Politics Angela Rayner

Angela Rayner’s anecdote about her huge faux pas on a visit to Keir Starmer is like something out of the most cringeworthy sitcom ever

Oonagh Keating. Updated March 3rd, 2025

It would be a strange thing if anyone managed to get to adulthood without having at least a few embarrassing memories. You know the ones – they turn up in your brain, unbidden, as you’re trying to drop off to sleep.

While most of us, apart from stand-up comedians, try to keep these things to ourselves, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner confessed to an absolutely mind-boggling faux pas during an interview in the Times. James Heale shared the excruciating section.

In case that’s not clear, here it is again in all its mortifying glory.

Angela Rayner briefly covers her face with her left hand and shakes her head in embarrassment. Then she laughs. The deputy prime minister is talking about going round for a drink at Sir Keir Starmer’s flat above Downing Street.

It had all been good until he left her there alone. And he was only gone for a few minutes.

“I found a bottle of whisky,” she says. “And- yeah I opened it. When he comes back, I’m going, ‘Keir! This is such nice whisky!’ And he’s standing there, looking at me, going, ‘Errrrr…'”

The bottle, it turned out, was a treasured prime ministerial possession as the last thing one of his closest friends gave him before dying four years ago. Starmer had never intended it to be drunk.

“I felt really bad when he told me,” says Rayner. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m mortified!'”

Her laugh, both more natural and recognisable than any other current politician’s, has begun climbing upwards as she tells the story.

So many thoughts. So many massive questions, all – thankfully – addressed by these reactions.

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Hello, This is Ivan even expanded on the idea that it was all very sitcom-like.

One hundred per cent, would watch.

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Source: The Times, via James Heale Image: James Heale, Wikimedia Commons