Evidence so far has shown that the Labour Cabinet may have felt the need at times to buff up their careers prior to entering politics. The spotlight moves from Reeves and Reynolds to Deputy Prime Minister Rayner…
Reeves’ Who’s Who entry has received scrutiny this week as it claimed the Chancellor had written in a much more prestigious economics journal that she actually had done. Rayner’s entry says this of her career: “Home help, private sector and local govt, 1998–2005. Trade union lay activist, 2002–15.” That suggests seven years. The Times notes that “Who’s Who typically asks those it wishes to include to write their own entries”…
Separately Rayner’s personal candidacy website from 2014 describes her as a “trade union official with UNISON.” She says there of her background:
“My first job was as a carer, looking after elderly people in their homes. I stayed in that profession for almost a decade and experienced the conditions that often make headlines today – that’s why I joined a trade union.”
Bizarrely in a 2020 Facebook post on her personal account, Rayner commemorated her election: “Exactly 5 years ago tonight after 14 years service in Local Government as a home care worker l left Stockport Council.” Rayner upgrades her time working as a home help from seven years to 14…
Even more strangely in March of last year, during the furore over the 2015 sale of her council house, Rayner said: “At the time of the sale of the house, I was a home carer and it was my home.” That would put her time as a home help at 17 years…
That’s four different public statements and four completely different time periods ranging from seven to 17 years. Is Labour set to change the definition of ‘decade’?
According to Lord Ashcroft’s biography of Rayner the DPM spent six months as a home help in 1998 – after an 18-month gap during which she was not working as a home help she then joined Stockport Council as a home help. Council records released under FoI confirm that Rayner (or Bowen as she was at the time) was employed as a home help “with employment dates being from August 2000 to 2005.” That’s five years…
Ashcroft’s book concludes the DPM was actually employed as a carer “for just three years or so” because for up to two years of the period between 2000 and 2005 she was in fact a UNISON official working on “facility time.” This is when a union representative is allowed to take paid time off to carry out their trade union role. Ashcroft spoke to a friend of Rayner’s who said she was on facility time from 2002. Not a decade then…
Rayner can’t seem to decide how long she spent as a home help. Does anyone in the Cabinet have a reliable CV?
Reform MP Danny Kruger welcomed adult film star Bonnie Blue’s support for the party, adding:
“I’m not going to be judgemental about people who want to vote Reform. We want all the support we can get – quite like Bonnie Blue.”