Best Of

This I why I would be sacking, or reshuffling Raynor
I really don't give a crap either way about this tax thing; let the Revenue sort it out.

Over the last three years, housebuilding in London has collapsed. Molior recorded just 2,158 private starts in the first half of 2025, around 5% of London’s (low) targets, and still falling.

What is going on? I have posed this question to numerous specialists, most of whom cannot comment publicly for professional reasons. This thread is a summary of what I have gleaned.
https://x.com/SCP_Hughes/status/1963196403913494704

Whether or not she made a mistake or accidentally-on-purpose misstated her tax position is of minimal interest to me.
The fact that this government is proving as feeble as the last one in sorting out the planning morass, actually matters to millions of people's lives.

This is the sort of guy we should have over here.

"Farage condemned as 'Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant' by ranking Democrat on House judiciary committee

Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, says they do have free speech in the UK. He says Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News, even though Farage has a show on that station in which he criticises the government and calls for bans on peaceful protests.

He says Farage is able to parrot “Putin’s absurd talking points” on TV. He goes on:

"For a man who fancies himself to some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr Farage seems most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on earth."

He says Farage wants to get rid of the Online Safety Act. But if he wants to do that, he should be advancing those arguments in the UK parliament, which is meeting today, Raskin says.

He goes on:

"To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come over to America and see what Trump and Mega are doing to destroy our freedom, kidnap college students off the street, ban books from our libraries, militarise our police and unleash them against our communities, take over our universities … You might think twice before you let Mr Farage “make Britain great again"."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/sep/03/farage-starmer-badenoch-pmqs-news-updates-uk-politics-live

Here’s an easy way to save mega billions. Sack Ed Miliband

“Reeves faces £11bn bill over Miliband’s North Sea shutdown”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/09/03/reeves-faces-11bn-bill-over-milibands-north-sea-shutdown/

Yes, Miliband‘s approach to net zero is a perfect example of the kind of bone-headed stupidity that the UK is suffering from.

Refusal to permit North Sea gas when we are clearly going to end up importing LNG instead, making blocking the development permits nothing but hypocritical grandstanding. Refusal to implement regional electricity pricing for fear of electricity in Scotland being cheaper than in England. Scotland could probably do with the support of cheaper prices to support local industry, but no - lets force the wind farms to burn their brake blocks up turning themselves off in times of high winds instead. The side effect of convincing yet more Scots that London cares more about English voters than it does about Scottish ones is an extra bonus! etc etc.

Net zero is a worthy goal! We should be going at it 100% - but we do that by being honest about what’s in front of us, not by lying to everyone about electricity prices & hoping nobody notices that it’s our fault because we refuse to build out nuclear at reasonable cost.

Kemi and the rest of the Tories can do one . Rayner trying to support her son and ensure he’s looked after is now a crime apparently .

And Tice can also do one , supporting Farage the traitor.

Rayner should stress the good parent angle , she tried to do the right thing , was given bad advice and tell the right wing press to go fxck themselves .

So tax minimisation is actually OK providing you have a good enough reason to do it?

The trust was set up to look after her son , that’s it. Any good parent would do what they could to do that given he’s now disabled . The Tories who were happy to fellate Bozo and Tice who supports a traitor should STFU .

Rayner doesn’t need lectures from them .

In what way is it necessary to set up a trust to look after a child?

I feel like trusts only reason for existence is to dodge tax.

If the child has been awarded a large financial settlement to pay for their care for the rest of their life. Then a trust with independent trustees would seem a sensible precaution in the child's interest.

From the Guardian


"She said in her statement: “Ashton remains my family home, as it has been for over a decade. It contains the majority of my possessions and it is where I am registered for most official and financial purposes ranging from credit cards to the dentist to the electoral roll. But most importantly, it is where my children live and have gone to school and now college, and where I regularly live while caring for them.”

Rayner has another property she spends time in, too – a grace-and-favour apartment in Admiralty House on Whitehall. She neither owns this nor pays council tax on it.

This is one reason some have accused her of hypocrisy. For almost everything, Rayner counts the Ashton home as her main property. For stamp duty reasons only, the Hove flat took precedence"


It already looked dodgy af. Where did she get the money?! But now there is potential fraud, to add to the dodginess

And she's housing minister

This is surely not survivable

It depends whether she engaged in tax evasion or not. And we don't know.

My problem is the optics. Basic principle in our modern democracy surely has to be that you live in and around the constituency? I give a little leeway for people who find themselves removed from it by a boundary change, but in and around the constituents you represent.

She claims that she still does. But not when declaring taxes? Even when the belief was that this tax arrangement was allowable it looked politically brave.

Yes, it's the optics

Even if it turns out she has a decent excuse for underpaid tax, the optics are terminal. At the very least she bent the law to avoid tax, on a lovely new flat, by claming her real home is hundreds of miles from her constituency. And she is housing minister?!

Can't be squared away

That point can be squared away. I'll do it now.

The stamp duty payable on the Hove flat depends on whether it was the only property she owned when she bought it. She declared it was. This meant she avoided the higher rate of stamp duty that's applicable to second (and third etc) properties.

This is not tantamount to her claiming it as her 'real home'. Main residence is a separate matter which isn't relevant to the stamp duty calculation.

In which case, there would be no underpayment. However, she says that there was an underpayment. So, the Return was incorrect.

That might be an innocent, or negligent mistakr, rather than fraudulent, in fact, it most likely was.

Yes exactly. The issue would appear to be the trust which owns the family house. That constitutes an interest in it (for her) such that the flat becomes not her only owned property and thus liable for the higher rate of stamp duty.

They must now ascertain whether the error was an innocent one. If it was perhaps she survives (and deserves to). If not she surely doesn't.

My view is that she should resign as a minister, if HMRC impose a penalty. But, not otherwise.

Essentially, penalties are imposed depending on whether the underpayment was innocent, negligent, or deliberate; and whether the disclosure of the underpayment was voluntary or prompted. On a few occasions, as a professional executor, I've discovered that I have underpaid Inheritance Tax, because more assets of the estate have come to light. I've faced no penalty, because the underpayment was innocent, and I disclosed it without any prompting. All I had to do was pay the balance with interest.

Rayner has voluntarily disclosed the underpayment, and it is most unlikely that she was deliberately filing a false return (if she did, she would be made to resign as an MP). So, the issue is likely to be innocence v negligence.