Angela Rayner left school without any qualifications and became pregnant at 16, but was determined to get a job. “I wanted a hand up not a handout,” she says

When Angela Rayner announced the birth of her first granddaughter last week in a tweet using the hashtag #Grangela she became parliament’s youngest, most glamorous granny. The Labour MP, who is 37, has been in the House of Commons for two and a half years but she is always breaking boundaries. She is the first woman to represent Ashton-under-Lyne in Manchester, is already the shadow education secretary and is tipped as a future leader.

Ms Rayner grew up on a council estate in Stockport, her mother could not read or write and suffered from bipolar disorder, neither parent worked, she left school without any qualifications, got pregnant at 16 and left home to bring her child up alone while scrabbling to find a job. “I