Wages have been 'stabilized' under Tories, says Angela Rayner during visit to key battleground

Angela Rayner demands a pay rise for British workers as she makes her first official visit to her new job.

Labour’s deputy leader this week became a shadow secretary, replacing demoted Lisa Nandy as party leader Keir Starmer shuffled his top team ahead of the widely expected general election this year next. On Saturday, she will travel to Blackpool - a key battleground where Labor will have to oust the two Tory MPs if Ms Starmer is to become Prime Minister.

In the Lancashire seaside resort, Rayner will say workers' wages have been 'levelled down' during the 13 years of Tory rule. She is expected to highlight figures showing that 77% of local authorities have seen real wages for full-time workers fall since 2010. Visiting local businesses, the MP will say Britain “will never be better without a wage decent.”

She said, “Our proud industrial and coastal communities were, in living memory, the places that powered the country. But after 13 years of neglect by the Conservatives, people in these areas are seeing their wages drop while the cost of living is soaring. People need money back in their pockets, we need good jobs and good wages - but under the Tories wages are leveled down.

“Good jobs and decent housing are the foundation of everyone’s life. Labor has a comprehensive plan to create good jobs across the country and improve living standards for everyone. On Friday, she was already in her native northwest, working in her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester.

Picture:

Inside his office in Ashton Market Hall, satirical cartoons of a clumsy Boris Johnson and a black-and-white photograph of the arrest of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurt in 1906 dominate the walls. An illustrated paper plate depicting Judith Kerr's fictional voracious tiger is neatly mounted, with the inscription "The curator who came for tea but voted to let the kids go without."

Its new role as shadow cabinet is comprehensive, encompassing housing, communities and local government. This is clearly close to her heart, revealing that she has spent sleepless nights hearing stories from her constituents about their struggles with the cost of living crisis. She was even recently moved to tears by a woman's problems.

"She became very seriously ill from a problem in her accommodation and it took a turn for the worse," she recalls as we cruise through her riding on Miror's Rayner on the Road RV (MUST), which draws smiles and glances as we pass by. by. "It affected his job, it affected his health, it affected everything.

"And she was scared because she felt like she had nowhere to turn, that she had moved from one charity to another and had gone through all the loopholes. For me, it was heartbreaking because she had tried her best, she was working. And one thing that went wrong means everything fell apart.

"She felt like she...