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Louise Thomas
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Angela Rayner has been spotted raving behind the DJ decks at a nightclub in Ibiza. Following a meeting with mayors and housing regulators on Wednesday, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary was filmed just hours later dancing with the Australian DJ Fisher in front of a vast crowd at an Ibiza superclub.
In footage posted to Instagram by actor and presenter Denise van Outen, the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne could be seen singing along to a remix of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” with the DJ’s headphones around her neck, as a sea of smartphones held aloft in front of her captured the moment.
While parliament is currently in summer recess and not due to return until Monday, Ms Rayner earlier on Thursday shared photographs of herself attending a meeting with mayors and regulators in a bid to expedite the removal of flammable cladding from thousands of buildings.
Her appearance at the 5,500-capacity Hi Ibiza club came as Sir Keir Starmer failed to deny reports he was considering banning smoking outside nightclubs and in pub gardens, and as Tory MPs criticised proposals for flexible working which could allow people to work four-day weeks.
Ms Rayner was previously spotted behind the decks in 2022, playing “Set You Free” by N-Trance at a battle of the DJs charity event in Manchester, where she went up against Greater Manchester and Liverpool mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham.
It is unclear when the deputy PM was due to return from Ibiza, but she has previously spoken of her love for raving and “lethal” cocktails.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, the 44-year-old told comedian Matt Forde that she had just returned from Spain.
“The girls I was raving with are half my age, and I was like: ‘I’m a grandma’. I was proud of that,” she said. “4pm I started, and I got home at six o’clock in the morning when the sun was shining and I was like, ‘Yes, I can do it’.”
Asked whether she had managed it “with or without chemical support”, Ms Rayner reportedly said she just drank vodka, adding: “You’ve got to go with the music, the vibes. You’ve got to be in the moment and it takes you.”
Ms Rayner also revealed that her children call her the “vape dragon” because of her addiction to vaping, and described a penchant for a “lethal” cocktail called Venom, involving a bottle of vodka, a bottle of Southern Comfort, 10 bottles of Blue WKD and a litre of orange juice.
The deputy PM recalled inviting her children’s primary school headteacher to their house, who had needed to take his wife home after drinking the cocktail, adding: “One of my local councillors, I found her curled up in the dog’s bed with the dog.”
Ms Rayner is not the only politician to enjoy a night out, with her predecessor as housing secretary Michael Gove spotted dancing in a suit in a nightclub in Aberdeen in 2021.
A claim at the time that Mr Gove had tried to avoid paying the £5 entry charge by repeatedly stating that he was the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster was rejected by friends of the Tory minister.
