False claims that Angela Rayner has been appointed health secretary, alongside an AI-generated fake image of her smoking, have been circulating on social media.

The image of Ms Rayner with a cigarette and holding a pint of beer has been shared online in recent days, alongside a caption saying: “Welcome our new health secretary”.

But this is false. The Ashton-under-Lyne Labour MP has not been made health secretary in Andy Burnham’s cabinet.

On 20 July she was appointed as secretary of state for housing, communities and local government. Yvette Cooper was made the secretary of state for health on the same day.

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The image of Ms Rayner smoking is also fake. Genuine pictures of Ms Rayner smoking and drinking do exist, but we found that this image contains an invisible SynthID watermark indicating it was “generated with OpenAI tools” such as ChatGPT, the OpenAI API or Codex.

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