Angela Rayner under fire over taxpayer-funded £68k photographer
23 September 2024, 15:02
Angela Rayner has been accused of ‘vanity’ after hiring a £68,000-a-year photographer at taxpayers’ expense.
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The Deputy PM was reportedly hired on a salary of £68,000.
It is normal for a prime minister to have a personal photographer, but she is understood to be the first deputy PM to have their own .
The government says Simon Walker, the photographer, is part of her communications team, rather than a ‘personal’ hire for Ms Rayner.
Mr Walker’s job description on LinkedIn says he is the “chief photographer to the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He was previously Rishi Sunak’s chief photographer.
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The Labour party said in 2021 that the photographer hired for Boris Johnson was “part of a coterie of vanity photographers.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the hire, but said Mr Walker was not Ms Rayner’s ‘personal photographer.’
She told LBC this morning: “All government departments have comms teams, communications teams, to promote the campaigns, the policies and the work of government departments. We are reducing the budget for the Government Communications Department because I do want to get a grip on Government spending.”
A spokesman for Ms Rayner’s housing department told the Mail: “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.”
