‘Never say never’: Angela Rayner drops ANOTHER major hint she wants to become Labour leader

Angela Rayner made clear her designs on Labour’s top job today – before pledging her support to Sir Keir Starmer. 

The plain-talking Mancunian said it would be ‘an absolute honour’ to enter Downing Street as a former single mum from a council estate.

But she told US broadcaster CNBC she planned to do it as deputy prime minister, with Sir Kier in the top job. 

However, she declined to rule out running to replace him as party leader one day, saying: ‘Never say never’. 

‘At the moment, I can’t wait to get into number 10 With Keir and be his deputy prime minister as a girl from my background, who grew up on the, you know, a council estate very poor background to left school pregnant at 16, with no qualifications to become deputy prime minister would be an absolute honour,’ she said.

‘And I never forget the trust that the people of my constituency put in me at the moment. And that’s what spurs me on to keep going. And they deserve better than what they’ve got currently. And I want to keep fighting to get that farther.’

It is not the first time Ms Rayner has talked openly about taking over at the top

Last September she positioned herself as a future leader on the first day of the party conference in Brighton, boasting: ‘If Boris Johnson can bluster his way as PM, I know for an absolute certainty I can do a lot better than that.’ 

Ms Rayner was today asked if Keir Starmer was an electable leader.

‘I think Kier Starmer has shown that he’s actually the sort of leader that you want to look after your schools, looking after your hospitals, a really measured leader, you know he does take it incredibly seriously, you know he is a public servant and has been all his life and he comes in there not because he wants to you know big up his ego but actually wants to do the right thing for his children and for people families that are struggling,’ she said.

‘His mum was an NHS worker who needed the NHS when she had a very serious illness, and he started with a toolmaker, so he comes from a very working class background, and it’s boy done good, you know, and that is the British story, you know.

‘Many working class people in the UK, they might not have gone to university, but they want their children to have the opportunity and care get up because it’s his story. And it’s what happens to him. And he wants that for everyone else. And he wants people to play by the rules.’