away from the adulation of the conference delegates, the Cabinet Minister has faced mounting pressure over her use of a plush US residence let to her by Labour peer and donor Lord Waheed Alli.
Ms Rayner, who denies breaking Commons rules over declaring a stay, said she understood that people were “frustrated” about the emerging donations and gifts stories swirling around top Labour figures, but insisted donations, gifts, and hospitality had been “a feature of our politics for a very long time”.
Now the Telegraph reports that the Conservatives have written to Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, seeking an investigation into Ms Rayner’s use of the swanky New York pad.
Rachel Reeves, Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have all faced tough questions over donations (Image: Getty )
The publication says the letter claims Ms Rayner has breached the House of Commons’ code of conduct becasue of a “failure to properly register” usage of the flat. It’s reported Ms Rayner shared the flat with former Labour MP Sam Tarry during New Year, but that he was not named on a the parliamentary declaration.
Speaking to BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Rayner said: “I think I followed the rules.
“I get that people are frustrated, in particular the circumstances that we’re in, but donations for gifts and hospitality and monetary donations have been a feature of our politics for a very long time.
“People can look it up and see what people have had donations for, and the transparency is really important.”
Lord Alli is not accused of any wrongdoing, and Ms Rayner denies any rule breach and says the trip was a personal holiday.
Angela Rayner could still face more questions over her use of a New York apartment (Image: Getty )
Questions over Ms Rayner’s acceptance of donations comes as both the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have faced pressure over their own willingness to accept gifts, including clothes and designer glasses.
During the election campaign, Sir Keir declared £12,588 in gifts ranging from four Taylor Swift tickets worth £4,000, to Euros final tickets valued at £1,628, and several Arsenal FC match tickets exceeding £6,000 in total.
It has also emerged his Chief of Staff, Sue Gray, is being paid £3,000 more than him, with a wage of £170,000.
Andrew Bowie, the Tory shadow veterans minister, told The Telegraph: “Labour’s hypocrisy is off the scale. They spent years taking the moral high ground and now they’re excusing their freeloading as the done thing.”
According to the newspaper, Ms Rayner did declare to parliamentary authorities the use of Lord Alli’s apartment in Manhattan from December 29, 2023, to January 2, 2024.
However, it’s reported Mr Tarry, then Ilford South MP, was not detailed publicly.
According to the rules, MPs must declare foreign trips which they, or anyone connected to them, undertake if a donor pays for “part or all” of it as a result of “parliamentary or political activities”.
