To her most savage critics – from Tories to the far left – she’s “Rotten Rayner”, a tax evader, freeloader and a “low life… on the make”.
To her trade union friends, she’s a victim of misogyny who right-wing politicians are attempting to hound out because she’s working class.
And after her tearful interview on Sky News, even among some of her political opponents there’s a degree of sympathy for Angela Rayner too.
Politics latest: Why the deputy PM nearly resigned
But amid the rancorous debate among MPs about whether she should stay or go, there’s one part of her defence that is attracting scepticism from friends and foes.
That’s her claim that she was initially given duff advice by a solicitor. Really? If she has evidence to substantiate that, she may be in the clear, though there’d no doubt be accusations of an establishment stitch-up.
But if not – and the city grandee who’s the PM’s ethics adviser – the Eton and Oxford-educated baronet Sir Laurie Magnus – rejects her defence, she’ll almost certainly have to go.
And with her resignation – or sacking – would almost certainly go her hopes of succeeding the increasingly unpopular Sir Keir as Labour leader, despite her popularity with the party’s activists.
When she arrived for Prime Minister’s Questions, just half an hour after her bombshell confession, the Labour high command placed a collective arm around her.
Sir Keir Starmer, who told MPs he was proud to sit alongside a deputy PM from a working-class background, put his hand on her left shoulder.
Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, sitting the other side of the beleaguered…
