As a working-class woman, I do not see Angela Rayner as an inspiration – she’s simply a humiliation: JAN MOIR

What weird spell does Angela Rayner cast upon Keir Starmer?

The Prime Minister melts like a ball of grease at the mere mention of her name. In his saucer eyes, darling Ange can do no wrong, despite that little local difficulty when she failed to pay enough stamp duty on a property during her tenure as housing minister.

Not a good look. Indeed, one that forced her resignation, but so what? Sir Keir doesn’t care. He has made no secret of the fact that he wants her back in his Cabinet and this week praised her as ‘the best example ever of social mobility’ in the UK.

Oh, come off it. John Major, for example, was the son of a circus performer, grew up in a flat in Brixton, left school at 16 and went on to become prime minister.

Betty Boothroyd was the daughter of two mill workers, lived in a terraced house in Dewsbury and was a Tiller Girl before becoming an MP and the first female Speaker of the House of Commons.

Angela Rayner is nothing special in any regard, but Starmer craves her authenticity the way the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz craves a brain. He would not be just a muffin’, with his head all full of stuffin’, as the song goes, if he only had an Ange.

He recently said he was ‘proud’ of her journey from council house to Cabinet and added that she gave ‘many working-class children, particularly girls, a real sense of aspiration’.

So patronising – and yet this is how closet poshos like him really think about us povvos scrabbling around in the gutter of life, desperate for a saviour to rise from these streets.

As a working-class girl myself I see Angela Rayner as an embarrassment to our kind, not an inspiration. With her vaping and Venom cocktails and her suspect property deals not only does she let the side down but – just like Chancellor Rachel Reeves – when the going gets tough she blames her gender and her background for any criticism. And that is what is really unforgiveable.

Both Rayner and Reeves claim that as working-class female politicians they face unfair scrutiny and abuse, with the implication being that a lot of the disapproval that comes their way is motivated by sexism and classism.

However, there could be another explanation. What if it is because they are both just bloody useless?

Rayner was last seen limping into the sunset in her R2-D2 Star Wars heels back in September. But just like Yoda and the gang, she will be back. Darth Starmer will make sure of that.

Meanwhile, before delivering her chaotic Budget on Wednesday, Reeves loftily told a newspaper she was ‘sick of people mansplaining how to be Chancellor to me’ and added: ‘I recognise that I’ve got a target on me. You can see that in the media; they’re going for me all the time.’

Rachel! What are you talking about? It is the media’s job to hold politicians to account, especially those – like you – holding one of the great Offices of State, not to mention a senior position in government.

And we have done so for every failing Chancellor since Winston Churchill returned the pound to the gold standard in 1925. Kwasi Kwarteng was spared no quarter when he blew up the markets in 2022. ‘Architect of austerity’ George Osborne was repeatedly attacked over his policies. And 50 years ago, even that old bruiser Denis Healey once said that he had to ‘grow a thick skin’ to cope with it all.

What makes Rachel think she is any different? What makes Angela believe she, too, is a special case? Both have big tough jobs at the sharp end of politics, but wilt like wallflowers and bawl like cry-babies at the first sign of trouble.

I suspect the truth is that – deep down – both of them expect preferential kid glove treatment because they are women who have risen to Cabinet level, believing that this somehow confers a special status and gives them an automatic respect.

And please, guv, some luvverly extra deference for the mutual humble backgrounds, ta muchly.

Well, it doesn’t work like that. You only had to look at Rachel Reeves’ face when Kemi Badenoch delivered her blistering response to the Budget.

She looked tearful, puzzled, shocked, hurt and utterly stricken – as if someone had just stolen her Jelly Tots at a kiddy party. You have to wonder what she expected. Applause?

Some have condemned the personal nature of Badenoch’s attack, but – as a woman considering a woman criticising a woman – I believe she was entirely justified in mocking the Chancellor’s risible attempts to deflect criticism as mansplaining. And the rest. The Conservative leader’s straight talking, take-no-prisoners approach seemed to connect with those ordinary people who despair at the chaos, the U-turns and the lies we have been fed over this Budget and indeed, everything else since Labour were elected.

In a bleak week for politics Kemi was the only spark of hope – especially when one considers that we’ve got over three more years of this rubbish to go.

In the meantime, the PM loves his working-class heroines; he dreams of the return of his Angela and he praises his Rachel and often reminds everyone that she is the first woman to hold the office of Chancellor in its 800-year history.

The pity of it all is that if she carries on like this, she just might be the last.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex took a break from saving the world to help pack meals for poor people in Los Angeles this week. How lovely that a photographer was on hand to capture this golden act of mercy; Megan in a pinny, Harry looking brave and handsome as he filled a polystyrene box with sliced peppers. Of course, back in Britain our royals do exactly the same kind of charity work – but without the self-congratulatory air and the censored kiddies.

For I do wish Harry and Meghan would make up their minds about their children’s privacy. Either Archie and Lili are part of the process and a useful marketing tool, or they are not. Either keep them out of the picture or happily include them. Blanking out their faces or only showing the back of their heads is just an annoying affectation. Show up, do good? If you say so.

Dress for less? Unusually, Strictly hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly both wore outfits from the High Street on Sunday night’s results show. Claudia was in a £23 leopard-print shift from H&M, while Tess climbed aboard a £161 velvet halterneck dress from Karen Millen. They both looked fabulous – which just proves you don’t have to spend thousands on designer outfits, jewellery and accessories to look good – but try telling that to Anton Du Beke.

Baubles to subtlety! I’d love a bright Christmas 

Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright have been roasted for the Christmas decor they have installed at their Essex mansion.

Not so much for their taste in tinsel, more that the extravagant display inside and out is apparently ‘flaunting their wealth’.

Oh, the mean politics of envy is everywhere these days, not just baked into the Budget.

I really hope the couple just ignore the moaners and celebrate their Christmas exactly as they please.

Yes, their house is lit up like Blackpool Illuminations, but so what? I see every bulb and bauble as a triumph of hope and cheer against the long, dark winter ahead.

Anyway, designer and taste arbiter Nicky Haslam says the whole point of Christmas decorations is that there should be a ‘wasteful extravagance’. However, he does have rules, including the dictum that decorations shouldn’t be up for ages because that is ‘annoying’.

He only likes ‘just-picked ivy and holly’. He used to hate scented candles, now he insists on Lily of the Valley ones from Bamford and a ‘mystical’ theme throughout.

Food and drink? ‘I worship mince pies,’ he booms. He serves cocktails with sausages on sticks and ‘pastel-coloured fairy cakes from the Co-op’. He also advises buying cheap Co-op vodka and decanting it into fancy bottles.

Only super-posh people like Nicky can get away with such flagrant one-downmanship.

Michelle and Mark and the rest of us can only throw another bauble on the tree and hope for the best.

Doctor’s ban should be for ever

Dr Rahmeh Aladwan is furious after being handed a 15-month suspension from the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service for alleged anti-Semitic and pro-terrorism comments she made on X.

The panel found that the nature of her comments posed a risk to public confidence and cited posts in which Dr Aladwan, who is British-Palestinian, referred to Hamas members as ‘oppressed resistance fighters, not terrorists’ and ‘martyrs’, then described October 7 as the day Israel was ‘humiliated’.

Additional posts reportedly mocked female Israeli hostages, branded Britain’s Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis as ‘Rabbi Genocide’, claimed the Holocaust was a ‘fabricated victim narrative’, compared Zionism to Nazism and described Jewish people as ‘the most despicable people on the planet’.

Her lawyer argued that it was political speech and not hate speech, but thankfully no one was much impressed with that line of defence.

However, I don’t think a suspension is enough. Why should someone with such ugly views be allowed to practise medicine in the first place?

A Fergie tell-all interview? She’d only damage herself

Fergie is a loose cannon – tell us something new. Now that she is dumped and broke and madder than ever, the royals are worried the former Duchess of York might do an interview with an American network for a six-figure sum. But what truth bombs has Ferg got in her arsenal?

What could she possibly say that would damage the Windsors yet make herself look good? Her credibility is non-existent and she has been exposed as the greedy liar she was all along.

It wasn’t that long ago she was pretending in public that she had spurned Jeffrey Epstein, yet still grovelling to him in private, ever hopeful of another sixpence being thrown her way.

Let her do the interviews, I say. The only person she can make things worse for is herself.