Angela's autobiography not set to make millions

She was tipped to bag as much as £1 million for her tell-all memoirs – but might the jury be out on Angela Rayner’s marketability?

The former deputy prime minister has just updated her entry to the House of Commons’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests to include her advance for her much-trailed autobiography, showing a relatively modest £61,500.

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Rayner, recently cleared of tax avoidance on the purchase of her £800,000 Hove flat and back out on the campaign trail in Makerfield with Andy Burnham, agreed her signing-on fee with publisher Random House on April 30. The money was paid via her agents William Morris Endeavour Entertainment.

The MP doesn’t, however, seem to have officially started work on the tome, due to be published “in the second half of 2026” via the Vintage Books label. She declares “no hours entered” for the time spent on it in her Commons entry.

Rayner has also disclosed she has consulted the independent adviser on ministerial standards about the work, though Sir Laurie Magnus has yet to reveal advice given and exactly what the book may be about (although her publisher says it “will provide an empowering vision for a fairer, kinder society that will enable everyone to flourish”).

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Still, the advance is more welcome news for Rayner’s finances, stripped as she has been of her ministerial salary. The former deputy PM, who quit government last September, has previously declared £59,000 worth of fees for five speaking engagements.

She has also recorded £191,238 paid by donors towards the costs of staffing her office, including a further £16,238 reported in the latest update. Quite a war chest should Rayner throw her hat into the ring in a future Labour Party leadership contest!

Meanwhile, for those who can’t wait until later in the year for Rayner’s life story, a clearly AI-generated book called Angela Rayner: The Inspiring Life Story of a Working-Class Woman Who Rose to Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, A Voice for British Politics and Westminster is available on Amazon for £9.63 – and is probably still better than Michael Ashcroft’s Red Queen.