ANDREW PIERCE: Labour's Angela Rayner left red-faced over company loss

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One of the first Labour luminaries to attack Jeremy Hunt's Budget —sorry, Autumn Statement — was the deputy leader Angela Rayner.

Fiery Rayner, 42, who recently admitted to getting into debt to pay for a £5,600 boob job when she was 30, insisted that Labour could be trusted to look after the nation's finances. But can she be trusted to look after her own?

In January 2020, she set up a company called Angela Rayner Ltd to manage her successful campaign to be second-in-command to Labour's Sir Keir Starmer.

Companies House records show Angela Rayner's (pictured) firm's assets have dropped from £7,024 last year to £558 and, after taking into account outgoings, it made a loss of £161

More than two years after she secured the number two job, the company was, until recently, still up and running but, I can reveal, its balance sheet has slipped into the red. 

Companies House records show her firm's assets have dropped from £7,024 last year to £558 and, after taking into account outgoings, it made a loss of £161.

Only now has an application been made to wind up Angela Rayner Ltd.

Meanwhile, lest we forget, the country's economy was in such a parlous state when the last Labour government left office that the outgoing Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, left a note for his successor that read: 'Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid that there is no money. Kind regards — and good luck!'

Veterans' minister Johnny Mercer has been mocked on Twitter for piling on the pounds. 'You're starting to look like Nigel Lawson,' read one post. 'You need a good tailor, and cut your calories a bit.'

Mercer's wife, Felicity, rushed to his defence. 'If Twitter had a f*** off button, I would press it now.'

Yet, in 2019, she despaired of finding a suit to fit her husband. Apparently, he 'looks down and out' in them, caused by his 'army shape, with big thighs'.

John Major dig at memorial 

To St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, for a memorial service for the former British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, who died in July.

In his tribute, Adam Boulton, the former Sky News anchor, said the late diplomat was a class act as the press secretary during John Major's troubled premiership in the 1990s. 

Boulton said: 'He was known for speaking truth to power, but he was loyal on and off the record — sometimes he made the case for the Government with more vehemence than John Major.'

Adam Boulton, the former Sky News anchor, said the late Sir Christopher Meyer )pictured was a class act as the press secretary during John Major's troubled premiership in the 1990s

The charge will have stung one individual sitting in the second row — the former Tory PM himself!

Poor Liz Truss. She'll never be allowed to forget the comparison between her short-lived premiership and the shelf life of a lettuce. 

Truss is now immortalised in a range of 'Lettuce celebrate your birthday' cards, no doubt dreamt up by some unkind 'Romainers'.

Will Matt Hancock be crowned the next Elon Musk when he leaves the jungle? When investigating apps like Twitter, the Wall Street Journal alighted on 'something a little more niche — the Matt Hancock app'. 

The Journal notes that more than 243,000 have signed up. The app gives updates on the Right Honourable Member for Down Under and offers fans the chance to share their views. 

When investigating apps like Twitter, the Wall Street Journal alighted on 'something a little more niche — the Matt Hancock (pictured) app'

But efforts to investigate further were stymied by the fact that 'Mr Hancock couldn't be reached for comment'.

A problem that is also shared by his constituents.

Gasps in the Lords when a Lib Dem, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, warned the upper chamber could become 'unbalanced'. 

He meant in the sense of voting numbers — with a slew of new Tories squeezing the competition — rather than that the Lords were going round the bend. That happened years ago, surely?

There was a very special guest at last week's Banqueting House reception at Whitehall to launch Lord Ashcroft's new book on the intelligence corps, In The Shadows. 

He paid tribute to Betty Webb, 99, one of the last surviving Bletchley Park wartime code breakers.

'It was so secretive I didn't even know what was going on in the room next door,' she said.