Angela Rayner has recorded an interview with Times Radio set to broadcast tomorrow in which she gives a surprisingly frank assessment of her relationship with Sir Keir. Asked by presenter Ayesha Hazarika to describe her relationship with the Labour leader, Rayner admits they’re ‘not quite best of mates yet’, and claims it’s ‘like putting two dogs together in a room’:

“We’ve always had a reasonably good relationship. You know, it was a bit weird because we came together during lockdown. And we hadn’t really had a relationship before that…But it’s fair to say that me and Keir are completely different in the way we do things…He’s not trying to be me, and I’m not trying to be him.”

“Now I understand Keir, and how he responds to things and he understands me a bit better….we don’t clash on issues…It’s like putting two dogs together in a room, they’ll fight for a little bit and then they find a way, then they become best of mates. So I think we haven’t quite got best of mates yet, but we definitely found a way to exist together and to complement each other. We’ve managed to find a way to be respectful and understand each other and where we come from.”

Starting a reshuffle without letting his own Deputy Leader know beforehand can’t have helped much. Doing it again six months later definitely didn’t help. At least they’ve found ‘a way to exist together’…