Londoner’s Diary
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 2023 was the year of “rizz”. The term, which can be applied as a noun or verb (“I have rizz”/ “he got rizzed”) derives from the more familiar “charisma”. It refers to the gift of charming, winning over or otherwise seducing interlocutors. To have rizz is to have bags of appeal and charm. So in the Westminster jungle, where charm goes a long way, who tops the rizz rankings? The Londoner is on hand to catalogue the most and least rizzy politicians in the current House of Commons (sorry to Lord Cameron, who would have made this list if he was still an MP). Disclaimer: the rankings are based purely on rizz. Even the trashiest MP can be charming and the most righteous can be incredibly dull.
James Cleverly
The Home Secretary, like some a true virtuso rizz artist, is incapable of keeping his mouth shut. That can get him into trouble. Think shit-gate, when he was accused of insulting the people of Stockton North after making passionate heckles at Prime Minister’s Questions last month. But it also makes him fantastically entertaining company, capable of holding his own at Westminster drinks receptions - even if he does sometimes stumble into making a misjudged joke about the porn site Only Fans. Cleverly is our king of rizz this year. We won’t comment on roué rumours about his flirting technique that have been aired in the more unscrupulous gossip columns.
Angela Rayner
The last time we ran into her, Labour’s deputy leader was scoffing Christmas canapes and regaling us with interior decoration tips. She has a habit of putting her foot in it/saying it how it is (depending on your view). But put aside the argument about whether free-spirited Rayner is a political asset or a liability for Labour going into the election, she is widely known for being genuinely funny and down to earth both on and off the record.
Priti Patel
The former home secretary has admirable reserves of self-confidence, a glint in her eye and a trademark perma-smirk. A source recounts being at dinner with Patel recently when a sloshed patron began barracking her. It quickly became clear that this self-righteous heckler had in fact confused Patel for her successor as home secretary, Suella Braverman, also a woman of South Asian heritage. It was not just the racial insensitivity that annoyed Patel, our source relates, but the fact that “I’m much better looking than Suella”. Back yourself!
Emily Thornberry
If a fundamental component of rizz is natural charm, Labour’s Emily Thornberry has it in spades. Whether she is debating the issues of the day on television, chain-puffing cigarettes in the smoking area of a Labour conference party, or sinking Belgian blondes on holiday with her girl-friends, nobody in politics seems to be enjoying themself as much as Thornberry.
Penny Mordaunt
The Leader of the House of Commons, who has run for No 10 twice, has a devoted cult of personality among young Tories which was only bolstered by her star performance at the coronation, where she flexed her muscles by holding the sword of state aloft for a whopping 51 minutes. Mordaunt is funny and particularly foul-mouthed, even by Westminster standards. But delivers her expletive-laden sentences with cut-glass elegance and style.
Michael Gove
How else has he lasted at the top of government for so long? Gove is the great survivor of the past thirteen years of Tory rule because, yes, he is an effective minister, but also because he is a consummate smoothie. We can attest.
Gillian Keegan
Bleep! Bleep! Bleep! Nobody swore it better. And perhaps other people should get off their arses? We salute you, Gillian.
Matt Hancock
With his romantic and reality TV success, he must have something. Hancock is a fixture on the Westminster scene and your diarist first met him at a summer party last year when he was a recently disgraced former health secretary who had been caught smooching on camera. He was kitted out in white trainers, jeans, a t-shirt and blazer, like a dad in the Arsenal family stand. His opening gambit? “Hi there, I'm Matt. Will you donate to my Just Giving page?” The front! He was planning to climb a mountain for charity with his partner Gina Coladangelo.
Jess Phillips
Labour backbencher Jess Phillips had a rapid rise to prominence after becoming an MP in 2015. Her easy-going style and ability to make headlines got her gigs on Have I Got News For You etc. Despite high hopes from some, her attempt to run for Labour leader in 2020 quickly immolated, but she remains a prominent voice in the party, a charismatic presence at parties and still makes headlines: she recently revealed in a candid interview that she has had plastic surgery.
Theresa May
The vicar’s daughter? The deliverer of famously rizz-less, phlegmatic conference speeches? Author of the hostile environment policy? The one who did an icky sob on leaving Downing Street? Yes! Former PM May is good company and always makes sure to turn up to smutty book launches in leopard-print high heels.
Rachel Reeves
The shadow chancellor likes to pore over facts and figures, but she has a jokey side too. Reeves notably has pet names for many members of the Labour shadow cabinet, referring to shadow health secretary Wes Streeting as “Wesley” when she is “feeling cheeky”. She’s not yet at Cleverly levels but we think this, along with her infectious giggle, qualify Reeves as a low-level rizz artist. Will her powers grow if she gets into Number 11?
Rizz neutral: Sir Keir Starmer
Even prince of darkness Peter Mandelson says that “he’s very amusing in private”. The word on the street is that, early on in his career as a barrister, the Labour leader learned to have two personalities - an intimate, jokey one for close friends and colleagues, and a serious, dull demeanour he shows to the world. Since he became Labour leader, the public have seen a lot of the latter. Will his rizzy alter-ego emerge before an election?
The losers
Rishi Sunak
In person the prime minister is nice, in the way a competent and involved primary school teacher is nice. But he has no rizz. None.
Sir Ed Davey
The leader of the Liberal Democrats may have been tapped on the shoulder by MI6 when he was a young man, but it was his language skills they were after, not his charisma. He is a delightfully sincere and utterly rizz-less middle-aged man. His photoshoots smashing through the “blue wall” with a plastic mallet are, however, incredibly funny.
Therese Coffey
Yes, Liz Truss’s political soul-mate and short-serving deputy prime minister likes champagne and a cigar, but even these indulgences can’t get Coffey in a merry mood. She has a rather Victorian attitude to the role of being an MP, often seeming genuinely affronted when journalists ask her a question. At the last Tory conference we spotted Coffey marching some quizzical hacks over to her press person so that he could act as ventriloquist.
Lee Anderson
Nope. Sullen, cynical, and funny in a laugh-at rather than laugh-with way.
