‘Angela Rayner has faced endless attacks from the right but revelations about her tax affairs are more than political mud-slinging and won’t be easily shaken off’, writes Mirror Political Editor Lizzy Buchan

Angela Rayner is a political street-fighter, who has risen from humble beginnings to high office through hard graft, sharp instincts and force of personality.

Many politicians try to flaunt their working class credentials but Rayner is the real deal. She grew up in dire poverty on a Stockport council estate, falling pregnant at 16 and leaving school without any qualifications.

She became a care worker and later a trade union rep, before being elected to Parliament in 2015. As Keir Starmer said this week, Rayner is an extraordinary British success story.

She has also survived relentless attacks from the right, many of whom hate to see a working class woman succeed.

But the revelations about her tax affairs are more than political mud-slinging and won’t be easily shaken off.

Keir Starmer has given his backing to Angela Rayner(Image: PA)

In opposition, she was relentless in attacking Tory sleaze, which now leaves her open to charges of hypocrisy. She is the Housing Secretary but she failed to pay her property taxes correctly.

Voters who make less in a year than the estimated £40,000 shortfall on her stamp duty bill are likely to be unimpressed.

And it makes it pretty tricky for Rachel Reeves to put up taxes in the Budget when the Deputy PM failed to properly pay hers.

Rayner has laid out details about her disabled son and her divorce that she desperately wanted to keep private in a bid to clear this up. She will hope that people get that families are complicated and she made an honest mistake.

But the pressure on her to go will be relentless – and what happens next is out of her hands.

Rayner is popular in the Labour Party, and many MPs hope she’ll be cleared by the watchdog. The PM, who is clearly sympathetic to her family circumstances, gave her his full support yesterday.

While they haven’t always been close allies, Starmer knows she is an asset with voters and a key part of his project. He has turned to her in difficult moments such as when he needed to broker a deal with welfare rebels earlier this year.

Any other minister would be on their way out of the door but Rayner’s future is uncertain.

There will be probe by independent adviser Sir Laurie Magnus but his job is to provide advice to the PM.

Deciding whether to stand by her or not will be one of Starmer’s most difficult tests yet.