London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Angela Rayner: ‘We don’t want to be an opposition, we want to be a government’

Angela Rayner: ‘We don’t want to be an opposition, we want to be a government’

Labour’s deputy leader opens up about being a carer, byelections, and achieving a ‘cultural shift’ in the workplace
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has said her own experience as a care worker helped to convince her more flexible working could be a “win-win” for staff and employers.

Speaking to the Guardian after announcing new policies last week on employment rights and flexible conditions, Rayner said she had helped negotiate family-friendly working when she was a trade union representative.

“We were frontline manual workers, delivering 7am till 10pm care in people’s homes. We introduced a flexible rota that worked for the staff, and we saw productivity go up. The wellbeing of the staff, as well as the outcome for the service user, was they had the same staff going in – and sickness levels went significantly down as well, so it saved money for the employer. It’s a win-win,” she said.

“Of course, not everything can be achieved in every single workplace, but there are flexible options I believe in every workplace. If an employer looks after the employees, the employees will look after the employer, and it’s reciprocal,” she added.

Rayner announced this week that a Labour government would legislate to give companies an obligation to provide flexible conditions – including compressed hours, and accommodating caring responsibilities such as the school run – unless they can show it is unworkable.

It was part of a package of measures, drawn up with the shadow workers’ rights minister, Andy McDonald, that also included ensuring all employees gain rights from day one in a job.

The plans have been welcomed by the Corbynite campaign group Momentum, and helped to assuage fears among some in the party that Starmer would ditch the radical 2019 manifesto wholesale.

Speaking after a visit to a flexible working hub in Hull, Rayner said Labour’s aim was nothing less than to achieve a “cultural shift” in the workplace.

“It’s about changing the culture in our country. The whole emphasis to me is, yes there’s individual nuggets in here, but it’s about a cultural shift away from people being inflexible, and not looking for new and fresh ideas about how people can engage in the workplace,” she said.

Rayner shrugged off suggestions that she has been at loggerheads with Keir Starmer – or could even challenge him for the leadership, as some supporters had urged her to do before the Batley and Spen byelection earlier this month.

“Me and Keir have been working incredibly closely together since the start of the pandemic,” she said, comparing the day when they were both elected in the depths of the first lockdown to “an arranged marriage, almost, by telephone”.

“We bring different things to that leadership. And I think that works,” she said, calling them “yin and yang”.

Labour’s loss of the Hartlepool constituency in May sparked panic about Starmer’s prospects of leading Labour to a general election victory, with some MPs quietly casting around for a candidate who could gather the 40 signatures necessary to mount a challenge.

But his leadership has appeared more secure since the party held the Yorkshire seat of Batley and Spen.

Rayner said she and Starmer had different approaches. “You know, my style is more robust as people know: I’m more bombastic, in the way in which do things, I say it how I see it: and therefore I bring that freshness to the partnership.”

“Keir’s very forensic, he’s very intelligent. He’s very passionate about making sure that the country is a better place,” she said.

Rayner has spoken in the past about growing up in poverty, and becoming a carer for her mother, who struggled with mental illness, from the age of 10.

“I like to think I overshare and Keir undershares,” she said. “If you look at Keir’s background, it’s not dissimilar for mine: he looked after his mum, I looked after my mum,” she says. “Keir wasn’t from a privileged background”.

Challenged about a dip in Labour’s membership, Rayner said she was focused on voters. “Of course we want to attract people to be members of the Labour party, but what we need to do is we need to attract voters as well. And what we’re doing is we’re speaking to the country: we’re saying that actually we don’t want to be an opposition, we want to be a government,” she said.

Labour is in the process of laying off up to 90 staff via voluntary redundancies, as Starmer seeks to repair the party’s shattered finances after costly election battles and a string of legal cases.

The former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott criticised Labour this week for simultaneously seeking to hire staff on six-month contracts to handle a backlog of complaints against members.

“So Keir will make Britain the best place to work – unless you work for Labour,” Abbott tweeted. Rayner rejected that, highlighting the importance of ensuring the party is financially viable.

“We don’t want to be making staff redundant. It’s an awful situation but we can’t lose a general election, like we did, and then not look at our organisation,” she said.

And she insisted the complaints-handling staff will not be on zero-hours contracts, but were being hired on “a fixed-term contract for a specific piece of work”.

“I’m a trade unionist. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything that was detrimental to our workforce but you know, we have to be financially viable as an organisation,” she said.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×