Reeves denies Rayner has ‘personal photographer’ after departmental hire
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has defended Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s department for hiring a taxpayer-funded photographer.
Labour officials have denied reports that it amounted to recruiting a “vanity photographer” for the Deputy Prime Minister, something Ms Rayner had condemned in opposition.
And Ms Reeves insisted that all departments had communications budgets that they were able to use to promote their campaigns.
The Daily Mail reported that the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary has hired a photographer to record her work.
It claimed she was the first Deputy Prime Minister to have hired such a member of staff.
But the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the photographer had been hired to chronicle the work of the department, not just Ms Rayner.
“Many government departments employ official photographers to share the work of the department and ministers with the public,” the department said.
“This is a civil service role and will be part of MHCLG’s communications team.”
The civil servant employed in the role, Simon Walker, is understood to be paid within the grade 7 band, which has a minimum salary of £57,000 a year – with the Daily Mail reporting he was on £68,000.
Vanity
On his LinkedIn profile his job description is listed as “chief photographer to the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government”.
He had previously worked in No 10 as chief photographer to Rishi Sunak.
Ms Rayner was not involved in the recruitment process for the photographer, the PA news agency understands.
But while in opposition Ms Rayner was highly critical of Boris Johnson’s three taxpayer-funded photographers.
In 2021 she said: “The public will be rightly questioning why there is apparently no limit on the money that can be found to pay for a coterie of vanity photographers for the Prime Minister.”
Ms Reeves insisted Mr Walker was not Ms Rayner’s “personal photographer”.
She told Times Radio: “All government departments under all governments have press officers and communications budgets.
“It’s not a personal photographer.”
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Westminster is rotten to the core.
It’s become so over the past two decades – and needs Labour to change the way it’s started off
Don’t do what members of the government do, do what the government tells you. They don’t care what we think about their dubious actions and do it quite blatantly in our faces. No one gives gifts to politicians without expecting favours in return. The whole of Westminster, Lords and local and county councils needs to be cleared out from the top right down to the tea lady. They are all corrupt and on the take.
That’s the trouble, isn’t it? by the sheer bombardment of malice by the Tory press, the only picture we get is of corruption. In fact most politicians go in to politics to serve the country – but the entire environment set up over the past twenty years works directly against the honest ones – and Labour at the moment are too naïve and out of practice they fail to realise the damage they do to themselves by aping the Tories
Yes, most politicians go into politics with the intent to serve the country but as soon as they are elected and enter the door of Westminster I suspect that they are influenced by the MPs that have been there for years to forget the promises they made to the electorate and told: “This is how we do things in here. You serve yourself first, second and third. Lie through your back teeth and never answer the question you are asked by journalists, and oh, make sure you think of a number, double it and multiply by ten and then stick… Read more »
What a malicious and downright sinister newspaper the Daily Mail is. It’s been a 60 day continuous campaign to paint Labour in the worst possible light – they ressemble nothing more or less than Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’
Daily Wail as a source?
Yeahhhhhh.
The cult of personality.
take the time to read Rory Stewarts book Politics on the Edge it is a great eye opener