Is there nobody in Truss's close circle of friends who can sit her down and say "Liz, luv, it's over. Move on with your life."
Sad.
To be politically even-handed, I hope there are those who will do the same with Rayner. The notion she just has to sit on the sidelines for a bit then return is very misplaced.
Surely a ledbydonkeys poster campaign in her seat is imminent
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
But as you say yourself, she wasn't up to the job. And she embodies the toxic tribalism which is everything that is wrong about our politics. Yes she was from a tough background but she doesn't get a free pass based on that alone. FWIW, there was general good cheer at work yesterday at her departure yesterday at work. The people I work with are in no way snobs.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
I don't think it was a deliberate tax dodge. But it was beyond naive, but it was absolute stupidity. You are a very senior politician who only a few months ago her previous claimed living arrangements got her in a lot of bother. You know you have this complicated set of arrangements, the conveyancer tells you you need to get tax advice, you earn a £160k a year and extremely well connected (see how she managed to get a very expensive KC to review her case at the drop of a hat over a weekend), you pay the money to cover your arse.
Then what followed sunk her.
Sam Tarry’s housing situation re multiple homes also had caused him a load of grief when a councillor so between them they should have known more than most to check everything is absolutely bang on before signing on the bottom line.
“ Tarry was a Labour Party councillor for Chadwell Heath ward, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, from 2010 to 2018.[7] Tarry was criticised for allegedly living in his home in Brighton, which is 70 miles away from his then council seat in Barking and Dagenham.[8][9][10] He was investigated by police for electoral fraud in relation to this matter, and was cleared by the police investigation, as he was found to own a second home in Barking and Dagenham, and therefore was legally resident in Barking and Dagenham at the time of his election.”
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).
If as soon as this story broke she had got legal advice, found to have paid the incorrect amount, paid up, said sorry. I don't think she should have lost her job. Slap on the wrist, then she could have done the sit down interview with Rigby and explained her complex situation, end of story. I would also hope that it would have been a learning experience that not every thing a politician does is my team good / their team bad, as she (and Kemi) seem to play the game.
Is there nobody in Truss's close circle of friends who can sit her down and say "Liz, luv, it's over. Move on with your life."
Sad.
She’s probably got a couple of years of getting high-five-figure speech payments from the likes of Turning Point USA, can probably make herself a couple of million and then retire off the back of that.
Like many of us it isn't about money, it's about sense and purpose in life. I don't think Truss is motivated by greed, she was about pure personal ambition. Now it's over and she has nothingness stretching endlessly in front of her.
Most people's lives are about seeking meaning in existence.
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.
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.
Britain’s leading polling expert said that “reshuffling a pack” as the Prime Minister had done with his Cabinet changes on Friday would not solve one of its central issues.
He told BBC Breakfast: “The crucial thing that reshuffling a pack doesn’t obviously do, though maybe what happened on Monday might help, is that a big gaping hole in this Government’s politics is a clear message about what is it that it’s trying to do in terms of the kind of country it is trying to create.”
The polling expert added: “Getting the economy growing, getting people to feel that they’re actually getting to be better off, that is still a central challenge, and a reshuffle is not going to change that.”
In truth the only way Truss was ever going to get over the trauma of losing the premiership in the way she did was to eventually come to terms with it and start to laugh about it and herself. Embrace the lettuce. Roll your eyes at the jokes knowingly, and accept it. The British love an eccentric, particularly one who plays up to it. It wouldn’t quite be the career she had in mind, but it would I think give her a more peaceful time of things.
I do really regret that at the moment she’s essentially done the opposite. She’s doubling down and living in a state of denial. That is sad.
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.
Other than small boats this government will rise or fall on this surely.
It's only a small proportion of the country that worries about housing costs. On average they are the lowest they have been since the '80s. I think a crash in prices is actually more of a risk to them than the opposite, particularly in London/SE if they introduce a property value tax and people start worrying about negative equity.
I think the NHS is a much bigger risk. But all of this is trumped by a general sense of inertia.
Are they?
There is a crucial distinction between house prices and housing costs.
For a start, you have 35%ish of the country that own their property outright. Then you have another 30% who own with a mortgage - they got hammered a bit during the period with high interest rates, but most people with a mortgage do not spend a particularly high proportion of their income on housing. For both these groups, high house prices are a good thing - they are an asset, not a liability or a cost.
Then you have social renters - 15%. A mixed picture, sometimes good, might not want to buy. And then private renters - another 15%. Not all private rents are insanely high - that tends to be an issue in the big cities, not our towns, and not all private renters want to buy anyway (e.g. students).
So you're not left with many people for whom lower house prices is a good thing (and particularly not in the main voting cohorts), nor many people with particularly high housing costs. There are broader societal/economic reasons why you might want to change this, but ultimately this is why housing is not a major issue in the polling.
That's largely wrong.
For many of those who own their own place, even outright, high house prices are a bad thing, as they want to upgrade in the future. And even if they don't, again for many, high house prices are neutral, as those gains will be on paper forever. And even if house prices are neutral for older homeowners, many will have to fork over fortunes if they want to help their children get on the housing ladder.
Private rent is determined in large part by the cost of housing, (though other factors such as government regulations also play a part), so reducing property prices would reduce the cost of rent. Students may not want to buy now (though I'm not sure about that - I once visited a friend at business school where housing was very cheap and finance readily available and he said that many of his classmates had bought a place for the two years and would then sell it or rent it out when they moved on) but they are likely to in a few years.
And of course there are costs throughout the economy because of high property prices generally, of which high house prices are an important component, though most people won't recognise those.
I think the reason housing doesn't feature is not that more people wouldn't benefit from lower house prices, just as they would benefit from lower food or energy prices, it's that both governing parties have been equally crap about this for a generation and nobody seriously expects either of them to sort it out.
Both main parties in Ireland have been monumentally useless over housing, but people in Ireland are still furious about the issue.
I wonder whether in Britain it has been tied up with the immigration issue. Britons may believe the argument that the housing crisis is primarily a crisis created by immigration, and so they're furious about immigration, whereas in Ireland people are more focused on the lack of supply.
Yep, there's that too. Housebuilding in your area:
Deflates the value of your most valuable asset
Puts more pressure on your local services
Wrecks the nice view across the fields
Puts you at risk of negative equity (if you have a mortgage)
Is only necessary due to the Boriswave (in the public's eye)
and even private renters are rightly deeply sceptical that housebuilding will solve the problem - it certainly hasn't in Edinburgh and the Lothians, which has had the fastest housebuilding programme pretty much anywhere. All it's done is facilitate even faster population growth, including students.
I think this is one of those topics where people have a vague sense that housebuilding is good for the country, but the NIMBYism is very strong and frankly rational. It's only in some city centres where you are going to get a degree of local support for it.
I was listening about this award winning development on Today this morning which could be a good model for bolting on multiple homes onto existing villages and towns without ballsing them up. Some interesting rules were put in place such as no more than 40% of residents over 65 (think it was 65) to ensure a good mix of people so a proper “community”.
One problem is that extra housebuilding in any single area doesn’t even touch the sides of the latent demand for housing in this country.
So unless we see mass housebuilding everywhere, people are going to rationally believe that any development local to them is all downside with no upside.
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 very obviously delighted.
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.
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.
Gosh, the anger against her among people doing their shopping and having a gossip when I was out this morning was palpable.
And actually in my view somewhat OTT. However, the irony is that she made a career surfing such anger to achieve a high profile, only to fall victim to it herself.
She called Tories "scum" including national treasures like Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nadine Dorries, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Andrea Jenkyns, Andrea Leadsom and Robert Jenrick*.
Hanging is too good for her!
* Do we think she meant Farage, Tice, Oakeshott, Anderson and Lowe too?
Surely "scum" isn't a very accurate description? Scum is a thin film on the surface, not the entire body of foul rank smelling fluid.
The cap fitted at the time, and it could be extended to the grandees of the the reform party who obviously made vast fortunes out of us leaving the EU, Farage, Tice and Lowe spring to mind.
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.
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.
Other than small boats this government will rise or fall on this surely.
It's only a small proportion of the country that worries about housing costs. On average they are the lowest they have been since the '80s. I think a crash in prices is actually more of a risk to them than the opposite, particularly in London/SE if they introduce a property value tax and people start worrying about negative equity.
I think the NHS is a much bigger risk. But all of this is trumped by a general sense of inertia.
Are they?
There is a crucial distinction between house prices and housing costs.
For a start, you have 35%ish of the country that own their property outright. Then you have another 30% who own with a mortgage - they got hammered a bit during the period with high interest rates, but most people with a mortgage do not spend a particularly high proportion of their income on housing. For both these groups, high house prices are a good thing - they are an asset, not a liability or a cost.
Then you have social renters - 15%. A mixed picture, sometimes good, might not want to buy. And then private renters - another 15%. Not all private rents are insanely high - that tends to be an issue in the big cities, not our towns, and not all private renters want to buy anyway (e.g. students).
So you're not left with many people for whom lower house prices is a good thing (and particularly not in the main voting cohorts), nor many people with particularly high housing costs. There are broader societal/economic reasons why you might want to change this, but ultimately this is why housing is not a major issue in the polling.
That's largely wrong.
For many of those who own their own place, even outright, high house prices are a bad thing, as they want to upgrade in the future. And even if they don't, again for many, high house prices are neutral, as those gains will be on paper forever. And even if house prices are neutral for older homeowners, many will have to fork over fortunes if they want to help their children get on the housing ladder.
Private rent is determined in large part by the cost of housing, (though other factors such as government regulations also play a part), so reducing property prices would reduce the cost of rent. Students may not want to buy now (though I'm not sure about that - I once visited a friend at business school where housing was very cheap and finance readily available and he said that many of his classmates had bought a place for the two years and would then sell it or rent it out when they moved on) but they are likely to in a few years.
And of course there are costs throughout the economy because of high property prices generally, of which high house prices are an important component, though most people won't recognise those.
I think the reason housing doesn't feature is not that more people wouldn't benefit from lower house prices, just as they would benefit from lower food or energy prices, it's that both governing parties have been equally crap about this for a generation and nobody seriously expects either of them to sort it out.
Both main parties in Ireland have been monumentally useless over housing, but people in Ireland are still furious about the issue.
I wonder whether in Britain it has been tied up with the immigration issue. Britons may believe the argument that the housing crisis is primarily a crisis created by immigration, and so they're furious about immigration, whereas in Ireland people are more focused on the lack of supply.
Yep, there's that too. Housebuilding in your area:
Deflates the value of your most valuable asset
Puts more pressure on your local services
Wrecks the nice view across the fields
Puts you at risk of negative equity (if you have a mortgage)
Is only necessary due to the Boriswave (in the public's eye)
and even private renters are rightly deeply sceptical that housebuilding will solve the problem - it certainly hasn't in Edinburgh and the Lothians, which has had the fastest housebuilding programme pretty much anywhere. All it's done is facilitate even faster population growth, including students.
I think this is one of those topics where people have a vague sense that housebuilding is good for the country, but the NIMBYism is very strong and frankly rational. It's only in some city centres where you are going to get a degree of local support for it.
I was listening about this award winning development on Today this morning which could be a good model for bolting on multiple homes onto existing villages and towns without ballsing them up. Some interesting rules were put in place such as no more than 40% of residents over 65 (think it was 65) to ensure a good mix of people so a proper “community”.
One problem is that extra housebuilding in any single area doesn’t even touch the sides of the latent demand for housing in this country.
So unless we see mass housebuilding everywhere, people are going to rationally believe that any development local to them is all downside with no upside.
Agreed but if the government was to “force” housebuilding on towns and villages than this looks like a model that delivers a good amount in a relatively small space with a good quality of life by the look of things.
It’s 53 houses that wouldn’t kill the look of most villages or small towns. I don’t know how many villages and small towns there are in the UK but bolting something like this onto as many as possible starts to reduce the problem. The architect was also saying that the properties were 20% cheaper than their normal equivalents in the market so again gives more chance to buy.
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.
Parallel experiences don't have to be the same. As discussed earlier in the thread, the legal aspects of the entire homebuying process are simply absurdly over-complicated here in the U.K. compared to nations like France, and she jusr fell into a very common kind of trap.
Is there nobody in Truss's close circle of friends who can sit her down and say "Liz, luv, it's over. Move on with your life."
Sad.
She’s probably got a couple of years of getting high-five-figure speech payments from the likes of Turning Point USA, can probably make herself a couple of million and then retire off the back of that.
Like many of us it isn't about money, it's about sense and purpose in life. I don't think Truss is motivated by greed, she was about pure personal ambition. Now it's over and she has nothingness stretching endlessly in front of her.
Most people's lives are about seeking meaning in existence.
Even more than material needs, that search for meaning seems to be at the heart of our problems. The hotel protests, the flagrash... in large part they are about looking for a cause to fight for, even if that cause doesn't really make sense or have that broad public support. I can't help thinking that part of the Brexit impulse was a generation's jealousy of the parents having had proper evil foreigners to fight.
Politics doesn't feel like the right tool to generate meaning (though you see it on the harder left). Though I'm not sure what the better tool is.
The reaction to Rayner, I think there is two strands, snobbery and on the other side bigotry of low expectations.
The Mail are running some nasty stories basically calling her a cross between Vickky Pollard and Waynetta Slob.
But also there is also this, but but but she had his rough start in life and how could she know and its all so unfair. Rayner worked for a year doing front line care, then swiftly elected to union roles, climbed that ladder and then did the same in politics. If there is one thing crucial skill for union officials, is reading the T&Cs of everything / knowing their way to lawyers offices to ensure the T&Cs are being met. And now had got the role of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party / Deputy PM / Housing Minister, there is a shit tonne of legal T&Cs with those roles.
Other than small boats this government will rise or fall on this surely.
It's only a small proportion of the country that worries about housing costs. On average they are the lowest they have been since the '80s. I think a crash in prices is actually more of a risk to them than the opposite, particularly in London/SE if they introduce a property value tax and people start worrying about negative equity.
I think the NHS is a much bigger risk. But all of this is trumped by a general sense of inertia.
Are they?
There is a crucial distinction between house prices and housing costs.
For a start, you have 35%ish of the country that own their property outright. Then you have another 30% who own with a mortgage - they got hammered a bit during the period with high interest rates, but most people with a mortgage do not spend a particularly high proportion of their income on housing. For both these groups, high house prices are a good thing - they are an asset, not a liability or a cost.
Then you have social renters - 15%. A mixed picture, sometimes good, might not want to buy. And then private renters - another 15%. Not all private rents are insanely high - that tends to be an issue in the big cities, not our towns, and not all private renters want to buy anyway (e.g. students).
So you're not left with many people for whom lower house prices is a good thing (and particularly not in the main voting cohorts), nor many people with particularly high housing costs. There are broader societal/economic reasons why you might want to change this, but ultimately this is why housing is not a major issue in the polling.
That's largely wrong.
For many of those who own their own place, even outright, high house prices are a bad thing, as they want to upgrade in the future. And even if they don't, again for many, high house prices are neutral, as those gains will be on paper forever. And even if house prices are neutral for older homeowners, many will have to fork over fortunes if they want to help their children get on the housing ladder.
Private rent is determined in large part by the cost of housing, (though other factors such as government regulations also play a part), so reducing property prices would reduce the cost of rent. Students may not want to buy now (though I'm not sure about that - I once visited a friend at business school where housing was very cheap and finance readily available and he said that many of his classmates had bought a place for the two years and would then sell it or rent it out when they moved on) but they are likely to in a few years.
And of course there are costs throughout the economy because of high property prices generally, of which high house prices are an important component, though most people won't recognise those.
I think the reason housing doesn't feature is not that more people wouldn't benefit from lower house prices, just as they would benefit from lower food or energy prices, it's that both governing parties have been equally crap about this for a generation and nobody seriously expects either of them to sort it out.
Both main parties in Ireland have been monumentally useless over housing, but people in Ireland are still furious about the issue.
I wonder whether in Britain it has been tied up with the immigration issue. Britons may believe the argument that the housing crisis is primarily a crisis created by immigration, and so they're furious about immigration, whereas in Ireland people are more focused on the lack of supply.
Yep, there's that too. Housebuilding in your area:
Deflates the value of your most valuable asset
Puts more pressure on your local services
Wrecks the nice view across the fields
Puts you at risk of negative equity (if you have a mortgage)
Is only necessary due to the Boriswave (in the public's eye)
and even private renters are rightly deeply sceptical that housebuilding will solve the problem - it certainly hasn't in Edinburgh and the Lothians, which has had the fastest housebuilding programme pretty much anywhere. All it's done is facilitate even faster population growth, including students.
I think this is one of those topics where people have a vague sense that housebuilding is good for the country, but the NIMBYism is very strong and frankly rational. It's only in some city centres where you are going to get a degree of local support for it.
I was listening about this award winning development on Today this morning which could be a good model for bolting on multiple homes onto existing villages and towns without ballsing them up. Some interesting rules were put in place such as no more than 40% of residents over 65 (think it was 65) to ensure a good mix of people so a proper “community”.
One problem is that extra housebuilding in any single area doesn’t even touch the sides of the latent demand for housing in this country.
So unless we see mass housebuilding everywhere, people are going to rationally believe that any development local to them is all downside with no upside.
And they would be correct to do so.
A couple of weeks back I was at a meeting to oppose a greenfield development of several hundred houses. It got a full hall, but mostly of older residents, but also of newer younger residents of the last development (about 50 houses on what were allotments). Many reasons against were voiced, but strongest were those who pointed out that once again the developers failed to produce any of the benefits from previous building. There are no more school places, no GP surgery and no new allotment site.
Personally I am OK on the development*, but I can see why others object.
*not least because I plan to retire to the IoW before it is built.
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.
For fans of mad polling the Telegraph have the most batshit crazy election predictor I've ever seen. Three quick highlights Wales - every seat Labour except Brecon and Montgomery which are Tory. Good luck In Dwyfor lads Zero Con seats in London - Labour somehow miraculously gain Harrow East, Reform randomly pick up Croydon South but not East 7 Tory seats in Scotland but not Dumfriesshire the one they've held throughout
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.
A tabloid story in thr most traditional sense - overheated rhetoric and Victorian hypocrisy, but this time from the billiknaire tax evaders' house journal of the Telegraph.
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.
Gosh, the anger against her among people doing their shopping and having a gossip when I was out this morning was palpable.
And actually in my view somewhat OTT. However, the irony is that she made a career surfing such anger to achieve a high profile, only to fall victim to it herself.
You should always remember how untypical of the average voter PB is. Also jo public detests hypocrisy and we've had bucketfuls of it starting with the free suits and concert tickets. Are to this the migrant crisis, inflation and the welfare cuts......
It's true, we hate the English alcoholics, they're rubbish at it.
MInd, the Devonian joy juice is unaccountably (to my mind) popular amongst the more discerning inhabitants of the Barras and Edinburgh's Grassmarket (at least before they converted the Model Ludging to youth tourist hostel or whatever it s). Locals obvs not sufficiently appreciative of this fine vintage of the Buckfast vineyards.
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.
Gosh, the anger against her among people doing their shopping and having a gossip when I was out this morning was palpable.
And actually in my view somewhat OTT. However, the irony is that she made a career surfing such anger to achieve a high profile, only to fall victim to it herself.
You should always remember how untypical of the average voter PB is. Also jo public detests hypocrisy and we've had bucketfuls of it starting with the free suits and concert tickets. Are to this the migrant crisis, inflation and the welfare cuts......
Also, the £40k tax bill / £800k flat is atypical for the average voter. They sound like huge numbers to the man on the street. Where as £800k home for somebody on £160k a year is stretching it (we don't know if the boyfriend will be also moving in), but isn't insane and you are paying £65k in IC / NI.
Other than small boats this government will rise or fall on this surely.
It's only a small proportion of the country that worries about housing costs. On average they are the lowest they have been since the '80s. I think a crash in prices is actually more of a risk to them than the opposite, particularly in London/SE if they introduce a property value tax and people start worrying about negative equity.
I think the NHS is a much bigger risk. But all of this is trumped by a general sense of inertia.
Are they?
There is a crucial distinction between house prices and housing costs.
For a start, you have 35%ish of the country that own their property outright. Then you have another 30% who own with a mortgage - they got hammered a bit during the period with high interest rates, but most people with a mortgage do not spend a particularly high proportion of their income on housing. For both these groups, high house prices are a good thing - they are an asset, not a liability or a cost.
Then you have social renters - 15%. A mixed picture, sometimes good, might not want to buy. And then private renters - another 15%. Not all private rents are insanely high - that tends to be an issue in the big cities, not our towns, and not all private renters want to buy anyway (e.g. students).
So you're not left with many people for whom lower house prices is a good thing (and particularly not in the main voting cohorts), nor many people with particularly high housing costs. There are broader societal/economic reasons why you might want to change this, but ultimately this is why housing is not a major issue in the polling.
That's largely wrong.
For many of those who own their own place, even outright, high house prices are a bad thing, as they want to upgrade in the future. And even if they don't, again for many, high house prices are neutral, as those gains will be on paper forever. And even if house prices are neutral for older homeowners, many will have to fork over fortunes if they want to help their children get on the housing ladder.
Private rent is determined in large part by the cost of housing, (though other factors such as government regulations also play a part), so reducing property prices would reduce the cost of rent. Students may not want to buy now (though I'm not sure about that - I once visited a friend at business school where housing was very cheap and finance readily available and he said that many of his classmates had bought a place for the two years and would then sell it or rent it out when they moved on) but they are likely to in a few years.
And of course there are costs throughout the economy because of high property prices generally, of which high house prices are an important component, though most people won't recognise those.
I think the reason housing doesn't feature is not that more people wouldn't benefit from lower house prices, just as they would benefit from lower food or energy prices, it's that both governing parties have been equally crap about this for a generation and nobody seriously expects either of them to sort it out.
Both main parties in Ireland have been monumentally useless over housing, but people in Ireland are still furious about the issue.
I wonder whether in Britain it has been tied up with the immigration issue. Britons may believe the argument that the housing crisis is primarily a crisis created by immigration, and so they're furious about immigration, whereas in Ireland people are more focused on the lack of supply.
Yep, there's that too. Housebuilding in your area:
Deflates the value of your most valuable asset
Puts more pressure on your local services
Wrecks the nice view across the fields
Puts you at risk of negative equity (if you have a mortgage)
Is only necessary due to the Boriswave (in the public's eye)
and even private renters are rightly deeply sceptical that housebuilding will solve the problem - it certainly hasn't in Edinburgh and the Lothians, which has had the fastest housebuilding programme pretty much anywhere. All it's done is facilitate even faster population growth, including students.
I think this is one of those topics where people have a vague sense that housebuilding is good for the country, but the NIMBYism is very strong and frankly rational. It's only in some city centres where you are going to get a degree of local support for it.
I was listening about this award winning development on Today this morning which could be a good model for bolting on multiple homes onto existing villages and towns without ballsing them up. Some interesting rules were put in place such as no more than 40% of residents over 65 (think it was 65) to ensure a good mix of people so a proper “community”.
One problem is that extra housebuilding in any single area doesn’t even touch the sides of the latent demand for housing in this country.
So unless we see mass housebuilding everywhere, people are going to rationally believe that any development local to them is all downside with no upside.
And they would be correct to do so.
A couple of weeks back I was at a meeting to oppose a greenfield development of several hundred houses. It got a full hall, but mostly of older residents, but also of newer younger residents of the last development (about 50 houses on what were allotments). Many reasons against were voiced, but strongest were those who pointed out that once again the developers failed to produce any of the benefits from previous building. There are no more school places, no GP surgery and no new allotment site.
Personally I am OK on the development*, but I can see why others object.
*not least because I plan to retire to the IoW before it is built.
We've just had a development locally of some 300 homes. Some have been sold to private buyers, some have, apparently been made available to London Boroughs as housing. The local surgery decided it would, as a result need an extra partner, and for that partner, more space. Staff at the surgery tell that some of the new residents are 'demanding' patients. The local planners have turned down the plans for an extension to the surgery apparently because one (fairly new) resident objected.
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.
A tabloid story in thr most traditional sense - overheated rhetoric and Victorian hypocrisy, but this time from the billiknaire tax evaders' house journal of the Telegraph.
Indeed. BTW I could be wrong about the particular question of the child as an adult (though in a general sense the need for a trust stands, given the long term needs anyway). Please ignore that and apologies all round.
Is there nobody in Truss's close circle of friends who can sit her down and say "Liz, luv, it's over. Move on with your life."
Sad.
She’s probably got a couple of years of getting high-five-figure speech payments from the likes of Turning Point USA, can probably make herself a couple of million and then retire off the back of that.
Like many of us it isn't about money, it's about sense and purpose in life. I don't think Truss is motivated by greed, she was about pure personal ambition. Now it's over and she has nothingness stretching endlessly in front of her.
Most people's lives are about seeking meaning in existence.
Even more than material needs, that search for meaning seems to be at the heart of our problems. The hotel protests, the flagrash... in large part they are about looking for a cause to fight for, even if that cause doesn't really make sense or have that broad public support. I can't help thinking that part of the Brexit impulse was a generation's jealousy of the parents having had proper evil foreigners to fight.
Politics doesn't feel like the right tool to generate meaning (though you see it on the harder left). Though I'm not sure what the better tool is.
Yes and that is what is so lacking in British politics, particularly in Starmer and Badenoch. There is no vision or direction of a positive future for Britain hence the attractiveness of rose tinted views of the past, which is Reforms appeal.
Other than small boats this government will rise or fall on this surely.
It's only a small proportion of the country that worries about housing costs. On average they are the lowest they have been since the '80s. I think a crash in prices is actually more of a risk to them than the opposite, particularly in London/SE if they introduce a property value tax and people start worrying about negative equity.
I think the NHS is a much bigger risk. But all of this is trumped by a general sense of inertia.
Are they?
There is a crucial distinction between house prices and housing costs.
For a start, you have 35%ish of the country that own their property outright. Then you have another 30% who own with a mortgage - they got hammered a bit during the period with high interest rates, but most people with a mortgage do not spend a particularly high proportion of their income on housing. For both these groups, high house prices are a good thing - they are an asset, not a liability or a cost.
Then you have social renters - 15%. A mixed picture, sometimes good, might not want to buy. And then private renters - another 15%. Not all private rents are insanely high - that tends to be an issue in the big cities, not our towns, and not all private renters want to buy anyway (e.g. students).
So you're not left with many people for whom lower house prices is a good thing (and particularly not in the main voting cohorts), nor many people with particularly high housing costs. There are broader societal/economic reasons why you might want to change this, but ultimately this is why housing is not a major issue in the polling.
That's largely wrong.
For many of those who own their own place, even outright, high house prices are a bad thing, as they want to upgrade in the future. And even if they don't, again for many, high house prices are neutral, as those gains will be on paper forever. And even if house prices are neutral for older homeowners, many will have to fork over fortunes if they want to help their children get on the housing ladder.
Private rent is determined in large part by the cost of housing, (though other factors such as government regulations also play a part), so reducing property prices would reduce the cost of rent. Students may not want to buy now (though I'm not sure about that - I once visited a friend at business school where housing was very cheap and finance readily available and he said that many of his classmates had bought a place for the two years and would then sell it or rent it out when they moved on) but they are likely to in a few years.
And of course there are costs throughout the economy because of high property prices generally, of which high house prices are an important component, though most people won't recognise those.
I think the reason housing doesn't feature is not that more people wouldn't benefit from lower house prices, just as they would benefit from lower food or energy prices, it's that both governing parties have been equally crap about this for a generation and nobody seriously expects either of them to sort it out.
Both main parties in Ireland have been monumentally useless over housing, but people in Ireland are still furious about the issue.
I wonder whether in Britain it has been tied up with the immigration issue. Britons may believe the argument that the housing crisis is primarily a crisis created by immigration, and so they're furious about immigration, whereas in Ireland people are more focused on the lack of supply.
Yep, there's that too. Housebuilding in your area:
Deflates the value of your most valuable asset
Puts more pressure on your local services
Wrecks the nice view across the fields
Puts you at risk of negative equity (if you have a mortgage)
Is only necessary due to the Boriswave (in the public's eye)
and even private renters are rightly deeply sceptical that housebuilding will solve the problem - it certainly hasn't in Edinburgh and the Lothians, which has had the fastest housebuilding programme pretty much anywhere. All it's done is facilitate even faster population growth, including students.
I think this is one of those topics where people have a vague sense that housebuilding is good for the country, but the NIMBYism is very strong and frankly rational. It's only in some city centres where you are going to get a degree of local support for it.
I was listening about this award winning development on Today this morning which could be a good model for bolting on multiple homes onto existing villages and towns without ballsing them up. Some interesting rules were put in place such as no more than 40% of residents over 65 (think it was 65) to ensure a good mix of people so a proper “community”.
One problem is that extra housebuilding in any single area doesn’t even touch the sides of the latent demand for housing in this country.
So unless we see mass housebuilding everywhere, people are going to rationally believe that any development local to them is all downside with no upside.
Agreed but if the government was to “force” housebuilding on towns and villages than this looks like a model that delivers a good amount in a relatively small space with a good quality of life by the look of things.
It’s 53 houses that wouldn’t kill the look of most villages or small towns. I don’t know how many villages and small towns there are in the UK but bolting something like this onto as many as possible starts to reduce the problem. The architect was also saying that the properties were 20% cheaper than their normal equivalents in the market so again gives more chance to buy.
Your communities number is something like 25k->50k in England. Approximately 20k Church of England church buildings is always a useful indicator - remembering that that includes urban, but not all places have one.
If you watch for how many places have small council estates built in the 20s-30s or in the 3 decades post-war, it is an indicator of the feel it gives to places. They are, for example, all over Derbyshire.
The Nimbyism is really about not liking change - once they have been there for a decade they will be accepted. If you look, for example, at projects doing new mobility infra in towns or cities, the loudest shouting is often about "but it will cause congestion because of all the roadworks".
Getting things done quickly, and in discrete focused phases if larger projects, makes a huge difference.
The issue mentioned in another post about benefits not being delivered is far more serious imo, and is partly to do with Councils having been gutted of capacity to manage such effectively and professionally. Often conditions can be defined unprofessionally such that they are unenforcible *.
* A classic example would be "X must be done when 50 houses are built", so it is in the developer interest to stop at 49 and lose 2% of revenue. That particular one is probably managed now as part of SOP.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
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.
I think the point about the child is an important one. During 'the period under review' Ms Rayner was holding down a demanding job and simultaneously dealing with the complexities of a trust. It would have been bad enough had she been in a straightforward relationship but she's parted from the father of the child, and I don't think we've any idea of the 'state of play' between her and her ex. Who has an interest in the child and the child';s trust.
Is the Moroccan government paying Ryanair to fly 90% empty routes to Western Sahara?
RyanAir early business model was all about what payments it could get from local regions with small airports. The EU put a stop to it in the end.
As a student, I remember going on a load of last minute trips where RyanAir would give you a free flights (even pay the tax sometimes) just to get the load factor up in order to met the different conditions on getting these payments.
The reaction to Rayner, I think there is two strands, snobbery and on the other side bigotry of low expectations.
The Mail are running some nasty stories basically calling her a cross between Vickky Pollard and Waynetta Slob.
But also there is also this, but but but she had his rough start in life and how could she know and its all so unfair. Rayner worked for a year doing front line care, then swiftly elected to union roles, climbed that ladder and then did the same in politics. If there is one thing crucial skill for union officials, is reading the T&Cs of everything / knowing their way to lawyers offices to ensure the T&Cs are being met. And now had got the role of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party / Deputy PM / Housing Minister, there is a shit tonne of legal T&Cs with those roles.
I have found some of the treatment of Rayner to be patronising in the extreme and every bit as rubbish as the classist claptrap she has had to put up with as well.
I want to live in a country where people can follow her example and we get to a point where there are no longer certain segments of society still sneering at a working class woman with a hard upbringing who doesn’t talk like them getting to the top of their field.
But her background doesn’t excuse her from upholding the highest standards when it comes to public behaviour and checking that her tax affairs are in order. As a top politician she will know that, she doesn’t get a free pass and to somehow suggest that she isn’t able to or didn’t know how to because of her background is just a really rubbish take, and unfair on her too.
Anyone who thinks Labour’s implosion has 'harmed' Reform by upstaging their conference is kidding themselves. Governments lose elections; oppositions don't win them. Reform will be ecstatic.
Anyone who thinks Labour’s implosion has 'harmed' Reform by upstaging their conference is kidding themselves. Governments lose elections; oppositions don't win them. Reform will be ecstatic.
Reluctantly agree. Anything that keeps Andrea Jenkyns prancing around singing like a maniac off the news is good for them.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
I am not convinced by that. It played out in a very controlled manner, with the media always seemed to get the required information to be one step ahead e.g. somebody helpfully pointed the Guardian to the 3 legal entities she had used for handling the trust and house sales, which allowed them to get their quotes on the record about them not providing tax advice. That instantly blew up her defence.
Is there nobody in Truss's close circle of friends who can sit her down and say "Liz, luv, it's over. Move on with your life."
Sad.
She’s probably got a couple of years of getting high-five-figure speech payments from the likes of Turning Point USA, can probably make herself a couple of million and then retire off the back of that.
Like many of us it isn't about money, it's about sense and purpose in life. I don't think Truss is motivated by greed, she was about pure personal ambition. Now it's over and she has nothingness stretching endlessly in front of her.
Most people's lives are about seeking meaning in existence.
Even more than material needs, that search for meaning seems to be at the heart of our problems. The hotel protests, the flagrash... in large part they are about looking for a cause to fight for, even if that cause doesn't really make sense or have that broad public support. I can't help thinking that part of the Brexit impulse was a generation's jealousy of the parents having had proper evil foreigners to fight.
Politics doesn't feel like the right tool to generate meaning (though you see it on the harder left). Though I'm not sure what the better tool is.
Yes and that is what is so lacking in British politics, particularly in Starmer and Badenoch. There is no vision or direction of a positive future for Britain hence the attractiveness of rose tinted views of the past, which is Reforms appeal.
In a way I think this relates to Rayner too, and why it was so important to the Telegraph and Reform that she's moved on.
Althoigh not obviously an intellectual, she's a generally smart politician who did provide a kind of vision, which was of everyday relatability, and her own backstory as part of a route to power and influence that is possible.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
The sense I get is that they were floundering around flinging mud in all possible ways - that business of the house value somehow matching the magic figure of £650K for an IHT limit (as if RNRB didn't apply ...) for instance. The stamp duty business must have been a fluke and a lucky jackpot.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
From what I read, someone saw her on the beach there - they took the photos of her drinking wine in her dry-robe etc and sold them to the Mail. The mail published about her being on a jolly down there and someone else contacted them and said that she actually was living there now and had bought a flat near them.
Not sure if this would have passed people by if she hadn’t been photographed during late August when not much is happening, schools/parliament aren’t back but maybe a sliding doors moment.
It's true, we hate the English alcoholics, they're rubbish at it.
MInd, the Devonian joy juice is unaccountably (to my mind) popular amongst the more discerning inhabitants of the Barras and Edinburgh's Grassmarket (at least before they converted the Model Ludging to youth tourist hostel or whatever it s). Locals obvs not sufficiently appreciative of this fine vintage of the Buckfast vineyards.
Obviously a vile colonialist plot akin to forcing opium on the Chinese, offloading the firewater that the Babycham quaffers can’t handle.
Anyone who thinks Labour’s implosion has 'harmed' Reform by upstaging their conference is kidding themselves. Governments lose elections; oppositions don't win them. Reform will be ecstatic.
Reluctantly agree. Anything that keeps Andrea Jenkyns prancing around singing like a maniac off the news is good for them.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
From what I read, someone saw her on the beach there - they took the photos of her drinking wine in her dry-robe etc and sold them to the Mail. The mail published about her being on a jolly down there and someone else contacted them and said that she actually was living there now and had bought a flat near them.
Not sure if this would have passed people by if she hadn’t been photographed during late August when not much is happening, schools/parliament aren’t back but maybe a sliding doors moment.
One thing I don't think is on is the media publishing photos of politicians in their off time just hanging out with their kids. There is no public interest in seeing Rayner floating about in an inflatable boat, unless there is more to it e.g. having an affair.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming
I can't imagine Kemi or Jenrick giving her a role in the Tory party. She has the reverse Midas touch. Honestly, if Nige is stupid enough to take Herr into his ship of fools then good luck to her, would be the best bit of luck for the Tories in a long while.
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.
But the stamp duty thing only blew up on Wednesday evening, didn't it? So thirty six hours from revelation to resignation. Before that Raynergate was some unflattering photos and "she has multiple houses".
Of course the best of all is not to have ministerial scandals. But the way this one has played out is better than the way that many scandals played out under Johnson and Sunak. (Though Truss did better with her one scandal, didn't she? Something about fruity behaviour by a junior minister at a conference?)
Is the Moroccan government paying Ryanair to fly 90% empty routes to Western Sahara?
Ive been to Dakhla, in fact I've been the entire length of Western Sahara and through the old/still a bit explody minefield at the border into Mauritania. Are Ryanair advertising it as 'close to the centre of Krakow?'
Anyone who thinks Labour’s implosion has 'harmed' Reform by upstaging their conference is kidding themselves. Governments lose elections; oppositions don't win them. Reform will be ecstatic.
Reluctantly agree. Anything that keeps Andrea Jenkyns prancing around singing like a maniac off the news is good for them.
Yes, Nigel's a bit of a lucky general. His pounding at the hands of 'Lib' politicians in the US, the Reform conference - a vaudeville of former Tory fruit loops - and his own lacklustre conference speech made this a news cycle it was good to lose.
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.
But the stamp duty thing only blew up on Wednesday evening, didn't it? So thirty six hours from revelation to resignation. Before that Raynergate was some unflattering photos and "she has multiple houses".
Of course the best of all is not to have ministerial scandals. But the way this one has played out is better than the way that many scandals played out under Johnson and Sunak. (Though Truss did better with her one scandal, didn't she? Something about fruity behaviour by a junior minister at a conference?)
Again not true. She was accused of the stamp duty thing over a week ago. She then employed a very expensive KC to look at her tax affairs over last weekend, who said no you have paid the wrong amount, which was confirmed on the Monday.
Monday was the point when she could have said, hands up, mistake, really sorry.
Instead, it dragged, then she did the teary interview and claimed how could she have known, she had taken advice from 3 different legal opinions on her tax affairs who had all told her it was ok. Before finally being investigated and it being shown she had no legal advice at all over the stamp duty implications of buying this house, these "legal opinions" didn't exist, and was actually told twice to go and get some proper tax advice, which she didn't do.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
Anyone who thinks Labour’s implosion has 'harmed' Reform by upstaging their conference is kidding themselves. Governments lose elections; oppositions don't win them. Reform will be ecstatic.
Reluctantly agree. Anything that keeps Andrea Jenkyns prancing around singing like a maniac off the news is good for them.
Yes, Nigel's a bit of a lucky general. His pounding at the hands of 'Lib' politicians in the US, the Reform conference - a vaudeville of former Tory fruit loops - and his own lacklustre conference speech made this a news cycle it was good to lose.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
In the TRiP Rayner reaction podcast, AC mentions in passing meeting Telegraph editor Chris Evans at the cricket on Wednesday, and Evans saying that Conservatives would always be phoning with ideas and offers to write, but now there is nothing from anyone apart from Robert Jenrick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMiWIH4v9ik&t=1810s
Interesting comments on the podcast. People seem to understand that it was a wafer thin misunderstanding and with a bit more guile she could have avoided the £40,000 legally in several ways.......
......the problem seems to be that she moved out of Ashton-under-lyne to better herself in Hove and that is pissing off Ashtonians like you wouldn't believe!
Snobs don't just live in Weybridge and come in all shapes and sizes. There are inverted ones too but this is the heart of the problem. She lost the support of her peers.....
I feel sorry for her because had she been more guileful say like a Farage you can be sure that under the same circumstances he would never have paid the extra £40,000 nor would he have been pilloried for weeks by the telegraph
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
“A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum”
Another thing Labour will miss with Rayner is her mix of empathy and fire. Who else has it ? I remember Lisa Nandy was mentioned a lot in the same bracket, a while back now.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
Now we should ask the media to check if Ed Milliband has any dodgy housing issues.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
That doesn't bear scrutiny.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
Another thing Labour will miss with Rayner is her mix of empathy and fire. Who else has it ? I remember Lisa Nandy was mentioned a lot in the same bracket, a while back now.
I think empathy is pushing it with everything she has enthusiastically supported since July 2024.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
That doesn't bear scrutiny.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
And the only other safe seat locally is Kemptown/Peacehaven who's MP is SKS's PPS
In the TRiP Rayner reaction podcast, AC mentions in passing meeting Telegraph editor Chris Evans at the cricket on Wednesday, and Evans saying that Conservatives would always be phoning with ideas and offers to write, but now there is nothing from anyone apart from Robert Jenrick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMiWIH4v9ik&t=1810s
Interesting comments on the podcast. People seem to understand that it was a wafer thin misunderstanding and with a bit more guile she could have avoided the £40,000 legally in several ways.......
......the problem seems to be that she moved out of Ashton-under-lyne to better herself in Hove and that is pissing off Ashtonians like you wouldn't believe!
Snobs don't just live in Weybridge and come in all shapes and sizes. There are inverted ones too but this is the heart of the problem. She lost the support of her peers.....
I feel sorry for her because had she been more guileful say like a Farage you can be sure that under the same circumstances he would never have paid the extra £40,000 nor would he have been pilloried for weeks by the telegraph
Why did the Guardian then publish the statement from her conveyancers who said they were being scapegoated and had acted entirely on the information provided
You need to come to terms with the fact this is nothing to do with her background but all to do with her own actions or non actions
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
“A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum”
Have you ever been to Hove? It’s a dump.
By your standards maybe, but it's not Ashton!
May not be your cup of tea, but I can see why Rayner likes it.
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
She got no legal advice, that was the whole problem, despite being told twice by the conveyancer to do so.
As for who was leaking and to whom. Actually if you follow the timeline, it was spread around a bit, somebody tipped of the Sun / Mail about her house purchase, then the Telegraph about the tax, then the Guardian about the lawyers / conveyancer she has used over the past few years for the trust, her Ashton house sale and the purchase of the house in Hove.
Very few people will have known all these pieces of the jigsaw. But kept laying out the breadcrumbs for the media to follow so they couldn't miss.
....and the Telegrah got out it's doggie bag and picked up all the shit it could carry and decimated the career of someone who actually had to work really hard to get to where she got too. Bravo!
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
That doesn't bear scrutiny.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
And the only other safe seat locally is Kemptown/Peacehaven who's MP is SKS's PPS
Yes, Chris Ward, who was parachuted in by SKS to replace Lloyd Russell-Moyle, against the wishes of members who wanted somebody else (Nancy Platts). I have inside information, being a resident. Ward is very unpopular with local members, and they'd go for Rayner in a heartbeat if they were given the chance. Not going to happen, though.
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
She got no legal advice, that was the whole problem, despite being told twice by the conveyancer to do so.
As for who was leaking and to whom. Actually if you follow the timeline, it was spread around a bit, somebody tipped of the Sun / Mail about her house purchase, then the Telegraph about the tax, then the Guardian about the lawyers / conveyancer she has used over the past few years for the trust, her Ashton house sale and the purchase of the house in Hove.
Very few people will have known all these pieces of the jigsaw. But kept laying out the breadcrumbs for the media to follow so they couldn't miss.
....and the Telegrah got out it's doggie bag and picked up all the shit it could carry and decimated the career of someone who actually had to work really hard to get to where she got too. Bravo!
She sunk herself by lying. I think there was a route out of this with an swift admission of a mistake and paying the extra tax. But that isn't what she decided to do. She tried to deflect and attempted to throw lawyers under the bus, which is never a wise move.
When she presented her defence that she had sort legal opinions on the matter, I genuinely thought we would see some sort of paperwork from Wright Hassle Lawyers that said only the lower tax was due (even if she had not been clear about all the circumstances). And that definitely would have been enough to get her out of trouble. But no, the opposite was true, the paperwork told her to go and get legal advice.
In the TRiP Rayner reaction podcast, AC mentions in passing meeting Telegraph editor Chris Evans at the cricket on Wednesday, and Evans saying that Conservatives would always be phoning with ideas and offers to write, but now there is nothing from anyone apart from Robert Jenrick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMiWIH4v9ik&t=1810s
Interesting comments on the podcast. People seem to understand that it was a wafer thin misunderstanding and with a bit more guile she could have avoided the £40,000 legally in several ways.......
......the problem seems to be that she moved out of Ashton-under-lyne to better herself in Hove and that is pissing off Ashtonians like you wouldn't believe!
Snobs don't just live in Weybridge and come in all shapes and sizes. There are inverted ones too but this is the heart of the problem. She lost the support of her peers.....
I feel sorry for her because had she been more guileful say like a Farage you can be sure that under the same circumstances he would never have paid the extra £40,000 nor would he have been pilloried for weeks by the telegraph
Why did the Guardian then publish the statement from her conveyancers who said they were being scapegoated and had acted entirely on the information provided
You need to come to terms with the fact this is nothing to do with her background but all to do with her own actions or non actions
Just stick her on Would I Lie To You as mentioned previously 'Once, whilst Secretary of State for Housing, I avoided £40,000 in Stamp Duty whilst buying a flat 250 miles from my constituency, breaking the ministerial code in the process and trying to throw my conveyancers under the bus. Having had a number of my colleagues shame themselves defending me despite knowing I was in deep trouble I then resigned and got lots of people to pity me as the victim.'
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
George does reckon a lot of stuff though
Who could forget his prediction that Putin would never invade Ukraine and any such suggestion was neocon propaganda.
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
She got no legal advice, that was the whole problem, despite being told twice by the conveyancer to do so.
As for who was leaking and to whom. Actually if you follow the timeline, it was spread around a bit, somebody tipped of the Sun / Mail about her house purchase, then the Telegraph about the tax, then the Guardian about the lawyers / conveyancer she has used over the past few years for the trust, her Ashton house sale and the purchase of the house in Hove.
Very few people will have known all these pieces of the jigsaw. But kept laying out the breadcrumbs for the media to follow so they couldn't miss.
....and the Telegrah got out it's doggie bag and picked up all the shit it could carry and decimated the career of someone who actually had to work really hard to get to where she got too. Bravo!
She sunk herself by lying. I think there was a route out of this with an swift admission of a mistake and paying the extra tax. But that isn't what she decided to do. She tried to deflect and attempted to throw lawyers under the bus, which is never a wise move.
When your own lawyer starts briefing the press against you, then must know you’re in serious trouble.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
That doesn't bear scrutiny.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
And the only other safe seat locally is Kemptown/Peacehaven who's MP is SKS's PPS
Yes, Chris Ward, who was parachuted in by SKS to replace Lloyd Russell-Moyle, against the wishes of members who wanted somebody else (Nancy Platts). I have inside information, being a resident. Ward is very unpopular with local members, and they'd go for Rayner in a heartbeat if they were given the chance. Not going to happen, though.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
George does reckon a lot of stuff though
Who could forget his prediction that Putin would never invade Ukraine and any such suggestion was neocon propaganda.
He could be the Rula Lenska of the world if he wasn't such an utter doofus at times
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
That doesn't bear scrutiny.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
And the only other safe seat locally is Kemptown/Peacehaven who's MP is SKS's PPS
Yes, Chris Ward, who was parachuted in by SKS to replace Lloyd Russell-Moyle, against the wishes of members who wanted somebody else (Nancy Platts). I have inside information, being a resident. Ward is very unpopular with local members, and they'd go for Rayner in a heartbeat if they were given the chance. Not going to happen, though.
More chance if SKS is ousted?
Probably. Ange would walk any selection ballot if she were a candidate.
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
She got no legal advice, that was the whole problem, despite being told twice by the conveyancer to do so.
As for who was leaking and to whom. Actually if you follow the timeline, it was spread around a bit, somebody tipped of the Sun / Mail about her house purchase, then the Telegraph about the tax, then the Guardian about the lawyers / conveyancer she has used over the past few years for the trust, her Ashton house sale and the purchase of the house in Hove.
Very few people will have known all these pieces of the jigsaw. But kept laying out the breadcrumbs for the media to follow so they couldn't miss.
....and the Telegrah got out it's doggie bag and picked up all the shit it could carry and decimated the career of someone who actually had to work really hard to get to where she got too. Bravo!
She sunk herself by lying. I think there was a route out of this with an swift admission of a mistake and paying the extra tax. But that isn't what she decided to do. She tried to deflect and attempted to throw lawyers under the bus, which is never a wise move.
When your own lawyer starts briefing the press against you, then must know you’re in serious trouble.
"You come at the king, you best not miss." - Omar Little
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
Starmer appears to have a women problem full stop.
The press had started briefing a reshuffle for last Monday and then he just did that tinkering. We now know Ange got her 'new advice' so he delayed.so the reshuffle was already planned but he just had to fudge around Housing and DPM once it was obvious she was off (which he'd have known Monday)
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
Now we should ask the media to check if Ed Milliband has any dodgy housing issues.
Was Ed the one with two kitchens or was that David? I can't be bothered to check but according to TRiP, Ed Miliband was one of those who came out of the expenses scandal as squeaky-clean.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
George Galloway's theory is she chose Hove for the chicken run when Labour's support in Manchester implodes.
That doesn't bear scrutiny.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
More likely she was looking at a London seat, spends the week in London working then easy trip down to Hove for weekends. Makes sense on many levels. Her chap was a London councillor and Ilford MP in the past too so there is a connection and support network.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
Starmer appears to have a women problem full stop.
That'll be why the CoE, HS and FS are all women? First time ever, I read, that the three great offices of state have been held by women.
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.
It is a salutary lesson that has led to inertia from the next two Prime Ministers.
Mind you the one after them, if it is who I think it might be, would be considerably worse in an end of days kind of a way.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
Lisa Nandy seems okay as a minister, although DCMS is one of the easier ones.
I’m sure she’s spent the summer going to a few cultural and sporting events, I think I last saw her handing out a trophy at the F1 at Silverstone. Her difficult bit is going to be the BBC Charter review, at a time of great change in the media landscape and increasing numbers not paying the Telly Tax.
I might not agree with a lot of what she says politically, but in sharp contract to Rayner she comes across as a decent person.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
Starmer appears to have a women problem full stop.
That'll be why the CoE, HS and FS are all women? First time ever, I read, that the three great offices of state have been held by women.
Employing someone does not mean you do not have a problem dealing with them.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
Nah, if she has a rival, it is Streeting. A man who has the look of ambition, self belief and not much else.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
I don't think it was a deliberate tax dodge. But it was beyond naive, but it was absolute stupidity. You are a very senior politician who only a few months ago her previous claimed living arrangements got her in a lot of bother. You know you have this complicated set of arrangements, the conveyancer tells you you need to get tax advice, you earn a £160k a year and extremely well connected (see how she managed to get a very expensive KC to review her case at the drop of a hat over a weekend), you pay the money to cover your arse.
Then what followed sunk her.
Sam Tarry’s housing situation re multiple homes also had caused him a load of grief when a councillor so between them they should have known more than most to check everything is absolutely bang on before signing on the bottom line.
“ Tarry was a Labour Party councillor for Chadwell Heath ward, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, from 2010 to 2018.[7] Tarry was criticised for allegedly living in his home in Brighton, which is 70 miles away from his then council seat in Barking and Dagenham.[8][9][10] He was investigated by police for electoral fraud in relation to this matter, and was cleared by the police investigation, as he was found to own a second home in Barking and Dagenham, and therefore was legally resident in Barking and Dagenham at the time of his election.”
I don't know what point you are trying to make. Sam Tarry obviously did check everything was "bang on", because when some pathetic shit-stirrer decided to waste police time and have them investigate this, everything was absolutely legal.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
Now we should ask the media to check if Ed Milliband has any dodgy housing issues.
Was Ed the one with two kitchens or was that David? I can't be bothered to check but according to TRiP, Ed Miliband was one of those who came out of the expenses scandal as squeaky-clean.
Ed had the two kitchens and yes he didn't do anything out of the ordinary with his expenses.
Sky reporting the reshuffle was planned ' long' before Raynergate
The question must be did anyone want Rayner removed to make a change of direction easier?
It is a bit MRDA – the Prime Minister would not want to admit being bounced into it and there has long been speculation about an autumn reshuffle. Starmer did earlier try to remove Angela Rayner as deputy leader and had to be reminded she is directly elected to that post, but since then there does seem to have been a genuine appreciation, witness the DPM and housing roles and the unprecedented handwritten letter. And it is just a few days since the Number 10 team was reshuffled.
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.
Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately
Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour
However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
Now we should ask the media to check if Ed Milliband has any dodgy housing issues.
Was Ed the one with two kitchens or was that David? I can't be bothered to check but according to TRiP, Ed Miliband was one of those who came out of the expenses scandal as squeaky-clean.
Yes, the lowest claims of all the MP's, I seem to remember. What a better Prime Minister he would have been than Bozo or Truss.
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 very obviously delighted.
Hardly nonsense but it wasn't just the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming.
He is also a winner here
Could it be Starmer himself, via an intermediary? He doesn't appear to like female MPs from Greater Manchester in his cabinet/shadow cabinet. Nandy is the only one of the original 4 left (Long-Bailey was dismissed a while ago) and he is suspected to regard Nandy with contempt too.
Starmer appears to have a women problem full stop.
That'll be why the CoE, HS and FS are all women? First time ever, I read, that the three great offices of state have been held by women.
But are they the three best people available to Starmer?
Comments
FWIW, there was general good cheer at work yesterday at her departure yesterday at work. The people I work with are in no way snobs.
“ Tarry was a Labour Party councillor for Chadwell Heath ward, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, from 2010 to 2018.[7] Tarry was criticised for allegedly living in his home in Brighton, which is 70 miles away from his then council seat in Barking and Dagenham.[8][9][10] He was investigated by police for electoral fraud in relation to this matter, and was cleared by the police investigation, as he was found to own a second home in Barking and Dagenham, and therefore was legally resident in Barking and Dagenham at the time of his election.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Tarry
Most people's lives are about seeking meaning in existence.
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...
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.
He told BBC Breakfast: “The crucial thing that reshuffling a pack doesn’t obviously do, though maybe what happened on Monday might help, is that a big gaping hole in this Government’s politics is a clear message about what is it that it’s trying to do in terms of the kind of country it is trying to create.”
The polling expert added: “Getting the economy growing, getting people to feel that they’re actually getting to be better off, that is still a central challenge, and a reshuffle is not going to change that.”
I do really regret that at the moment she’s essentially done the opposite. She’s doubling down and living in a state of denial. That is sad.
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.
So unless we see mass housebuilding everywhere, people are going to rationally believe that any development local to them is all downside with no upside.
But an important political job dione by the Telegraph, with which they are very obviously delighted.
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.
Most MPs on the other hand might be different.
It’s 53 houses that wouldn’t kill the look of most villages or small towns. I don’t know how many villages and small towns there are in the UK but bolting something like this onto as many as possible starts to reduce the problem. The architect was also saying that the properties were 20% cheaper than their normal equivalents in the market so again gives more chance to buy.
Politics doesn't feel like the right tool to generate meaning (though you see it on the harder left). Though I'm not sure what the better tool is.
The Mail are running some nasty stories basically calling her a cross between Vickky Pollard and Waynetta Slob.
But also there is also this, but but but she had his rough start in life and how could she know and its all so unfair. Rayner worked for a year doing front line care, then swiftly elected to union roles, climbed that ladder and then did the same in politics. If there is one thing crucial skill for union officials, is reading the T&Cs of everything / knowing their way to lawyers offices to ensure the T&Cs are being met. And now had got the role of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party / Deputy PM / Housing Minister, there is a shit tonne of legal T&Cs with those roles.
A couple of weeks back I was at a meeting to oppose a greenfield development of several hundred houses. It got a full hall, but mostly of older residents, but also of newer younger residents of the last development (about 50 houses on what were allotments). Many reasons against were voiced, but strongest were those who pointed out that once again the developers failed to produce any of the benefits from previous building. There are no more school places, no GP surgery and no new allotment site.
Personally I am OK on the development*, but I can see why others object.
*not least because I plan to retire to the IoW before it is built.
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.
Three quick highlights
Wales - every seat Labour except Brecon and Montgomery which are Tory. Good luck In Dwyfor lads
Zero Con seats in London - Labour somehow miraculously gain Harrow East, Reform randomly pick up Croydon South but not East
7 Tory seats in Scotland but not Dumfriesshire the one they've held throughout
The local planners have turned down the plans for an extension to the surgery apparently because one (fairly new) resident objected.
https://metro.co.uk/2025/09/06/it-makes-no-sense-ryanairs-strange-new-route-worlds-oldest-conflict-zone-23828175/amp/
Is the Moroccan government paying Ryanair to fly 90% empty routes to Western Sahara?
If you watch for how many places have small council estates built in the 20s-30s or in the 3 decades post-war, it is an indicator of the feel it gives to places. They are, for example, all over Derbyshire.
The Nimbyism is really about not liking change - once they have been there for a decade they will be accepted. If you look, for example, at projects doing new mobility infra in towns or cities, the loudest shouting is often about "but it will cause congestion because of all the roadworks".
Getting things done quickly, and in discrete focused phases if larger projects, makes a huge difference.
The issue mentioned in another post about benefits not being delivered is far more serious imo, and is partly to do with Councils having been gutted of capacity to manage such effectively and professionally. Often conditions can be defined unprofessionally such that they are unenforcible *.
* A classic example would be "X must be done when 50 houses are built", so it is in the developer interest to stop at 49 and lose 2% of revenue. That particular one is probably managed now as part of SOP.
Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.
So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.
I think the point about the child is an important one. During 'the period under review' Ms Rayner was holding down a demanding job and simultaneously dealing with the complexities of a trust. It would have been bad enough had she been in a straightforward relationship but she's parted from the father of the child, and I don't think we've any idea of the 'state of play' between her and her ex.
Who has an interest in the child and the child';s trust.
As a student, I remember going on a load of last minute trips where RyanAir would give you a free flights (even pay the tax sometimes) just to get the load factor up in order to met the different conditions on getting these payments.
I want to live in a country where people can follow her example and we get to a point where there are no longer certain segments of society still sneering at a working class woman with a hard upbringing who doesn’t talk like them getting to the top of their field.
But her background doesn’t excuse her from upholding the highest standards when it comes to public behaviour and checking that her tax affairs are in order. As a top politician she will know that, she doesn’t get a free pass and to somehow suggest that she isn’t able to or didn’t know how to because of her background is just a really rubbish take, and unfair on her too.
Althoigh not obviously an intellectual, she's a generally smart politician who did provide a kind of vision, which was of everyday relatability, and her own backstory as part of a route to power and influence that is possible.
Not sure if this would have passed people by if she hadn’t been photographed during late August when not much is happening, schools/parliament aren’t back but maybe a sliding doors moment.
The question remains who did the leaking and their motive ?
The other question remains how Starmer so quickly changed his cabinet if he hadn't known this was coming
He is also a winner here
Of course the best of all is not to have ministerial scandals. But the way this one has played out is better than the way that many scandals played out under Johnson and Sunak. (Though Truss did better with her one scandal, didn't she? Something about fruity behaviour by a junior minister at a conference?)
Are Ryanair advertising it as 'close to the centre of Krakow?'
Instead she thought she could get away with taking the easy, casual way of doing things followed by denial and obfuscation.
Monday was the point when she could have said, hands up, mistake, really sorry.
Instead, it dragged, then she did the teary interview and claimed how could she have known, she had taken advice from 3 different legal opinions on her tax affairs who had all told her it was ok. Before finally being investigated and it being shown she had no legal advice at all over the stamp duty implications of buying this house, these "legal opinions" didn't exist, and was actually told twice to go and get some proper tax advice, which she didn't do.
I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.
I still remember the Reform ceiling.
......the problem seems to be that she moved out of Ashton-under-lyne to better herself in Hove and that is pissing off Ashtonians like you wouldn't believe!
Snobs don't just live in Weybridge and come in all shapes and sizes. There are inverted ones too but this is the heart of the problem. She lost the support of her peers.....
I feel sorry for her because had she been more guileful say like a Farage you can be sure that under the same circumstances he would never have paid the extra £40,000 nor would he have been pilloried for weeks by the telegraph
Have you ever been to Hove? It’s a dump.
Hove and Portslade is a very safe Labour constituency (I think the only threat there is from the Greens) and has a cabinet minister as MP who isn't likely to stand down. If she doesn't stand in Ashton then it's because she is standing down entirely.
You need to come to terms with the fact this is nothing to do with her background but all to do with her own actions or non actions
May not be your cup of tea, but I can see why Rayner likes it.
Not going to happen, though.
When she presented her defence that she had sort legal opinions on the matter, I genuinely thought we would see some sort of paperwork from Wright Hassle Lawyers that said only the lower tax was due (even if she had not been clear about all the circumstances). And that definitely would have been enough to get her out of trouble. But no, the opposite was true, the paperwork told her to go and get legal advice.
'Once, whilst Secretary of State for Housing, I avoided £40,000 in Stamp Duty whilst buying a flat 250 miles from my constituency, breaking the ministerial code in the process and trying to throw my conveyancers under the bus. Having had a number of my colleagues shame themselves defending me despite knowing I was in deep trouble I then resigned and got lots of people to pity me as the victim.'
The question must be did anyone want Rayner removed to make a change of direction easier?
Like they got into power and thought 'Screw it, give them the C team for a year'
In a MAGA World where her every rambling syllable is considered to be a blueprint for the future of humanity she is a Goddess.
You and I may believe she is barking, but the barking think she isn't.
Mind you the one after them, if it is who I think it might be, would be considerably worse in an end of days kind of a way.
I’m sure she’s spent the summer going to a few cultural and sporting events, I think I last saw her handing out a trophy at the F1 at Silverstone. Her difficult bit is going to be the BBC Charter review, at a time of great change in the media landscape and increasing numbers not paying the Telly Tax.
I might not agree with a lot of what she says politically, but in sharp contract to Rayner she comes across as a decent person.
Sam Tarry obviously did check everything was "bang on", because when some pathetic shit-stirrer decided to waste police time and have them investigate this, everything was absolutely legal.
But the tabloids got the bacon, again.
Not sure if yes or no is the worst answer.