Update 5th September, the next day: she resigned. Surprised? No, not me. I believe she was reckless as to whether she was underpaying stamp duty and has been adjudged to have broken the ministerial code. I don’t think she has acted with integrity but hypocritically and stupidly. The public can see through her public face. Starmer appears to be blind to her true character.
Okay this is a Daily Express poll so right-wing. The readers are likely to not be great fans of Labour and Angela Rayner but the 97% agreement that Rayner should go is startling in its clarity and I must say I am pretty sure that the British public at large in general agree with this poll result because the news points to Angela Rayner knowing what she was doing. I would allege that she knew the risks and decided to try and get away with saving 40 grand in tax
The local conveyancing firm involved are already publicly complaining about Rayner saying that their law firm are scapegoats in providing incorrect advice and yet they say unequivocally that they did not provide tax advice (stamp duty advice I suspect) on the conveyancing. I believe this relates to the purchase of the Brighton and Hove flat costing £800k.
My gut feeling as stated (an allegation at this stage as we are waiting for the outcome of the investigation) is that Rayner bent stamp duty rules illegally by claiming that she did not have an interest in the Manchester family home after a trust was set up. But that is incorrect. She was in fact legally unentitled to claim that the Brighton flat was her sole and main residence as she did.
She has played fast and loose with her property dealings and declarations for stamp duty and council tax purposes, all the time doing her damnedest to minimise tax obligations.
I’ll predict that she will resign fairly soon. Starmer is too weak to sack her but he may have to after his advisors clammer around him and urge him to do the deed after the investigation report has been concluded and made available. This is expected to happen fairly soon.
Rayner is an ambitious woman which is why she has been politically successful from humble beginnings.
But she has let her ambition take her too far over the line of acceptability into the realms of illegality.
I sense that today when she got up she decided to try and brazen it out judging by the clothes and dark glasses she was wearing. This was an attempt at power dressing but her dress sense is nothing short of appalling. Common as muck as someone might say. No class in respect of selecting appropriate clothes. Frankly she looks horrible in her selection of clothes. She needs a clothes adviser as some high-ranking officials do.
Sorry but female politicians should dress soberly and always in dark trousers!! That sounds horrendously pompous and perhaps sexist but they have to look serious. Flouncing around in a brightly coloured dress and huge dark glasses looking girly does not cut the mustard in the cutthroat world of politics.
These ladies have to compete with men who’ve hit the top tier of politics. It is a man’s world so you have to play the game in a male way, I’d suggest.
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