Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner beams as she drinks whisky through a straw while posing for pictures taken by her ‘vanity photographer’.
The lighthearted image captured on a visit to Scotland sits alongside more serious shots of her hard at work in the short weeks since Labour won the election taken by Simon Walker.
She is shown meeting her Pakistani counterpart, hosting a Make Work Pay breakfast meeting and visiting a John Lewis department store with London mayor Sadiq Khan in other glossy PR photos.
The Mail today revealed Ms Rayner, who has been mired in controversy over freebies from Labour donors and could face a sleaze inquiry, has risked a fresh storm over Mr Walker’s appointment on a salary of £68,000.
He has been given the title of chief photographer to the Deputy PM and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He previously worked as Rishi Sunak‘s chief photographer.
Labour officials have denied that it amounted to recruiting a ‘vanity photographer’ for the Deputy PM, something Ms Rayner condemned while in opposition.
In 2021, when Boris Johnson was PM, she said: ‘The public will be rightly questioning why there is apparently no limit on the money that can be found to pay for a coterie of vanity photographers for the Prime Minister.’
Ms Rayner on a visit to the Johnnie Walker Whisky Experience in Edinburgh in August, where ‘she met senior business leaders, discussed the importance of the whisky industry to Scotland and was shown around the experience’
Ms Rayner and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan with John Lewis executive director Peter Ruis and deputy branch manager Melissa Lidder in London earlier this month
At the Foreign Office with High Commissioner of the United Kingdom in Pakistan Jane Marriott, he Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan Mohammad Ishaq Dar and the High Commissioner of Pakistan to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Dr. Mohammad Faisal
With Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds at a Make Work Pay Business Breakfast meeting with business leaders in 10 Downing Street
In 2021, when Boris Johnson was PM, she said: ‘The public will be rightly questioning why there is apparently no limit on the money that can be found to pay for a coterie of vanity photographers for the Prime Minister.’
Mr Walker previously worked in No 10 as chief photographer to Rishi Sunak.
This morning Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisted he was not Ms Rayner’s ‘personal photographer’.
She told Times Radio: ‘All government departments under all governments have press officers and communications budgets. It’s not a personal photographer.’
And the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the photographer had been hired to chronicle the work of the department, not just Ms Rayner.
‘Many government departments employ official photographers to share the work of the department and ministers with the public,’ the department said.
‘This is a civil service role and will be part of MHCLG’s communications team.’
But Tory shadow paymaster general John Glen said: ‘This is just the latest in a long line of Labour ministers saying one thing and then doing another.
‘Labour’s promise to cut the size of the government spin bill was nothing more than empty words, they’d rather spend taxpayers’ money on their own vanity projects than on keeping pensioners warm this winter.
‘After scrapping Conservative plans to slim down civil service headcount, Labour should stop pretending that their decision to cut the winter fuel allowance was anything other than a political choice.’
In Downing Street earlier this month
At the first Make Work Pay meeting
Mr Walker was previously Rishi Sunak’s chief photographer when he was prime minister, and photographed him leaving No10 after his election defeat in July
At the end of August Ms Rayner took a photographer when she visited the scene of a residential fire in Dagenham East London, meeting ‘firefighters and other key responders’
Ms Reeves was asked on BBC Breakfast whether the hire was a waste of public money and said the Government had committed to reducing the size of its communications budget, but reiterated that all departments have media officers and photographers.
‘Not for individual politicians but to support the policy work, the campaigning work, the initiatives of Government departments, to help Government departments do their jobs.
‘This is not to support Angela Rayner as a Labour Party politician. This is to support the ministry for housing, communities and local government.’
Starting out as a freelancer in 1987, Mr Walker worked as a photographer for the Daily Express and The Times, before becoming news picture editor at The Times in 2004.
After leaving the picture desk at Reuters in 2018 he moved briefly towards consultancy work before joining HMRC at the end of 2019, and then moving to the Treasury.
Mr Rayner has been reported to the parliamentary standards commissioner accused of failing to properly declare a stay in a New York apartment.
In the letter to the watchdog yesterday, the Conservatives say the Deputy Prime Minister may have broken the rules by not admitting she was staying with former MP and her ex-boyfriend Sam Tarry.
Ms Rayner insisted yesterday she correctly declared the five days in the lavish $2.5million (£1.8million) Manhattan apartment gifted to her by donor Lord Alli.
In the letter to the watchdog yesterday, the Conservatives say the Deputy Prime Minister may have broken the rules by not admitting she was staying with former MP and her ex-boyfriend Sam Tarry (pictured in March 2023)
Ms Rayner insisted yesterday she correctly declared the five days in the lavish $2.5million (£1.8million) Manhattan apartment gifted to her by donor Lord Alli (pictured)
But while she registered the trip, she failed to mention that Mr Tarry stayed with her, in what the Tories say is a breach of the House of Commons code of conduct.
She and Mr Tarry stayed in the apartment – which has a roof deck, courtyard and fitness suite – from December 29 to January 2 this year, The Sunday Times reported.
The building’s website describes it as being at the heart of the theatre district with ‘incredible views’ over the Hudson river and New Jersey. The two-bedroom 1,300 sq ft property was lent to Ms Rayner by the Labour donor at the centre of the row over gifts to the PM and his wife.
She says that Lord Alli – who has given her more than £50,000 over the past four years – is primarily a personal friend but she chose to report the stay because he was also a donor to her political activities.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards investigates potential non-compliance with the MPs’ code of conduct and can order members to update their register or issue an apology to the Commons.
According to the parliamentary register of interests, Ms Rayner was given a flat as accommodation for five nights to enjoy a ‘personal holiday’ in New York.
The rules say 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 their ‘parliamentary or political activities’.
Ms Rayner’s team claim that she did not need to declare that Mr Tarry, the former Ilford South MP, had joined her because Lord Alli was not aware that he had.