Angela Rayner becomes a grandmother at 37

Labour MP Angela Rayner has become a grandmother at 37 years old.

She announced the news on social media, writing this morning: "At just before 6am today after an eventful evening, I became a grandma. Thank you to all the wonderful staff at #NHS#Tameside#grangela".

The Shadow Education Secretary had her first son, Ryan, aged 16 and has previously said that being a teenage mother "saved" her.

She has three sons - Charlie, Ryan and Jimmy.

Her fellow MPs congratulated her, using the nickname "grangela".

Earlier this year, at a Times Red Box fringe event at the Labour conference in Brighton, she said being a teenage mother "actually saved me from where I could have been because I had a little person to look after - I wanted to prove that I could be a good mum and somebody was finally going to love me as much as I deserved to be loved, and that's what pregnancy was for me."

 Ms Rayner has spoken frankly and at length about her upbringing and life - which was markedly different to that of a lot of her colleagues in Westminster.

She doesn't have a university degree, but she said earlier this year that she has a "Masters in real life."

Her life was, she has said, heading in the wrong direction until: “Labour’s Sure Start centres gave me and my friends, and our children, the support we needed to grow and develop”. 

And without the NHS, she proclaims her other son Charlie, who was born prematurely, would not be alive today.