It is “not true” that Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner is a “normal member of the working class”, a senior Conservative has said.
Rayner triggered a controversy last week when she described Conservative politicians as “scum”.
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, told Tory members at an event on the fringes of the Conservative conference in Manchester on Monday that it had “become fashionable” for politicians to speak about their upbringing.
“Everybody now has a poverty-stricken origin in their backstory,” he said. “And of course the press are gullible about it.”
Davis told the event hosted by ConHome: “The press believe that Angela Rayner is a normal member of the working class. Of course it’s not true.
“Normal working class [people] are not so rude to call people ‘scum’ for a start.”
Raised on a council estate in Stockport, Rayner recently spoke openly about her childhood. In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, she spoke about being “from a background where it’s sort of implied that things are done to you, rather than that you’re somebody who can achieve things” and having a “master’s in real life”.
In a speech at Labour’s conference last weekend, Rayner said of the government: “We cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute vile… banana republic, vile, nasty, Etonian… piece of scum.”
She later challenged Boris Johnson to sit down with her and apologise for his own “racist, homophobic and sexist” comments.