A Woman's Right To Party: In Defence Of Angela Rayner's Raving
Party girls come in many forms. There’s the once a month, Sunday daytime raver. There’s the twice a year, guest-list only, stiletto devotee. There’s the Friday night, pints at the pub kind of woman – who will be convinced to swap the pub for the club with a shot of tequila, though she will object that she didn’t dress for it.
Then there are the boozy brunch-ers, the queens of the karaoke machine, and of course, the Ibiza weekenders. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner falls into the latter category, as we discovered last week, when a viral video showed her dancing behind the decks at Hï Ibiza. The footage was posted at 4am – by British TV icon, Denise van Outen, no less – and shows Rayner dancing to a remix of the 2011 Gotye classic, Somebody That I Used To Know, as 5,000 club-goers rave around her.
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Earlier that day, Rayner had been attending to Government duties and met with mayors and housing regulators to discuss speeding up the removal of dangerous cladding from thousands of London’s residential buildings. Clearly, with little time to change before her big night out, she was still sporting her classic Labour red dress at the club.
Of course, back home, not everyone was happy to see their newly elected Deputy PM dancing the night away. ‘She's raving in Ibiza but raving mad in the UK,’ commented one user online. ‘Who would believe that this person is the deputy prime minister of the mighty United Kingdom. I still have nightmares when I think about Liz Truss but this is even more scary,’ wrote another.
Disguised within the general backlash also came a wave of ageist misogyny. There is an often unspoken patriarchal belief that once a woman reaches a certain age (Rayner is 44), partying becomes sad, desperate and something of a joke. To have a wild night out as a woman in her twenties might be seen as cute, fun and flirty, but for women over 40, it’s dubbed a mid-life crisis. The mentality is very much that women should be at home raising a family, not raising the roof of Ibiza super-clubs.
‘What shall I have for tea tonight? I was going to have lamb, but maybe I'll have mutton instead,’ remarked one YouTube commenter. ‘Embarrassing old boiler’ and ‘Housing Estate slapper’ were among other opinions. All left by men, I might add.
As we well know, parties and Downing Street have not boded so well in the past... Yet, while Britain was told bluntly to ‘move on’ from Partygate and Nigel Farage was crowned ‘Man of the People’ for balancing a pint on his head, women are branded unfit to lead if they have the time for both work and play.
Take Finland’s former Prime Minister Sanna Marin, for example. In 2022, Marin was filmed partying with friends, but when the video leaked it caused such a stir – fuelled by opposing parties – that Marin was even asked to take a drug test. 'I danced, sang, and partied – perfectly legal things. And I've never been in a situation where I've seen or known of others [using drugs],' she said in a statement at the time, having been forced to issue an apology.
And it’s not just politicians: our royals feel the brunt of it, too. ‘If only her work ethic was as good as her appetite for enjoyment’ read one comment on the Daily Mirror when Kate Middleton made a surprise appearance at Houghton festival last summer – the UK’s only 24-hour electronic music festival. Meanwhile, during his untamed, sex-in-a-field, partying days, Prince Harry was granted the common, damaging, excuse that ‘boys will be boys’.
That said, while many believe that those in positions of power should spend every spare moment fixing the country rather than letting loose, for younger generations, it certainly helps make them more relatable. Rayner may not have been wearing slime green, but to be spotted jumping behind the decks of one of the world’s most famous nightclubs at 4am, may as well have been Brat Summer’s grand finale.
‘I’d much rather vote for politicians who go out and party,’ says Lily, a 20-year-old, London-based film student. ‘It makes them more relatable, more likeable. If they were dancing to Beyoncé then I’d like them. Or maybe it would make me dislike Beyoncé.’
Speaking of Queen Bey... Earlier this summer the singer granted permission for US Presidential candidate Kamala Harris to use 2016 anthem ‘Freedom’ as her official campaign soundtrack. But before she sought Beyoncé’s approval, Harris had already been labelled ‘Brat’ by Charli XCX herself. And although Harris hasn’t been seen on any Spanish islands recently, to be endorsed by the world’s most famous current party girl means Harris may as well be smoking Marlboros and dancing on the podium.
While women are more than capable of both doing their job and letting their hair down, it’s also vital for mental health. Indeed, evolutionary psychologists suggest that moving rhythmically in unison was an early method of human communication – so going out, dancing, sweating and forgetting, even just for a brief moment, is a form of escapism that we are all equally entitled to.
Not to mention what would happen if we didn’t all switch off from time to time. Granted, alcohol and cigarettes can’t exactly be described as healthy habits, but leaving your worries at the door and hitting the dance floor has been proven to significantly reduce stress levels and give the mind a necessary break. In a study from 2022, 88% of students claimed that clubbing positively impacted their mental wellbeing. And though students may not face the same pressures as those leading a country, surely, with such weight only comes a greater need for the odd, epic night out. Cheers to you, Angela Raver.
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