Grinning Angela Rayner doesn’t deny saying Keir Starmer ‘couldn’t run a bath’ as she says exposé of Labour’s rise to power is ‘tittle-tattle’_Nhy
Angela Rayner grinned today as she was cornered over claims she was rude about her boss Keir Starmer, branding him so ineffectual ‘he couldn’t run a bath’.
The Deputy Prime was grilled over comments she is alleged to have made when Labour was in opposition about the leader, with whom she has admitted she does not always see eye-to-eye with.
Get In, which seeks to lift the lid on Labour’s rise to power, culminating in July’s election win, alleges she made the remark in a text to a colleague.
But speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg Ms Rayner said she could not remember writing it.
She also pleaded ignorance over claims she referred to Prince Andrew as a ‘nonce’ after he was embroiled in a scandal over claims of inappropriate behaviour with a 17-year-old girl, which he denies.
Asked about the remark attributed to her about Sir Keir today, Ms Rayner said: ‘There’s a lot of things that were said in that book that I don’t recognise to be honest, and it’s tittle tattle, so I don’t recognise what was said in that book.’
Pressed again she added: ‘There was lots of other things that people have said, people have said about me or anyone else, and no, I don’t recognise ever saying that to anybody.
‘But we all have frustrations when we’re at work sometimes, and I’m sure people have been frustrated with me at work sometimes.’
The Deputy Prime was grilled over comments she is alleged to have made when Labour was in opposition about the leader, with whom she has admitted she does not always see eye-to-eye with.
‘But we all have frustrations when we’re at work sometimes, and I’m sure people have been frustrated with me at work sometimes.’
The book also claims Sir Keir Starmer tried to pressure the BBC into dropping a story revealing his top aide was paid more than the Prime Minister himself.
Sir Keir is said to have asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Simon Case to call the corporation’s political editor Chris Mason after he informed No10 he was preparing to reveal her £170,000 salary.
A new book says Sir Simon, supposedly an impartial civil servant at the time, then called the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie, to air Downing Street‘s reservations about the story.
Ms Gray’s three months in No10 were marked by regular reports of tensions within Sir Keir’s top team, while it was leaked that she was earning more than Sir Keir’s salary of £166,786.
She later quit, and refused a lesser job as an envoy to devolved administrations, before being made a peer as Baroness Gray of Tottenham.
In Get In, the journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund say Sir Simon complained that some details of the story were not accurate, but was told by Mr Mason and Mr Davie that they trusted their sources and the story would be run.
They say he made no further attempt to prevent it running but repeated that No10 questioned some of the details.
No10 has been asked to comment on the claims today.
