The prime minister’s new chief secretary has been out and about trying to calm the storm after Angela Rayner’s exit
on’t Panic! Don’t Panic! Over the weekend the newly promoted Darren Jones, Keir Starmer’s very own Keir Starmer tribute act, was out and about on the airwaves trying to convince everyone – himself included – that the government was not in crisis.
What do you mean, chaos, he said time and again as the questions kept on coming. Each time sounding slightly more chippy. He’s not a man who takes kindly to even a hint of mockery. Darren takes Darren extremely seriously.
It was perfectly normal for Angela Rayner – the housing secretary, deputy prime minister and deputy leader of the Labour party rolled into one – to be forced to resign after failing to pay the correct stamp duty. The kind of thing that could happen at any time to any cabinet minister. Hell, the Tories did that the whole time.
Darren even had Rayner’s exit pencilled into his government spreadsheet. A deputy leadership election was just what Labour and the country wanted. It would be great for all the candidates to make the case for how well things had gone over the past year.
