Angela Rayner shows off her bold fashion sense as she steps out with married MP

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Angela Rayner showcased her bold sense of fashion as she was snapped stepping out of her London home alongside married MP Sam Tarry last week. 

Labour’s deputy leader, 41, was spotted emerging from her £30,000-a-year taxpayer-funded property with shadow minister Sam, 39, in tow one morning last week. 

Opting for a vibrant look, Angela, who is known for her unique taste in clothes, mixed the unusual combination of blue leather, leopard print and fake fur for the outing.

She donned a ribbed top with a matching £249 Pure Collection pencil skirt, with a clashing pair of her trademark £95 vegan leopard print boots from Office. 

The MP added a touch of glamour by wearing a £65 Beaverbrooks pendant with a bee charm. The worker bee is known to be the symbol of the city having been  added to Manchester’s coat of arms in the mid 19th century and represents the industrial heritage of the region. 

Angela wrapped up against the cold in a vintage faux fur jacket and could be seen clutching her face mask, as well as a £180 black Fossil backpack. 

Meanwhile Ilford South MP Sam attempted to keep a low profile in a grey wool baker boy cap for the outing, which appears to cost £40 from Savile Row Company. 

Leaving his pink shirt unbuttoned, he appeared to coordinate with Angela in a vibrant blue three-piece suit, over which he wore a black overcoat.

It marked the first time the pair have been captured on camera together for the first time together in public away from the office, after rumours of their deepening friendship ran rife in Westminster.  

It’s not the first time that Angela has been snapped showing off her bold fashion choices, with the MP regularly stepping out in clashing colorful outfits, striking punk patterns, and unusual shoes.

Angela, who once described herself as a ‘gobby northern ginger lass’, has ditched the usual politician’s wardrobe of stuffy grey suits or simple shift dresses, for a bolder style, with clashing colours, bright pink ankle socks and tartan skirts. 

And as her profile has risen at Westminster, she has been unafraid to tone down her outfit choices. 

Angela, now the most powerful woman in the Labour Party, was first reported to have grown close to Corbynite Sam, her former campaign manager when she was running for the party’s deputy leadership in 2020, three months after splitting from her husband of ten years, trade union official Mark Rayner.

Shadow transport minister Sam, who was married in 2016 to Brighton-based paediatrician Julia Fozard, with whom he has two children, is now believed to have split from his wife, according to The Sun on Sunday.

Both Angela, who famously once called a rival Tory MP ‘scum’, and Sam have so far declined to confirm or deny any rumours that they are anything more than close colleagues.

Last night, Sam’s wife Julia also declined to comment on the status of their marriage. 

Angela’s husband, Mark, was not at the family home the couple still share with their two sons in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. 

One of the most powerful figures in the Labour Party, she holds four titles including deputy leader, shadow first secretary of state, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow secretary of state for the future of work. 

In May last year, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s closest parliamentary aide, Carolyn Harris MP, resigned after facing allegations that she spread ‘baseless’ rumours about Angela’s private life.

‘My personal life is my personal life,’ Mrs Rayner said in an interview at the time. 

‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to be doing that. It’s not good for any of us if we start putting ourselves in that gutter arena. It’s gutter politics.’  

She has spoken openly in the past about her rise to power within the Labour Party – that begins with a troubled childhood, growing up on a council estate in Greater Manchester.

She has told interviewers about how she became a carer for her mother, who could not read or write and suffered from bipolar disorder.

She recalled how her mum once came back from the shops with dog food, thinking it was stewing steak, because she couldn’t read the label.

A teenager when her parents divorced, she talked of having suffered years of dysfunctional home life marred by her father’s affairs and her parents’ ‘explosive’ relationship. She described her childhood existence as ‘feral’.

By the age of 13 she was clubbing in Manchester, looking for ‘the wrong sort of affection from the wrong sort of people’, and was pregnant at 16. The birth of her son Ryan, however, proved a turning point.

Determined to provide for her son and become a role model to him rather than conform to the single teenage parent on benefits stereotype, Mrs Rayner trained as a Samaritan, then became a carer. 

Through her work, she discovered the trade union movement, becoming a rep, which gave her the introduction to politics.

It was also through the trade union movement that she met her husband Mark, a Unison official. They married in 2010 and have two sons, one of whom is registered blind and has special educational needs.

She has spoken movingly about how their eldest, Charlie, was born prematurely at 23 weeks, weighing less than one pound, and wasn’t expected to survive.

In a 2018 interview, she praised Mark for helping her through the ordeal, when all she wanted to do was ‘curl up in a ball’, saying: ‘I’m normally the one who wears the trousers, but he took over. 

He said, ‘We’ll do what we have to do. I’ll give up work if I have to, we’ll do whatever it takes’.’

Elected to parliament in 2015, Angela became the first woman to represent the constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne and since then her rise within the party has been – despite a few bumps in the road, such as the ‘scum’ comment that saw her forced to apologise – meteoric. She is often tipped to be a future Labour leader.

The Commons’ youngest granny – she was 37 when Ryan had his first child – her appeal to Labour voters is centred on her no-nonsense, outspoken persona, quick to hold others to account; someone who takes no prisoners. 

Elected to the Commons in 2019, Sam Tarry – described in various news reports as a ‘golden boy of the hard left’ and a bit of a ‘hipster’ – is apparently no stranger to controversy.

Best known as Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign director, in 2016, he hit back at allegations of electoral fraud after The Sunday Times claimed he was really living in Brighton with his wife when he was serving as a councillor in Barking, east London.

To serve on a council, a councillor must sign an official declaration that they live or work in the area.

The newspaper also reported that a trade union official, named Elly Baker, lived at the Barking flat owned by Mr Tarry and his wife. His lawyers said she was his lodger.

‘This allegation is categorically untrue,’ Mr Tarry said in response to the claims. 

‘The evidence irrefutably demonstrates I meet all residency requirements set out in electoral law to be a councillor in Barking and Dagenham.

‘My wife, whom I married in June this year, lives in Brighton and works as a junior doctor. Like many people these days we try to strike a balance between our careers and our personal lives.

‘Unfortunately this means we cannot live together as a husband and wife every day as we one day hope to do.

‘When you serve people in the NHS or as a local councillor that’s a choice that sometimes has to be made.

‘Those promoting this story for political reasons tried to use the same false allegations against me before, and I was completely cleared by the police.’ 

Similar questions about Mr Tarry’s residency were raised in 2014, when he was first elected to the council, when it was claimed he had given inaccurate details on his nomination papers. Police later dropped the investigation.

When Mr Tarry was elected to the House of Commons he had the backing of Corbynite grassroots group Momentum, after the previous Labour MP for Ilford South, Mike Gapes, defected to Change UK.

The following year he became Mrs Rayner’s deputy leader campaign director.

At the time, he tweeted saying how proud he was to be working with her and posed photos of the pair of them together – with beaming smiles and red rosettes – on the campaign trail.