Angela Rayner says she 'consciously chose trousers' for Lorraine

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Angela Rayner, 42, is at the centre of a sexism row after the Mail on Sunday published an article about her “distracting” Boris Johnson with her legs. The newspaper reported anonymous Tories’ claims that Labour’s deputy leader tried to divert the Prime Minister’s attention by crossing and uncrossing her legs during their clashes in the House of Commons when the party’s leader Sir Keir Starmer is absent. The controversial story compared the politician’s alleged actions to Sharon Stone in 1992 neo-noir thriller, ‘Basic Instinct’, in which her character Catherine Tramell uncrosses her legs to distract her interrogators.

Ms Rayner decried the article as sexist and it has also been condemned by MPs of all political parties.

The row over the article even saw Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle summon the newspaper’s editor, David Dillon, to a meeting – an offer he rejected.

The Basic Instinct piece mentioned Ms Rayner’s life before entering Westminster politics, including her teenage pregnancy and time spent working as a care worker.

But just how did the politician rise from a humble background to become deputy leader of the Labour Party?

The Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, Droylsden and Failsworth was born and raised in nearby Stockport, Greater Manchester by her mother, who could not read or write.

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Today, she is often touted as future Labour leader and has often been praised for speaking candidly about her life.

However, the former Unison representative “did not have a privileged upbringing and never went to public school or university”, according to the Labour website.

In fact, she left school at 16 without any qualifications and with a baby on the way.

The Labour website reads: “She was brought up on a council estate and left her local comprehensive at 16 with no qualifications and a baby already on the way, after being told she would ‘never amount to anything’.”

The MP’s official profile contrasts with that of Mr Johnson, who attended Eton College and read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford.

Ms Rayner wrote on her official website: “For the most part, I was raised by my grandma who worked at three jobs to put food on the table and didn’t stop until the day she died – three days before her 65th birthday.”

The mother-of-three had her first son Ryan aged 16, an event which, along with leaving school, “saved her”.

At a Times Red Box fringe event at Labour’s conference in Brighton in September 2017, Ms Rayner explained how the events turned her life around.

She said: “Even though I got pregnant at 16 and had no qualifications you have to understand that the way my life was, it actually saved me.

“Because I had a little person that I had to look after, and I wanted to prove to everybody that I wasn’t the scumbag that they thought I was going to be.

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“And I could be a good mum, and that somebody was finally going to love me as much as I deserved to be loved and that’s what pregnancy was for me – it saved me.”

In November 2017, Ms Rayner became the youngest grandmother in the Commons after one of her sons had a baby.

Announcing the news, she thanked NHS staff in Tameside and gave herself the new nickname, Grangela.

Ms Rayner’s trajectory towards politics began after she studied part-time at Stockport College, where she learned British Sign Language, and received a social care qualification.

She started working as a care worker for Stockport Council, before later being elected as MP in Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015.

The politician was the constituency’s first female representative to Parliament in its 180-year history.

Ms Rayner was later made Shadow Secretary of State for Education before she was elected as deputy Labour leader in March 2020.

On Tuesday, the MP appeared on ITV’s ‘Lorraine’ and discussed when she was first told by the Mail on Sunday that the paper was running a piece about her.

She said she remembered thinking: “This is disgusting. It’s completely untrue. Please don’t run a story like that.

“I was with my teenage sons … trying to prepare my children for seeing things online.

“They don’t want to see their mum portrayed that way and I felt really down about that.”

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