‘Interesting’: Nigel Farage reacts to Angela Rayner’s PMQs swipe as Keir Starmer comparison drawn

"Today, she took a sober tone. Forget the balance of the arguments and I thought generally, she was pretty calm," Nigel said during a GB News discussion.

He added: "She was in charge. She showed some pretty hard, left-wing views on the damage they are doing to private education."

Nigel particularly noted Rayner's confident delivery style, saying: "While she has her brief, she is able to deliver her statement without looking down all the time unlike Starmer and Rachel Reeves."

Former Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle echoed Farage's assessment, describing Rayner's performance as that of a "proper politician" during the same GB News discussion.

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The Deputy Prime Minister faced shadow home secretary Chris Philp at the despatch box, stepping in whilst Starmer attended the G7 summit in Canada.

During the exchanges, Rayner delivered a robust defence of Labour's immigration policies, telling Philp she didn't know how he had the "brass neck" to criticise the government's approach.

She pointed out that immigration had increased fourfold under the previous Conservative government, creating a backlog that required 400 asylum hotels costing £1m daily.

Rayner stated that Labour had already reduced this to "just over 200 hundred hotels" in their first 12 months in office.

This marked Rayner's first time chairing Cabinet, a rare occurrence for a Deputy Prime Minister. She took the helm whilst Starmer attended the G7 summit in Canada, where leaders signed a declaration supporting Israel and condemning Iran.

It was the first time a Deputy PM had chaired Cabinet since Dominic Raab stood in for the hospitalised Boris Johnson during the Covid pandemic.

A Downing Street spokesman said the government was "getting on with the job" whilst the Prime Minister was away, noting that Starmer remained "always in charge" and was kept updated throughout.

Westminster tradition dictates that when the Prime Minister is unavailable for PMQs, their deputy steps in, with the Leader of the Opposition's second-in-command doing likewise.

Rayner's growing political stature comes as she faces criticism over Labour's ambitious housing targets. Earlier this week, she defiantly told critics to "underestimate me at your peril" after property agent Savills forecast only 840,000 new homes would be built, just over half of Labour's 1.5 million target.

"People have done this all my life," Rayner wrote in The Independent, announcing the launch of a National Housing Bank backed by £22bn in Government finance.

Recent polling shows her popularity amongst Labour members has surged, earning a 71-point approval rating after calling for tax rises on the wealthy. She now ranks second only to Andy Burnham as a potential successor to Starmer, with 47 per cent backing amongst members.