'Angela Raver' ready to fight for four-day working week proposal

As the photos of Angela Rayner raving in an Ibiza nightclub confirm, the deputy prime minister enjoys her time off.

But hey, it was August.

And, to be fair, hours earlier she chaired a meeting in Whitehall on building safety, before jetting off to the Spanish holiday isle.

But while "Angela Raver" was enjoying the final days of Parliament's summer recess in the sun-kissed Balearics, back home political opponents were accusing her of making it too easy for the rest of us to take time off.

It's claimed that under Ms Rayner's Make Work Pay shake-up of employment laws - including axing zero-hours contracts, fire-and-rehire, and Tory anti-strike laws - workers are to be given new rights to demand a four-day week.

Not true, the government insists.

"We have no plans to impose a four-day working week on employers or employees," says a Whitehall official.

But ministers ARE proposing making it easier to work flexible hours.

Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary who made a surprise comeback as an education minister after the July election, says flexible working with "compressed hours" - dreadful jargon - is good for productivity.

So, for example, instead of working eight hours a day for five days, you could work 10 hours a day for four days, still doing the same amount of work, but needing less child care and spending more time with your family.

Sounds sensible, then?

Well, not according to the Conservatives' shadow business secretary, Kevin Hollinrake, who claims the dancing deputy prime minister is proposing "French-style union laws" and that businesses are "petrified".

Er, has anyone told Mr Hollinrake that Boris Johnson's 2019 Conservative manifesto committed the Tories to encouraging flexible working? Or have the Conservatives conveniently forgotten that?

In a Sky News interview, however, Mr Hollinrake claimed there was a "world of a difference" between the Conservative and Labour proposals, because the Tories were only allowing workers to request time off and bosses could refuse.

Maybe so. But we've seen a pattern emerging here this week.

Remember, on smoking, first Rishi Sunak proposed a crackdown, Labour then took it up and now the Tories are attacking the plan.

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Now, on flexible working… Yes, same thing.

Opposition for opposition's sake? It looks like it.

The bigger threat to Labour's employment reforms will surely come not from the Conservatives but from business leaders - and their friends, like Peter Mandelson - if they persuade Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to pull the plug.

The lobbying by big business is already under way. Mr Hollinrake told Sky News in his interview that the bosses of retailers Marks and Spencer and Asda have already said Labour's flexible working plans won't work.

As for Labour's holidaying dancing queen, at the Edinburgh Fringe last August, she boasted that she was proud of her 12-hour rave sessions.

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Well, her dancing is far more classy than Michael Gove's, though that's not difficult.

Like former Labour deputy premier John Prescott, Angela Rayner sees herself as the guardian of the party's traditional values, including workers' rights.

Prescott was a trade union activist, after all, during his days on Cunard liners.

Another similarity between the two Labour deputy PMs is their skills on the dance floor. Prescott and his elegant wife Pauline were renowned as stylish dancers at functions at Labour conferences.

Besides her marathon all-night raves, Ms Rayner also spoke at the Fringe of her favourite "lethal" cocktail, made with vodka, Southern Comfort, Blue WKD and orange juice.

It's called "Venom" - and like the present and former deputy prime minister - remember 2001? - backs a punch.

And venom is something Angela Rayner's opponents can expect from her if she doesn't get her own way on flexible working.