Is Rayner's memoir a tilt at the top?

No ambitious US politician would dream of setting their sights on the top without publishing a memoir detailing their inspirational journey, but that’s never really been the way in Britain. That appears to be changing, though, with another wannabe successor to Keir Starmer as Labour setting out their story with a memoir.

In 2023, at the sprightly age of 40, West Streeting published his autobiography, One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up, his journey from a council estate in East London to the Houses of Parliament (the two Bills were his grandfather, one an armed robber; the fry up the morning of the operation prevented his mother having an abortion).

Now it has been announced that The Bodley Head, an imprint of Vintage, a division of Penguin Random House UK, has secured the rights to publish Angela Rayner’s memoir, detailing her life from child poverty and teenage pregnancy to the trade unions and Labour deputy leadership before her recent fall from grace. Unlike Streeting, but like her predecessor as Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott, Rayner will use a ghostwriter (Prezza was penned by Beatle botherer Hunter Davies).

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Rayner’s move will inevitably be seen as a bid to set out her humble beginnings to Labour members ahead of a post-Starmer leadership battle, although she might be too late – it is scheduled to appear in the second half of 2026, by which time poor results in May’s Scottish, Welsh and local elections could see the PM gone.

“Her book will be unvarnished and upfront – you can expect her authenticity to shine through – and an empowering vision for a fairer, kinder society that will enable everyone to flourish,” burbled Alice Skinner, the editorial director at The Bodley Head.

But it does rather suggest a contest is on the cards sooner rather than later. Once Andy Burnham’s memoir – inevitably titled something like A Proper Bloody Northern Life and featuring a gravy-sodden whippet on the cover – is on Amazon, we’ll know it’s game on.