Angela Rayner has defended hiring a taxpayer-funded “vanity” photographer while claiming that people complain about never seeing her.
The Deputy Prime Minister hired Simon Walker on a reported salary of £68,000 earlier this year despite having fiercely criticised Boris Johnson for spending on government photographers in 2021.
Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine on Tuesday, Ms Rayner said hiring the photographer was about letting people “know what you’re doing and where you are”.
Defending the decision, she said: “There’s a kind of balance to be had because sometimes you get ‘well, you never see her’ or ‘she’s only doing that for a photo opportunity’.
“So you kind of try and strike the right balance between letting people know what you’re doing and where you are.
“And then there’s others that will then criticise and say ‘well, you’re just trying to project an image of what you’re doing’.
“So it’s kind of trying to strike the balance between seriousness of, here’s me, this is what I’m doing.”
The taxpayer-funded photographer was used to capture Ms Rayner sipping a whisky cocktail through a straw at the Johnnie Walker Experience in Edinburgh in August.
Another image by Mr Walker shows her holding her departmental red folder and smiling at the camera as she leaves a meeting on workers’ rights.
While in opposition, Ms Rayner was a vocal critic of Mr Johnson’s three taxpayer-funded photographers.
In a post to X, formerly known as Twitter, 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.”
It has become common for Downing Street to hire a photographer in recent years to record the prime minister’s movements, however, Ms Rayner is said to be the first deputy to have her own.
Earlier in the year, a government spokesman said Mr Walker was part of the department’s wider communications team rather than a “personal” hire by Ms Rayner.
They said: “Many government departments employ official photographers to share the work of the department and ministers with the public.
“This is a Civil Service role and will be part of the department’s communications team.”
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