A difficult Monday morning for Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner. The right-on left-winger is facing some tricky questions today after Lord Ashcroft did some digging into her background for his latest book Red Queen? As part of his Rayner biography, the former Tory peer published documents which showed that in January 2006 the Ashton-under-Lyne MP bought her council house in Vicarage Road, Stockport, with a £26,000 discount under Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme.

She was registered on the electoral roll there from 2005 to March 2015. In 2010 she married Mark Rayner – but, confusingly, they were listed at different addresses for the next five years: she gave her address as Vicarage Road yet he gave his address as Lowndes Lane, a mile away. More mysteriously, when she re-registered the births of her two youngest children that same year, she gave her address as Lowndes Lane. Under electoral rules, voters are expected to register at their permanent home address. Anyone who knowingly provides false information about the address they are registered to vote at could face conviction and a prison sentence.

Tory MP James Daly has duly written to Greater Manchester Police to ask that they investigate whether she gave the correct information, declaring that ‘There is a strong public interest in looking into this matter.’ A Labour party spokesman has said that Rayner ‘was registered to vote at the home she owned and lived in.’ But, as Lord Ashcroft duly noted, this means that she ‘Got married in 2010 but did not live with her husband for the next five years. Why did they live apart?’

Over to you Angela…