DAN HODGES: I saw Angela Rayner drunk on Monday night – and it wasn’t an aberration. Those who care about Britain – and her well-being – must make sure she’s never Prime Minister

I don’t know for sure what the process that will lead to Keir Starmer’s dismissal from Downing Street will be after next week’s local elections.

Some ministers suspect he will eventually see the writing on the wall and walk away. Others believe removing him would require a leadership struggle.

But there is one thing I know: whatever this process is, it must not end with Angela Rayner becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Yesterday my colleague Christian Calgie reported that Rayner’s behavior in the House of Commons Foreigners’ Bar Association on Monday night left viewers ‘jaw-dropping’. Some witnesses claimed he was ‘taken away by tram’.

Others said his drunken state caused him to walk towards a door, where he bent double.

The reports were immediately trashed by the allies. A spokesman claimed it was all a ‘mixture of mischief’. It wasn’t.

I was at Strangers’ Bar on Monday. I saw Angela Rayner and spoke to her briefly. One witness’s description that it was ‘absolutely destroyed’ is correct.

His situation was witnessed by many MPs, journalists, parliamentary staff and guests. The incident of breaking into the door is also true. I saw the incident with my own eyes.

Rayner is not the only Labor politician who maintains tenuous ties to the party’s working-class roots, writes Dan Hodges

Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham at the Labor Party Conference in Brighton in 2021

In the coming hours, his supporters’ outright denials will be put aside. Instead, we will encounter a series of rituals and well-worn justifications.

Rayner is targeted because she is a woman. He is targeted because he is working class. He becomes the target of joyless puritans.

Angela is a target because she stands on the threshold of power and her political rivals, both inside and outside her party, fear her and want to oust her.

So let’s deconstruct and abandon each of these false claims in turn.

Labor is full of women who are not only capable of replacing Keir Starmer, but are almost certain to do a better job. Yvette Cooper. Bridget Phillipson. Shabana Mahmood. Lucy Powell. Heidi Alexander. The problem is not gender.

It’s not a class either. Andy Burnham grew up in the Liverpool suburb of Aintree, the son of a telephone engineer and a receptionist.

Phillipson was brought up in a council house on Wearside by her mother, who worked for a domestic violence charity.

Wes Streeting was born in Stepney and spent his childhood in a council flat with his six siblings. Despite appearances, Rayner is not the only Labor politician who retains tenuous ties to the party’s working-class roots.

Likewise, very few voters will have a problem with a politician who enjoys drinking. Or even someone who is specifically drunk. Winston Churchill won the world war on a diet of brandy, port and Pol Roger.

But there is a time and a place for this. And in a crowded parliamentary pub on Monday night – at a moment when you are trying to convince your colleagues that you are the man to whom Britain’s nuclear launch codes will be entrusted – it is neither.

Angela Rayner was in that bar for a reason. There are numerous restaurants, tearooms and hideouts on the Parliament grounds where it is possible for an ambitious politician to secretly lobby MPs.

However, Strangers is an open area frequented by members of all parties and, more importantly, members of the press.

This is where would-be candidates go when they want to make a point. To signal, without saying it openly, that they are running for a particular office. This is where they go to audition.

It’s instructive that Rayner didn’t make it through the audition without falling flat on his face (or in this case, getting a large wooden door planted in his face).

Angela Rayner was seen showing off her moves in a clip shot by actress Denise van Outen during a wild night out in Ibiza in 2024.

Miss Rayner was photographed drinking a glass of rosé on holiday in Brighton last year

One MP who was not on Rayner’s team but was open-minded about the leadership told me: ‘I’m sorry, but this isn’t good enough. He wants to be the leader of the party and the Prime Minister of the country. And in this state he walks staggeringly. This is unacceptable.’

As the meteoric rise of Nigel Farage proves, people are attracted to politicians who have a certain character and who reject the boring and robotic caricature of the same Westminster politician.

But this isn’t an episode of I’m a Celebrity. The government and the country are approaching a turning point.

The Labor Party is about to elect its new leader and prime minister. The minimum that the man or woman they choose must act with a basic level of professionalism and self-control.

Angela Rayner can’t do this. His behavior on Monday was not an aberration. Concerns about his social behavior have been widespread within the Parliamentary Labor Party for some time.

That’s why his allies recently informed lawmakers and journalists that he was abstinent from alcohol.

Some of these difficulties might have been alleviated if Rayner had been surrounded by advisers with the experience and maturity to safely guide him through the thick of the Labor leadership race and his future rise to 10th place.

However, the opposite is true. Many MPs believe that his inner circle is actively exploiting him and using him to further his own political ambitions.

Angela Rayner has many qualities. Those that go beyond the normal lazy narratives about its worldliness and solidity.

His political instincts are very well tuned. He was adept at overcoming the obstacles put in his way by the Whitehall bureaucracy in his management of the Housing Department before resigning last year.

He still has a lot to offer his party and his country.

But he cannot be Prime Minister. The weight of the task would destroy him. The government would quickly collapse in a manner reminiscent of the collapse of the Liz Truss premiership.

Therefore, his colleagues and those who claim to be his friends have a duty of care to Rayner to ensure this does not happen.

Over the past few months I have covered the decline and fall of Keir Starmer. I do not bow to anyone in my belief that his immediate dismissal would be in the interest of his government, party and country.

So I don’t make light of this: if it’s a direct choice between Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, Labor should stick with Starmer.