Dominant Rayner appeared to already be in government

ITV’s seven-way debate saw transfer of power far advanced

- JOHN RENTOUL

When Angela Rayner said, “We are not going to be able to tax our way out of this”, Mordaunt slipped her tenses into the period after 4 July: “That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

It was as if they were confronting each other in the House of Commons –from the opposite benches that they occupied in the last parliament – in the early days of a Labour government.

Rayner spoke carefully, as if she were a minister. Her words carried more weight than anyone else’s on the seven-person panel, because power has already shifted. Mordaunt besieged her, haranguing and attacking, as if she was trying to disrupt the new government. It didn’t help that her criticism of Rayner on immigration was, “You’ve had 14 years to come up with a plan”, as if it was Labour’s record that was under discussion.