A posh extractor fan, Angela? That should stop some of your hot air
EVEN her staunchest admirers would probably admit that Angela Rayner can be prone to spouting hot air.
So it is perhaps fitting that the Labour Deputy Leader’s kitchen has been equipped with a sophisticated extractor fan.
Mrs Rayner, who is known for waxing lyrical about her workingclass credentials, showed off the state-of-the-art appliance during an interview with Left-leaning magazine The New Statesman.
The fan, which is automatically stowed under the worktop when not in use, is remote-controlled, meaning that operating it requires little more than the wag of a finger.
Similar items are on sale at John Lewis for between £1,500 and £2,000. One, from Siemens and available for £1,699, promises to ‘keep your kitchen looking clean and minimalist’ with a noise level only marginally louder than a human voice.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP also bragged about her extra-large floor tiles. ‘Guess how much it cost to lay my tiles?’ she asked the interviewer, who wasn’t told the cost but then remarked that Mrs Rayner’s kitchen island was the largest she had ever seen.
Despite her readiness to speak about her humble origins, it is not the first time the MP has revealed her expensive tastes.
It emerged last year that she charged the taxpayer more than £2,100 for Apple technology, including £249 for a pair of personalised AirPods wireless headphones.
In the New Statesman article, Mrs Rayner, 41, a mother-of-three, said: ‘Everyone should be able to have nice things.’ She told the interviewer Kate Mossman: ‘I want you to have a lovely house where you feel pride in it, not, “I’ve got a roof over my head, so I should be thankful”. Why should you have the minimum?’
Former Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband was also accused of falsely projecting a humble lifestyle in 2015 when it emerged that the modest kitchen in which he posed for photos was actually a second, smaller kitchen in his £2million North London home.
Other politicians criticised for having lavish kitchens and top-ofthe-range home appliances include the late Conservative MP James Brokenshire, who after pictures emerged of him baking in 2019 insisted he did not have four ovens but rather ‘two double ovens’.