Angela Rayner accuses Theresa May of sneering at her in the Commons

The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, has accused Theresa May of “sneering” at her when they sit opposite each other in the Commons, saying she felt she was not sufficiently posh for the prime minister.

The comments by Rayner, who left school without any qualifications aged 16 when she was pregnant, came when she was asked about May’s choice of ideal dinner party guests.

May named the author Agatha Christie, the aviator Lettice Curtis, the explorer Edward Whymper, the travel writer Wilfred Thesiger, the artist Sir Stanley Spencer and the horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll as her choice of guests in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.

Asked by Sky News if she might have expected to be on the list, Rayner said: “I’m not surprised at all. Theresa May often looks at me and sneers when I see her opposite the dispatch box, so I’m not surprised she wouldn’t want me at her dinner party, to be honest. I’m probably not posh enough.”

Rayner was appearing to talk about Labour’s plan to abolish university tuition fees.

Aside from their eminence in the arts or exploration, the group chosen by May – the Oxford-educated daughter of a vicar – has another thing in common: they are all dead, with Curtis having died in 2014 aged 99.