RAYNER'S FOES ARE HELLBENT ON HER DEMISE

They're gunning for her because she IS Labour... and she's good

- Ros Wynne-Jones

THE signs were there from the moment Angela Rayner arrived at Downing Street wearing a relaxed cut, spearmint trouser suit from Me+Em.

As the sun rose on a new government, the former care worker who left school pregnant at 16 and whose mother couldn't read and write would shortly be appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Cheered by working-class women, her big moment was greeted with derision from others. Her suit was too bright, too baggy, too expensive for a working-class woman and too "ghastly" - she looked like "a clown".

After years of the clown prince Boris, the criticism was particularly pointed.

They should have said what they meant. It wasn't the clothes - it was Rayner who didn't fit.

This gobby working-class woman with ideas above her station should have known that her place wasn't striding along Downing Street like a catwalk.

The ducking stool was ready from day one. But it was water off a duck house's back to a girl who once feared being taken into care and was told she would "never amount to anything" when she left school.

Rayner's backstory embodies everything the Labour Party stands for. A young carer for a bipolar mother, she credits her success to the 1997 Labour government's Sure Start.

Now, a new generation of workers will be able to thank her for Labour's flagship workers' rights legislation. No wonder they were gunning for Rayner before the sick from Partygate had dried on the walls.

For going to Glyndebourne (above her station, again).