Angela Rayner is launching a podcast, Beyond the Bubble, which is already a very Angela-shaped contradiction, because the protagonist’s mission is really to get back inside the bubble of Labour’s crisis-prone top-tier as soon as possible.

The former deputy prime minister and Housing Secretary came a cropper over careless handling of her stamp duty allowances and had to be bounced out of the Cabinet last September to spend more time with her HMRC returns.

Nonetheless, she remains as ambitious as she is stubborn. And in a world where the present idea of “new media” produces a flurry of digital videos of ministers trying effortfully to look natural, Rayner is a rare figure who relished an audience and taking risks to keep her profile high.

Launching a podcast with the first episode with Lord (Michael) Gove, the former serial Tory minister who also had leadership ambitions and is now The Spectator editor, is fun from a fellow podcaster’s point of view. These two are similarly “out there”, with a history of late nights and dance-floor antics. Both are natural communicators, but beneath the easy veneer, they are both tribal people with asmall, trusted circle of intimates.

They both know housing policy well, though not many Labour MPs reckon Ange has gone to the trouble launching a pilot podcast with the view of discussing the finer disagreements about the road-use impacts of, say, the housing plan for Canterbury.

In the same way, Rayner used a guest appearance with a banking group to criticism the impact of the Office of Budget Responsibility. It was a barely coded critique from the “soft left” of why on earth the Treasury and its affiliates stop Labour from spending more or finding more exemptions to the fiscal rules – with a convenient sideline of interest in OBR scoring.

As one senior Labour figure battling to deliver long-delayed and fractious benefits system reform against a forbidding budgetary background and MPs puts it. “My lot like to fight the power on topics like removing he two-child benefit cap, employment law and growth remedies – even when we are the power.”

Rayner can indulge this streak while out of Cabinet: I suspect it would be ditched if she returns to government, since the idea of a listen highlighting the aims of Department of Communities and Local Government (a possible destination for her, according to allies) would be less than riveting.

For now, though, the autobiography and podcast combo is an ingenious way of Rayner conveying that she won’t shut up. As one Cabinet figure who is on another wing of the party puts it: “Angela doing what she does best – staying in the limelight.”

It “works” in that Sir Keir Starmer, who seems more than a little scared of her, expedites a return as soon as her tax matters are concluded. But that could end up in a standoff about which job she will accept. “She has effectively ruled herself out of anything where there would be trouble with Shabana Mahmood,” says one Home Office official.

Denouncing asylum reforms as “un-British” and “bad policy” has created a clash with Mahmood. But if the policy is softened as it looks as if it will be, Rayner will declare she influenced a win over a rival.

Not everyone on the left of the party is convinced though. The fine for a complex set of housing transactions has dented her reputation in those quarters. One leading MP from this viewpoint says: “What needs to be understood is that the tax issue is far more damaging for her than for others because it was not ‘priced in’. It clashes with her one-of-us persona.”

Her stance on second jobs has also shifted, which makes some uneasy: she was once a vocal critic of freelancing MPs, but now gives lucrative paid-for speeches. That means she can no longer easily boost her claim to be “not the same as the rest”, the MP says.

While many Labour MPs are Rayner-esque in their allergies to welfare reforms and fretful about Shabana Mahmood’s flinty outlook on asylum and immigration matters, many are worried about the “soft left” turning into a new (Tony) Bennite direction if the party were to leap from Starmer to Rayner – or end up with Starmer bringing back Rayner as part of Cabinet changes after the May local election hellscape.

That would give the Left more say over the Government’s domestic policy agenda with interests more obviously dictated by unions and indulge her desire to “pick more fights” with a panoply of favourite leftwing foes, from landlords to private health providers.

On this turf, there is competition from Ed Miliband whose positions on green energy and environmental credibility and lengthier experience as an economic adviser to Gordon Brown position him as an alternative. Many MPs in the Manchester and north-west caucus are also more likely to stand up for an Andy Burnham return via some Lords route of by-election than back Rayner, unless they could forge a ticket together. And she might ask her guest Lord Gove, who was initially on a “ticket” with Boris Johnson, how that tends to turn out in practice.

The Iran war and the seriousness of the international outlook in general also changes the light. Pushing flamboyant self-interest too hard can look irresponsible if the country is heading for a food inflation crisis or the war spreads further and endangers Nato.

But Rayner is a modern politician in that she sees her story from a hardscrabble background, fight to flourish professionally and readiness to question the status quo as the nearest Britain has to a JD Vance Hillbilly Elegy foundational text for a different kind of voice – more off-the-cuff than rivals, unafraid of scrapes, and prepared to power through controversies.

Indeed, she was sharp enough to make this connection when she encountered Vance a year ago in Rome and wielded her full range of charm, I am told, to good effect: “They got along great.” It is also a sign that Rayner may not have entirely given up her quest for a higher profile abroad as well as domestically.

Her bet is a two-way one: either Labour’s boss class will be too scared of her outside the tent not to bring her back in a substantial role. Or the leadership moment could provide a launchpad for a go at the top job in circumstances which could move fast after May – or more messily later. In any eventuality, she will be a figure to reckon with and with whom other competitors will need to reckon and include her in their calculations.  

A better name for the podcast would be drawn from another story of gritty social mobility: Dirty Dancing’s resonant rallying cry: “Nobody puts baby in a corner.” One way or the other, Rayner is ready to tear up the Labour dance floor.

Anne McElvoy is executive editor at Politico 

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