Best Of

FPT to Turbotubbs.....

If I was the suspicious type I might have thought Starmer himself was the lawyer who gave Ange the advice! This has worked out perfectly for him. He's got a shiny new team none of whom eat peas with their knife. From a government POV this couldn't have worked out better. Angie was never up to the job and despite protestations Starmer's much more comfortable without that particular loose cannon swinging around Downing Street.....

....No the story is about Ange herself and the snobbery that brought her down. The Telegraph and Mail have been campaigning against her for months. Pure snobbery. Someone on here yesterday called her 'Gobby'. I'm afraid that's what females from her background who are climbing the ladder are having to put up with.It is so depressing.... Just another scalp for some double barrelled nobody at the Telegraph

If Labour and its supporters tell themselves that "snobbery that brought her down" then they're screwed. Rayner did something minorly wrong, but for a value that is eye-watering for many voters. She denied wrongdoing, and then tried to blame others. She was in denial. All MPs (of all parties, not just Labour) need to learn lessons from this. Many are too thick, or greedy, or self-important, to do so.

The government's media management, and management of its MPs, is awful. They need to fix this. They need to develop a few simple messages and deliver them effectively. Since Starmer is incapable of the messaging, they need someone else. Lammy isn't it.

I don't think Rayner did deny wrongdoing. She fessed up, and wanted to pay the £40k. And she promptly and quite graciously accepted the findings of the Independent Adviser, falling on her sword immediately and admitting she'd been negligent.

Yes but the narrative of those hostile to Rayner is to paint as negative a picture of her as possible to forestall any attempt at rehabilitation in a year or two.

The fact remains she breached the Ministerial Code and that made her position untenable. Whether said Code is fit for purpose is another question - we want to ensure Government is as free as possible from allegations of corruption or inappropriate influence such as from third party lobbying companies - but the notion complex non-Government related private financial transactions need to be held to such a high standard - well, I understand why many would wish our Ministers to be beyond any kind of reproach especially since the Expenses Scandal - doesn't sit well with me and some latitude for genuine errors should exist (as distinct from deliberate and planned tax evasion).

She was a damn fool not to seek further advice as recommended.

But I'm remembering how but for a chance conversation with my accountant I would once have ended up paying the wrong rate of stamp duty too, and it would never even have crossed my mind to check.

There but for the grace of God...

Probably about the size of it. And it's not easy to distinguish between "get more advice because I'm covering myself" and "get more advice because you really need more advice".

Some other big-picture observations.

It's good to be back in a world where ethical judgements cause ministers to resign, not ethical advisers.

The chorus of "this wouldn't have happened if Rayner hadn't been so aggressive in opposition" is obviously claptrap.

Politicians of various colours have returned from worse things than this.

She only resigned after the ethical advisor told her she had broke the ministerial code. That's fine, but you don't extra Brownie points, especially after 2 weeks of deflecting and lying. It's a standard political scandal.

FPT to Turbotubbs.....

If I was the suspicious type I might have thought Starmer himself was the lawyer who gave Ange the advice! This has worked out perfectly for him. He's got a shiny new team none of whom eat peas with their knife. From a government POV this couldn't have worked out better. Angie was never up to the job and despite protestations Starmer's much more comfortable without that particular loose cannon swinging around Downing Street.....

....No the story is about Ange herself and the snobbery that brought her down. The Telegraph and Mail have been campaigning against her for months. Pure snobbery. Someone on here yesterday called her 'Gobby'. I'm afraid that's what females from her background who are climbing the ladder are having to put up with.It is so depressing.... Just another scalp for some double barrelled nobody at the Telegraph

If Labour and its supporters tell themselves that "snobbery that brought her down" then they're screwed. Rayner did something minorly wrong, but for a value that is eye-watering for many voters. She denied wrongdoing, and then tried to blame others. She was in denial. All MPs (of all parties, not just Labour) need to learn lessons from this. Many are too thick, or greedy, or self-important, to do so.

The government's media management, and management of its MPs, is awful. They need to fix this. They need to develop a few simple messages and deliver them effectively. Since Starmer is incapable of the messaging, they need someone else. Lammy isn't it.

I don't think Rayner did deny wrongdoing. She fessed up, and wanted to pay the £40k. And she promptly and quite graciously accepted the findings of the Independent Adviser, falling on her sword immediately and admitting she'd been negligent.

Not true, for the first week, she said she had done nothing wrong. Only after addition drip drip, did she employ an expensive KC to look over the weekend, who told her on Monday she had done wrong. Her story then changed to but I got 3 different legal opinions who all told me I only had to pay the lower amount.

This was untrue. Over the past few years she has employed 1 law firm and 2 conveyancers. Two came out and said they were never asked nor provided any advice, they knew nothing about the house purchase. The third said we don't provide tax advice and it was revealed on the paperwork, twice, it told her due to their complex tax affairs she needed to get dedicated advice. She didn't do it.

FPT to Turbotubbs.....

If I was the suspicious type I might have thought Starmer himself was the lawyer who gave Ange the advice! This has worked out perfectly for him. He's got a shiny new team none of whom eat peas with their knife. From a government POV this couldn't have worked out better. Angie was never up to the job and despite protestations Starmer's much more comfortable without that particular loose cannon swinging around Downing Street.....

....No the story is about Ange herself and the snobbery that brought her down. The Telegraph and Mail have been campaigning against her for months. Pure snobbery. Someone on here yesterday called her 'Gobby'. I'm afraid that's what females from her background who are climbing the ladder are having to put up with.It is so depressing.... Just another scalp for some double barrelled nobody at the Telegraph

If Labour and its supporters tell themselves that "snobbery that brought her down" then they're screwed. Rayner did something minorly wrong, but for a value that is eye-watering for many voters. She denied wrongdoing, and then tried to blame others. She was in denial. All MPs (of all parties, not just Labour) need to learn lessons from this. Many are too thick, or greedy, or self-important, to do so.

The government's media management, and management of its MPs, is awful. They need to fix this. They need to develop a few simple messages and deliver them effectively. Since Starmer is incapable of the messaging, they need someone else. Lammy isn't it.

I don't think Rayner did deny wrongdoing. She fessed up, and wanted to pay the £40k. And she promptly and quite graciously accepted the findings of the Independent Adviser, falling on her sword immediately and admitting she'd been negligent.

Yes but the narrative of those hostile to Rayner is to paint as negative a picture of her as possible to forestall any attempt at rehabilitation in a year or two.

The fact remains she breached the Ministerial Code and that made her position untenable. Whether said Code is fit for purpose is another question - we want to ensure Government is as free as possible from allegations of corruption or inappropriate influence such as from third party lobbying companies - but the notion complex non-Government related private financial transactions need to be held to such a high standard - well, I understand why many would wish our Ministers to be beyond any kind of reproach especially since the Expenses Scandal - doesn't sit well with me and some latitude for genuine errors should exist (as distinct from deliberate and planned tax evasion).

She was a damn fool not to seek further advice as recommended.

But I'm remembering how but for a chance conversation with my accountant I would once have ended up paying the wrong rate of stamp duty too, and it would never even have crossed my mind to check.

There but for the grace of God...

Most of the population will have had similar experiences. The whole thing has essentially been a nonsense.

But an important political job dione by the Telegraph, with which they are
delighted.

Most of the population don't own more than one home, or have Trusts for their kids.

Most MPs on the other hand might be different.

OTOH, most/all people whose children suffer medical disaster do have trusts for their child. The compensation is owned by the child who whether as a child or [edit] often also as an adult, as here, is legally incapable oif managing it. So a trust is vital. Indeed, I'm not sure it's even possible to pay the compo without a trust to receive it. That's the fair comparison.

Nor did Ms Rayner own two houses except in the technical sense, which was due to expire soon anyway. Which is fewer than a lot of MPs.

Trevor Phillips of Sky suggest the winners from yesterday are Shabana Mahmood and Pat McFadden

He expects Mahmood to be much more forceful on immigration and the boats and McFadden on reigning in the welfare budget

I agree with him and actually quite like both those politicians and appointments

The bigger question is will labour mps go along with these two important ministers

Re the last paragraph, likely QTWTAIN - but, they do have one last chance after the budget to properly seize the moment and get the unpopular (to Labour MPs, anyway) out of the way with, to then move the narrative on to (they hope) a better 2027/28/29.

It will require a level of direction, conviction and strength of purpose that Labour have been extremely lacking up til now, so I don’t rate the chances at higher than 10%, but the next 12 months are really critical for Labour - they’ve already wasted the first 12, and they’re soon going to be approaching midterm where any will to do anything painful will completely evaporate.

Backbench MPs want to close the deficit, avoid tax rises and avoid spending cuts.

There's one and only one way that's possible, and no not an economic miracle, the country needs serious per capita economic growth.

The problem is we haven't had that in a long time, despite continuous technological improvements which should make it viable.

The way to achieve that is to remove the handbrakes from the economy that enable people to say no to development and growth.

The problem is there seems to be no desire to actually do that, as in addition to opposing deficits, taxes and spending cuts, they also oppose development and growth.

Truss taught us a valuable lesson: that the room for manoeuvre of a UK government is quite limited and that the penalties for exceeding those limits are harsh. It is the reluctance of politicians of all stripes to accept the value of that lesson that I find painful.

Come on, that lesson was learned in September 1992, it had just been forgotten.

It had also been taught in the 60s and 70s as well - devaluation anyone?

France learned it in the Mitterrand Presidency - the truth is the scope for Govenrments to be "radical" pace Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher has been vastly reduced by globalisation and the new inter dependencies of trade, debt management and so on. That's why Governments end up doing nothing but that's about all they can do.

Every time we discuss trying to reduce the deficit on here for example, we end up with some numpty advocating the wholesale slashing of pensions and benefits - for many people that's all they have. There are many rich pensioners but not all pensioners are rich. They are many poor hard working people but not all working people are poor or work hard - that's the problem when you try policy making by generalisation, misconception or prejudice.