OT - Prior to today Rayner was most likely to be the next PM and no doubt losing that is a difficult pill to swallow.
However, this is a resignation issue both as a Minister and IMHO as an MP. I understand current MPs tend to think these things don't matter but they do. Certainly she should be gone as a Minister and putting the ball in Starmer's court to sack her rather than being ready to preempt the inevitable is not the sign of either a team player or a capable politician
Not a big fan of Angela's, but I'm not convinced that voters in general care very much. I've not read every detail but gather that she misinterpreted the rules during a divorce. It's a fringe issue for most people. However, resigning to sort out her affairs may make sense, and would probably be enough to enable her to stand for the leadership in a couple of years.
I think they will care - because a lot of people are looking at the £800,000 flat and asking how can she afford that
£400k from her half of the sale of the family property into trust, paid for out of the financial settlement for her child’s future care needs & the other half from a mortgage at ~5x MP‘s salary of £80k. (Exact financial details to be determined, but it will probably turn out to be something like that.)
Sorry, how does she “sell” her property into trust for her children? Who is giving her £400k? Wasn’t the house also valued at a convenient £650k for settlement into the Trust.
I was making up the numbers. If the house was £650k, then presumably her & her husband received £325k each.
The trust that received the settlement payment from the NHS to fund care for her child is the legal entity giving her the £325k in this scenario.
Wait a minute. So she's "sold" her share of her former home to a trust in order to extract hundreds of thousands of pounds from a medical settlement awarded to her child to buy a very expensive flat somewhere else?
That sounds worse to me than making a mistake over stamp duty.
I think she has to resign - even if there was a genuine mistake (and as the Lead Trustee for a trust for my children and nieces my initial thought was there was nothing wrong as she only owned one property). Purely on optics - it doesn't look good for the DPM and housing minister to be pocketing £40k on buying a smart flat when there is both a shortage of money and housing. Why do politicians never learn that you have to be squeaky clean, and look even cleaner?
As an aside, on the questions over council tax on second homes, it occurred to me I'd never been asked if my current residence is my only one, so I looked up the Council Tax and found to my surprise that Havering has brought in a 2nd home surcharge this year. I thought it was only something that was applied in holiday/2nd home hotspots but it must be universal now if even Havering are doing it.
Why has Ange bought a random £800k pad in Hove anyway?
Why not , what’s wrong with Hove? Seriously though she doesn’t need one in London or Ashton so maybe she thought it was a good investment.
She is Ashton's mp and you think it a good look she lives in Hove ?
Even though it's been officially denied it's clear she intends to do a chicken run to the safe Labour seat of Hove and Portsdale. By the time we get around to selections the sitting MP will feel the pressure to stand down, Rayner will start talking about how her life has changed since 2024 and how much she loves the area and how at home she feels in Hove and then very quietly the selection committee will pick her for 2029.
The new Deputy Leader of the Green Party - one Mothin Ali - looks an "interesting" character. Wonder what his take is on organic courgettes.
"Slightly closer to his ward, but on a similar theme, the now deputy leader of The Green Party called the Jewish chaplain at Leeds University, Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, 'creep', a 'low-life' and an 'animal'. Ali also falsely claimed that Rabbi Deutsch had tried to kill women and children in Gaza. "Unsurprisingly, the Rabbi and his family were forced into hiding after this attack after receiving a large number of death threats. From those who want peace, obvs."
So don't get involved. Tell the complainant (and there must have been one - there isn't a police officer patrolling twitter looking for posts inciting violence) to get a grip.
"Farage condemned as 'Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant' by ranking Democrat on House judiciary committee
Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, says they do have free speech in the UK. He says Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News, even though Farage has a show on that station in which he criticises the government and calls for bans on peaceful protests.
He says Farage is able to parrot “Putin’s absurd talking points” on TV. He goes on:
"For a man who fancies himself to some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr Farage seems most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on earth."
He says Farage wants to get rid of the Online Safety Act. But if he wants to do that, he should be advancing those arguments in the UK parliament, which is meeting today, Raskin says.
He goes on:
"To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come over to America and see what Trump and Mega are doing to destroy our freedom, kidnap college students off the street, ban books from our libraries, militarise our police and unleash them against our communities, take over our universities … You might think twice before you let Mr Farage “make Britain great again"."
OT - Prior to today Rayner was most likely to be the next PM and no doubt losing that is a difficult pill to swallow.
However, this is a resignation issue both as a Minister and IMHO as an MP. I understand current MPs tend to think these things don't matter but they do. Certainly she should be gone as a Minister and putting the ball in Starmer's court to sack her rather than being ready to preempt the inevitable is not the sign of either a team player or a capable politician
Not a big fan of Angela's, but I'm not convinced that voters in general care very much. I've not read every detail but gather that she misinterpreted the rules during a divorce. It's a fringe issue for most people. However, resigning to sort out her affairs may make sense, and would probably be enough to enable her to stand for the leadership in a couple of years.
I think they will care - because a lot of people are looking at the £800,000 flat and asking how can she afford that
£400k from her half of the sale of the family property into trust, paid for out of the financial settlement for her child’s future care needs & the other half from a mortgage at ~5x MP‘s salary of £80k. (Exact financial details to be determined, but it will probably turn out to be something like that.)
Sorry, how does she “sell” her property into trust for her children? Who is giving her £400k? Wasn’t the house also valued at a convenient £650k for settlement into the Trust.
I was making up the numbers. If the house was £650k, then presumably her & her husband received £325k each.
The trust that received the settlement payment from the NHS to fund care for her child is the legal entity giving her the £325k in this scenario.
Wait a minute. So she's "sold" her share of her former home to a trust in order to extract hundreds of thousands of pounds from a medical settlement awarded to her child to buy a very expensive flat somewhere else?
That sounds worse to me than making a mistake over stamp duty.
It does sound like self-dealing, but equally it seems to me that owning the family home to ensure continuity of housing in the future isn’t the worst thing to spend part of a medical settlement on. This way, the house remains the property of the child even after the death of their parents & will never have to be sold out from under them in order to pay IHT, regardless of future IHT threshold changes.
The value of the house will probably track inflation fairly closely & if circumstances require it can always be sold in the future to fund the purchase of a more suitable property.
NB. To give an idea of the size of compensation claims in these kind of cases, this consultation document from 2016 says that “The average settlement for a severe neurological birth injury case equates to a value of £6.25m, including costs paid out over the injured person's lifetime.”
We obviously don’t know anything about Raynor’s child (and nor should we) but settlement payments in the mid single digit £millions in 2025 would be plausible. Spending £650k of that to gain security of future housing might seem an entirely reasonable expense, if such a settlement had been paid out.
To which the average person is thinking well if the MP came upon such a windfall why isn’t she paying £40k in stamp duty on the fancy new flat that’s neither in her constituency nor in London where she works?
The money is not hers - it’s held in trust for the benefit of her child who presumably has long term care needs paid for out of the interest on the trust’s holdings.
You can get that trust to buy assets you own from you, so long as you don’t profit from the transaction to the detriment of the trust, but you can’t have that trust (say) buy you a flat in Bournemouth for your own personal use, nor can you use it to pay the stamp duty for such a purchase.
But if they’ve used the trust to buy the constituency house in which she lives, and she uses that cash to pay a deposit and stamp duty on the seaside flat, that’s exactly the same.
My working theory is that she couldn’t have afford the flat if she had to pay the extended stamp duty in cash rather than adding it to the deposit.
She sold her final stake in the house immediately before buying the flat. I think she genuinely thought that meant she wouldn’t have to pay the higher rate of stamp duty, since she legally didn’t own any other property when buying the flat.
I don’t think that part of the whole affair is particularly egregious personally. Why pay an extra 5% stamp duty if you don’t have to & the rules are clearly setup to allow you to not make yourself liable for it? Normal people sell one property & buy another all the time & don’t pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
She got caught out by the rules on trusts, but I can well believe that she didn’t realise that what she was doing would leave her liable to pay the higher rate. It’s all going to come down to the details of her legal advice I suspect.
The new Deputy Leader of the Green Party - one Mothin Ali - looks an "interesting" character. Wonder what his take is on organic courgettes.
"Slightly closer to his ward, but on a similar theme, the now deputy leader of The Green Party called the Jewish chaplain at Leeds University, Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch, 'creep', a 'low-life' and an 'animal'. Ali also falsely claimed that Rabbi Deutsch had tried to kill women and children in Gaza. "Unsurprisingly, the Rabbi and his family were forced into hiding after this attack after receiving a large number of death threats. From those who want peace, obvs."
Stamp Duty is about ownership not where you live . Where she actually resides for council tax is irrelevant. Some of the media seem to be confused about this .
I'm afraid that key point is doomed to be lost in the fog. Not on here though - we're high end pundits (most of us).
Maybe we can excuse her because she is getting all the big calls right.
On the other hand, maybe not.
My advice to Rayner is go now, return in six months.
Doing a Mandelson, as it should be known.
Angela Rayner and Peter Mandelson - two less similar characters you could not imagine.
Indeed, apart from them both being undone for being homeowners, or as HIGNFY once said about Manelson, a homo-ner.
Why has Ange bought a random £800k pad in Hove anyway?
Why not , what’s wrong with Hove? Seriously though she doesn’t need one in London or Ashton so maybe she thought it was a good investment.
She is Ashton's mp and you think it a good look she lives in Hove ?
Even though it's been officially denied it's clear she intends to do a chicken run to the safe Labour seat of Hove and Portsdale. By the time we get around to selections the sitting MP will feel the pressure to stand down, Rayner will start talking about how her life has changed since 2024 and how much she loves the area and how at home she feels in Hove and then very quietly the selection committee will pick her for 2029.
That’s very unlikely as the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle, is a Cabinet colleague.
I wonder who her advisers were; in her position I would be expecting recompense from them, and not just for the outstanding tax.
They might feel tge need to put out a statement saying their advice was based on the Information provided
There’s also what’s meant by the term “advice.”
“We don’t think you owe the tax but this is based on the information you provided and it is your responsibility to make sure you are comfortable accurately reflects your situation” is very different to “you do not owe any tax on this and you can submit the return on that basis.”
In my experience clients do not differentiate between those two scenarios.
OT - Prior to today Rayner was most likely to be the next PM and no doubt losing that is a difficult pill to swallow.
However, this is a resignation issue both as a Minister and IMHO as an MP. I understand current MPs tend to think these things don't matter but they do. Certainly she should be gone as a Minister and putting the ball in Starmer's court to sack her rather than being ready to preempt the inevitable is not the sign of either a team player or a capable politician
Not a big fan of Angela's, but I'm not convinced that voters in general care very much. I've not read every detail but gather that she misinterpreted the rules during a divorce. It's a fringe issue for most people. However, resigning to sort out her affairs may make sense, and would probably be enough to enable her to stand for the leadership in a couple of years.
I think they will care - because a lot of people are looking at the £800,000 flat and asking how can she afford that
£400k from her half of the sale of the family property into trust, paid for out of the financial settlement for her child’s future care needs & the other half from a mortgage at ~5x MP‘s salary of £80k. (Exact financial details to be determined, but it will probably turn out to be something like that.)
Sorry, how does she “sell” her property into trust for her children? Who is giving her £400k? Wasn’t the house also valued at a convenient £650k for settlement into the Trust.
I was making up the numbers. If the house was £650k, then presumably her & her husband received £325k each.
The trust that received the settlement payment from the NHS to fund care for her child is the legal entity giving her the £325k in this scenario.
Wait a minute. So she's "sold" her share of her former home to a trust in order to extract hundreds of thousands of pounds from a medical settlement awarded to her child to buy a very expensive flat somewhere else?
That sounds worse to me than making a mistake over stamp duty.
It does sound like self-dealing, but equally it seems to me that owning the family home to ensure continuity of housing in the future isn’t the worst thing to spend part of a medical settlement on. This way, the house remains the property of the child even after the death of their parents & will never have to be sold out from under them in order to pay IHT, regardless of future IHT threshold changes.
The value of the house will probably track inflation fairly closely & if circumstances require it can always be sold in the future to fund the purchase of a more suitable property.
NB. To give an idea of the size of compensation claims in these kind of cases, this consultation document from 2016 says that “The average settlement for a severe neurological birth injury case equates to a value of £6.25m, including costs paid out over the injured person's lifetime.”
We obviously don’t know anything about Raynor’s child (and nor should we) but settlement payments in the mid single digit £millions in 2025 would be plausible. Spending £650k of that to gain security of future housing might seem an entirely reasonable expense, if such a settlement had been paid out.
To which the average person is thinking well if the MP came upon such a windfall why isn’t she paying £40k in stamp duty on the fancy new flat that’s neither in her constituency nor in London where she works?
The money is not hers - it’s held in trust for the benefit of her child who presumably has long term care needs paid for out of the interest on the trust’s holdings.
You can get that trust to buy assets you own from you, so long as you don’t profit from the transaction to the detriment of the trust, but you can’t have that trust (say) buy you a flat in Bournemouth for your own personal use, nor can you use it to pay the stamp duty for such a purchase.
But if they’ve used the trust to buy the constituency house in which she lives, and she uses that cash to pay a deposit and stamp duty on the seaside flat, that’s exactly the same.
My working theory is that she couldn’t have afford the flat if she had to pay the extended stamp duty in cash rather than adding it to the deposit.
She sold her final stake in the house immediately before buying the flat. I think she genuinely thought that meant she wouldn’t have to pay the higher rate of stamp duty, since she legally didn’t own any other property when buying the flat.
I don’t think that part of the whole affair is particularly egregious personally. Why pay an extra 5% stamp duty if you don’t have to & the rules are clearly setup to allow you to not make yourself liable for it? Normal people sell one property & buy another all the time & don’t pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
She got caught out by the rules on trusts, but I can well believe that she didn’t realise that what she was doing would leave her liable to pay the higher rate. It’s all going to come down to the details of her legal advice I suspect.
Polanski is trailing something big being announced at 4pm - defection?
Eating meat to be illegal if the Greens form a government? All homeowners with more than 2 bedrooms required to use the rest to house asylum seekers? A 100% tax rate on anyone earning more than £100k in the private sector? Try being trans for a day to become a national holiday?
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
Why has Ange bought a random £800k pad in Hove anyway?
Why not , what’s wrong with Hove? Seriously though she doesn’t need one in London or Ashton so maybe she thought it was a good investment.
She is Ashton's mp and you think it a good look she lives in Hove ?
Even though it's been officially denied it's clear she intends to do a chicken run to the safe Labour seat of Hove and Portsdale. By the time we get around to selections the sitting MP will feel the pressure to stand down, Rayner will start talking about how her life has changed since 2024 and how much she loves the area and how at home she feels in Hove and then very quietly the selection committee will pick her for 2029.
That’s very unlikely as the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle, is a Cabinet colleague.
But for how long? He's been absolutely shit at the job and until this week Rayner is the bigger player in the party. He's probably breathing a sigh of relief because her career is pretty much over now.
Polanski is trailing something big being announced at 4pm - defection?
Eating meat to be illegal if the Greens form a government? All homeowners with more than 2 bedrooms required to use the rest to house asylum seekers? A 100% tax rate on anyone earning more than £100k in the private sector? Try being trans for a day to become a national holiday?
I could see that last one becoming Monster Raving Loony policy.
Polanski is trailing something big being announced at 4pm - defection?
Eating meat to be illegal if the Greens form a government? All homeowners with more than 2 bedrooms required to use the rest to house asylum seekers? A 100% tax rate on anyone earning more than £100k in the private sector? Try being trans for a day to become a national holiday?
All of the above.
So, it's after 4... what was the something big? Nothing on the party's Twitter.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
OT - Prior to today Rayner was most likely to be the next PM and no doubt losing that is a difficult pill to swallow.
However, this is a resignation issue both as a Minister and IMHO as an MP. I understand current MPs tend to think these things don't matter but they do. Certainly she should be gone as a Minister and putting the ball in Starmer's court to sack her rather than being ready to preempt the inevitable is not the sign of either a team player or a capable politician
Not a big fan of Angela's, but I'm not convinced that voters in general care very much. I've not read every detail but gather that she misinterpreted the rules during a divorce. It's a fringe issue for most people. However, resigning to sort out her affairs may make sense, and would probably be enough to enable her to stand for the leadership in a couple of years.
I think they will care - because a lot of people are looking at the £800,000 flat and asking how can she afford that
£400k from her half of the sale of the family property into trust, paid for out of the financial settlement for her child’s future care needs & the other half from a mortgage at ~5x MP‘s salary of £80k. (Exact financial details to be determined, but it will probably turn out to be something like that.)
Sorry, how does she “sell” her property into trust for her children? Who is giving her £400k? Wasn’t the house also valued at a convenient £650k for settlement into the Trust.
I was making up the numbers. If the house was £650k, then presumably her & her husband received £325k each.
The trust that received the settlement payment from the NHS to fund care for her child is the legal entity giving her the £325k in this scenario.
Wait a minute. So she's "sold" her share of her former home to a trust in order to extract hundreds of thousands of pounds from a medical settlement awarded to her child to buy a very expensive flat somewhere else?
That sounds worse to me than making a mistake over stamp duty.
It does sound like self-dealing, but equally it seems to me that owning the family home to ensure continuity of housing in the future isn’t the worst thing to spend part of a medical settlement on. This way, the house remains the property of the child even after the death of their parents & will never have to be sold out from under them in order to pay IHT, regardless of future IHT threshold changes.
The value of the house will probably track inflation fairly closely & if circumstances require it can always be sold in the future to fund the purchase of a more suitable property.
NB. To give an idea of the size of compensation claims in these kind of cases, this consultation document from 2016 says that “The average settlement for a severe neurological birth injury case equates to a value of £6.25m, including costs paid out over the injured person's lifetime.”
We obviously don’t know anything about Raynor’s child (and nor should we) but settlement payments in the mid single digit £millions in 2025 would be plausible. Spending £650k of that to gain security of future housing might seem an entirely reasonable expense, if such a settlement had been paid out.
To which the average person is thinking well if the MP came upon such a windfall why isn’t she paying £40k in stamp duty on the fancy new flat that’s neither in her constituency nor in London where she works?
The money is not hers - it’s held in trust for the benefit of her child who presumably has long term care needs paid for out of the interest on the trust’s holdings.
You can get that trust to buy assets you own from you, so long as you don’t profit from the transaction to the detriment of the trust, but you can’t have that trust (say) buy you a flat in Bournemouth for your own personal use, nor can you use it to pay the stamp duty for such a purchase.
But if they’ve used the trust to buy the constituency house in which she lives, and she uses that cash to pay a deposit and stamp duty on the seaside flat, that’s exactly the same.
My working theory is that she couldn’t have afford the flat if she had to pay the extended stamp duty in cash rather than adding it to the deposit.
She sold her final stake in the house immediately before buying the flat. I think she genuinely thought that meant she wouldn’t have to pay the higher rate of stamp duty, since she legally didn’t own any other property when buying the flat.
I don’t think that part of the whole affair is particularly egregious personally. Why pay an extra 5% stamp duty if you don’t have to & the rules are clearly setup to allow you to not make yourself liable for it? Normal people sell one property & buy another all the time & don’t pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
She got caught out by the rules on trusts, but I can well believe that she didn’t realise that what she was doing would leave her liable to pay the higher rate. It’s all going to come down to the details of her legal advice I suspect.
1. If you are the deputy PM of the UK and the housing minister surely you check and take full advice on any financial actions, especially when it comes to tax and borrowing, if you cannot think to do this then should you be involved in running the country - and this applies to any politician of any stripe.
2. She was the fiercest and most unforgiving Labour MP demanding resignations for Tory MPs when they were in power. There can be no complaints about her receiving her own medicine right now - and this is also a lesson for any politician of any stripe, if you want to shout and scream and demand resignations make sure your personal circumstances are pristine and triple checked.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I do worry about parts of your statement being factually correct and would wait for more detail if it becomes public knowledge
However, I have no doubt at all that her position is untenable and as long as she remains in office it will be a huge thorn in Starmer and Reeves sides
Rayner should choose to resign from the Cabinet. From the back benches she could be the Queen over the water, working in cahoots with the King over the Irwell. Starmer deserves nothing less.
I suspect that the inquiry will find that she has mistakenly fallen foul of Trust and Tax Law in good faith, when trying to do the best for her disabled child. We will find out in due course. If she has been wrongly advised by a lawyer who thought they knew more than they did, welcome to the world many of us inhabit.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
She has always been a nasty piece of work. Her supporters like to claim that she apologised for saying nasty things about Tories but in reality any apology had to be forced out of her. You can disagree with someone's politics without believing them to be scum.
And now to be shown to be as venal as any Tory that she demanded resign. I imagine many of her previous targets are enjoying the irony of a Housing Minister - A HOUSING MINISTER - getting into a pickle about housing.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
If an opposition politician is giving Raynor the benefit of the doubt, perhaps I have been too cynical?
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
I wonder who her advisers were; in her position I would be expecting recompense from them, and not just for the outstanding tax.
Damages for negligence should put the plaintiff in the position they would have been in if the adviser had not been negligent. There is no loss caused by the negligence here - the additional tax was always going to be due. (Well, they might be on the hook for any interest and penalties, but not for the principal sum)
Proof that an extra two inches can make a woman moan non stop.
A mother-of-two has expressed her outrage after being handed a £100 fine for parking her car just two inches over a white line.
Lisa Henderson, 56, lashed out at the ‘ridiculous’ parking charge notice (PCN) issued by National Car Parks (NCP) in Newark, Nottinghamshire, on August 9 this year.
The coffee shop worker, who drives a green Mini, paid £1.95 for an hour but left after just 30 minutes to drive home – she did not foresee the problems that followed.
She was slapped with a £100 fine in a NCP letter, which included photos of her car’s front tyre ever so slightly crossing a parking bay’s painted white line.
OT - Prior to today Rayner was most likely to be the next PM and no doubt losing that is a difficult pill to swallow.
However, this is a resignation issue both as a Minister and IMHO as an MP. I understand current MPs tend to think these things don't matter but they do. Certainly she should be gone as a Minister and putting the ball in Starmer's court to sack her rather than being ready to preempt the inevitable is not the sign of either a team player or a capable politician
Not a big fan of Angela's, but I'm not convinced that voters in general care very much. I've not read every detail but gather that she misinterpreted the rules during a divorce. It's a fringe issue for most people. However, resigning to sort out her affairs may make sense, and would probably be enough to enable her to stand for the leadership in a couple of years.
I think they will care - because a lot of people are looking at the £800,000 flat and asking how can she afford that
£400k from her half of the sale of the family property into trust, paid for out of the financial settlement for her child’s future care needs & the other half from a mortgage at ~5x MP‘s salary of £80k. (Exact financial details to be determined, but it will probably turn out to be something like that.)
Sorry, how does she “sell” her property into trust for her children? Who is giving her £400k? Wasn’t the house also valued at a convenient £650k for settlement into the Trust.
I was making up the numbers. If the house was £650k, then presumably her & her husband received £325k each.
The trust that received the settlement payment from the NHS to fund care for her child is the legal entity giving her the £325k in this scenario.
Wait a minute. So she's "sold" her share of her former home to a trust in order to extract hundreds of thousands of pounds from a medical settlement awarded to her child to buy a very expensive flat somewhere else?
That sounds worse to me than making a mistake over stamp duty.
It does sound like self-dealing, but equally it seems to me that owning the family home to ensure continuity of housing in the future isn’t the worst thing to spend part of a medical settlement on. This way, the house remains the property of the child even after the death of their parents & will never have to be sold out from under them in order to pay IHT, regardless of future IHT threshold changes.
The value of the house will probably track inflation fairly closely & if circumstances require it can always be sold in the future to fund the purchase of a more suitable property.
NB. To give an idea of the size of compensation claims in these kind of cases, this consultation document from 2016 says that “The average settlement for a severe neurological birth injury case equates to a value of £6.25m, including costs paid out over the injured person's lifetime.”
We obviously don’t know anything about Raynor’s child (and nor should we) but settlement payments in the mid single digit £millions in 2025 would be plausible. Spending £650k of that to gain security of future housing might seem an entirely reasonable expense, if such a settlement had been paid out.
To which the average person is thinking well if the MP came upon such a windfall why isn’t she paying £40k in stamp duty on the fancy new flat that’s neither in her constituency nor in London where she works?
The money is not hers - it’s held in trust for the benefit of her child who presumably has long term care needs paid for out of the interest on the trust’s holdings.
You can get that trust to buy assets you own from you, so long as you don’t profit from the transaction to the detriment of the trust, but you can’t have that trust (say) buy you a flat in Bournemouth for your own personal use, nor can you use it to pay the stamp duty for such a purchase.
But if they’ve used the trust to buy the constituency house in which she lives, and she uses that cash to pay a deposit and stamp duty on the seaside flat, that’s exactly the same.
My working theory is that she couldn’t have afford the flat if she had to pay the extended stamp duty in cash rather than adding it to the deposit.
She sold her final stake in the house immediately before buying the flat. I think she genuinely thought that meant she wouldn’t have to pay the higher rate of stamp duty, since she legally didn’t own any other property when buying the flat.
I don’t think that part of the whole affair is particularly egregious personally. Why pay an extra 5% stamp duty if you don’t have to & the rules are clearly setup to allow you to not make yourself liable for it? Normal people sell one property & buy another all the time & don’t pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
She got caught out by the rules on trusts, but I can well believe that she didn’t realise that what she was doing would leave her liable to pay the higher rate. It’s all going to come down to the details of her legal advice I suspect.
Yes and I suspect all this is true but the wolves scent blood and to be fair (which I'd forgotten this morning), Rayner has form for laying into Conservatives on similar issues (though it's a bit apples and oranges).
What will determine her fate is whether, in Starmer's view, she is harming the Government over a period of time and obscuring the message - that actually determines all Ministerial resignations of this nature, if and when they happen. It's less to do with the facts of the case than the political impact of the case. Now, you know the anti-Labour media are going to blow it up into the greatest political crisis since (you can put in your own crisis here) so it's not how your enemies react but your friends.
The game will be up is if she loses her friends - what her enemies think is of little or no consequence. We know plenty of Conservatives (and others) have never forgiven or forgotten some of the comments she has made over the years and they scent a bit of revenge.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
That's very unfair on MaxPB. He has visceral hatreds for all sorts of other reasons too.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
Because she's a hypocrite. For years she was the arbiter of tax affairs and now she's dodging tax. Anyone who is fooled by this act that she badly advised should stop sniffing glue.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes they do. No average man/woman would get sacked from their job for this. At worst they would get a fine from HMRC as she will likely get.
That said I don’t care whether she resigns or not.
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes, she is responsible for the error. (If it's an error. If it's not an error, she is also responsible!)
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
Proof that an extra two inches can make a woman moan non stop.
A mother-of-two has expressed her outrage after being handed a £100 fine for parking her car just two inches over a white line.
Lisa Henderson, 56, lashed out at the ‘ridiculous’ parking charge notice (PCN) issued by National Car Parks (NCP) in Newark, Nottinghamshire, on August 9 this year.
The coffee shop worker, who drives a green Mini, paid £1.95 for an hour but left after just 30 minutes to drive home – she did not foresee the problems that followed.
She was slapped with a £100 fine in a NCP letter, which included photos of her car’s front tyre ever so slightly crossing a parking bay’s painted white line.
This I why I would be sacking, or reshuffling Raynor I really don't give a crap either way about this tax thing; let the Revenue sort it out.
Over the last three years, housebuilding in London has collapsed. Molior recorded just 2,158 private starts in the first half of 2025, around 5% of London’s (low) targets, and still falling.
What is going on? I have posed this question to numerous specialists, most of whom cannot comment publicly for professional reasons. This thread is a summary of what I have gleaned. https://x.com/SCP_Hughes/status/1963196403913494704
Whether or not she made a mistake or accidentally-on-purpose misstated her tax position is of minimal interest to me. The fact that this government is proving as feeble as the last one in sorting out the planning morass, actually matters to millions of people's lives.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes, she is responsible for the error. (If it's an error. If it's not an error, she is also responsible!)
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
But she doesn’t have a normal job, she’s paid £160k a year of public money to be the housing minister, in charge of the rules the rest of us are expected to follow but she can’t follow herself.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
To be fair I think it is her hypocrisy and her position as DPM and housing minister
It just looks awful, and of course Reeves is not going to be happy just when she is about to launch property taxes
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
Because she's a hypocrite. For years she was the arbiter of tax affairs and now she's dodging tax. Anyone who is fooled by this act that she badly advised should stop sniffing glue.
Yep. And shes the deputy PM. She should be subject to even stricter expectations of probity. The idea she wouldn't have access to the very best advice on what isnt that complicated an issue is laughable.
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
That’s not true.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes, she is responsible for the error. (If it's an error. If it's not an error, she is also responsible!)
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
Possibly a poor choice of words but clearly it is a bit different being DPM and a public figure and a private individual. I just mean that I very much doubt the circumstances that led to her creating the trust would be taken into account here (and shouldn’t be; IMHO). I’m not denying the difficulties that must come with being a parent to a child with disabilities - and I understand Ed Davey’s empathy there - but it isn’t an excuse for the tax issue.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
To be fair I think it is her hypocrisy and her position as DPM and housing minister
It just looks awful, and of course Reeves is not going to be happy just when she is about to launch property taxes
Nothing to do with her being labour and a woman
Of course it does.
You were the biggest defender of Johnson being "ambushed by cake" and Starmer and Rayner guilty of consuming a beer and a curry under the gaze of Ivo Delingpole's mobile phone camera.
Freshwater Strategy for September Ref 33 (=) Lab 20 (-2) Con 17 (-1) LD 15 (+1) Grn 7 (+1) SNP 3(=)
To show how ridiculous Baxter has become, I put the numbers in and East Ham is a Reform gain from Labour.
Now, it's unlikely Labour will lose the seat as they've held it (and its equivalents) since the 1920s but if it were to be lost, it's much more likely it would go to an Independent than to Reform who start from 3.5% in fourth place in a constituency which is strongly Muslim. Even those who have become ardent Reform supporters on this forum have conceded East Ham isn't one of their more likely gains at the next election.
As we saw in the 2024 election, the pollsters seem unable or unwilling to pick up the "Independent" vote and I suspect that is inflating some of the Reform numbers. I would be astonished if Reform won East Ham at the next election - indeed, i'd be more astonished than if the Conservatives or Greens won it. The one thing that would be astonish me more would be a Liberal Democrat win.
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
That’s not true.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes, she is responsible for the error. (If it's an error. If it's not an error, she is also responsible!)
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
But Rayner is not the average man /woman, she is DPM and housing minister requiring the highest of standards
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
That’s not true.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
That’s not true.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
Freshwater Strategy for September Ref 33 (=) Lab 20 (-2) Con 17 (-1) LD 15 (+1) Grn 7 (+1) SNP 3(=)
To show how ridiculous Baxter has become, I put the numbers in and East Ham is a Reform gain from Labour.
Now, it's unlikely Labour will lose the seat as they've held it (and its equivalents) since the 1920s but if it were to be lost, it's much more likely it would go to an Independent than to Reform who start from 3.5% in fourth place in a constituency which is strongly Muslim. Even those who have become ardent Reform supporters on this forum have conceded East Ham isn't one of their more likely gains at the next election.
As we saw in the 2024 election, the pollsters seem unable or unwilling to pick up the "Independent" vote and I suspect that is inflating some of the Reform numbers. I would be astonished if Reform won East Ham at the next election - indeed, i'd be more astonished than if the Conservatives or Greens won it. The one thing that would be astonish me more would be a Liberal Democrat win.
That poll only has 5% for "others" so not much for pro-Hamas independents
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
She was sub- Westland crisis Kinnock at PMQs today.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
She's paying the tax. The question is whether she also loses her job. If she does she'll have got less slack than the average person. Which is maybe fair enough for a politician - but on the tax point she isn't claiming special treatment.
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
This is what I said yesterday, she has dodgy tax dealings so she can't be leader or even stay on in the Cabinet. She's a really nasty piece of work and all of this "oh it was by accident" doesn't hold water for me. She's very clearly in the wrong, she's set up a trust for her kid so they can continue to claim disability benefits despite a £1m cash settlement and now the trust has purchased the house off her enabling a massive tax free gain (which until recently she's been briefing the media about how wrong it is to have no CGT on primary residences) which she's used to fund the purchase of her shag pad with her new boyfriend in a safe Labour seat in Hove.
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
I prefer to await the results of the inquiry. But then, I don’t have the visceral hatred of Rayner that you obviously do. Is it because she’s Labour, a woman, or both?
To be fair I think it is her hypocrisy and her position as DPM and housing minister
It just looks awful, and of course Reeves is not going to be happy just when she is about to launch property taxes
Nothing to do with her being labour and a woman
Of course it does.
You were the biggest defender of Johnson being "ambushed by cake" and Starmer and Rayner guilty of consuming a beer and a curry under the gaze of Ivo Delingpole's mobile phone camera.
She still needs to go mind.
I was not a Johnson defender and did not even vote for him as leader
Starmer and Rayner faced fair questions on currygate
And it is not about Rayner being Labour or a woman, just standards which Starmer said he would enforce
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
She was sub- Westland crisis Kinnock at PMQs today.
She's toast, and she knows she's toast, and she knows everyone knows she's toast
It's sad. I like her. I had hopes. But she's seriously poor
The end of the Bilbao stage of La Vuelta was changed today because of protests on the line by supporters of Palestine. Times were taken 3 kilos from the line with Tom Pidcock in the lead.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes, she is responsible for the error. (If it's an error. If it's not an error, she is also responsible!)
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
But Rayner is not the average man /woman, she is DPM and housing minister requiring the highest of standards
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
Why do people do this sort of idiocy? If you are in a public position where integrity is important, lots of people are looking to bring you down and everyone can find out info at the push of a button, why on earth would you make claims that just aren’t true? It’s absolutely beyond dumb.
If Kemi made false claims like this, even if to just big herself up and not on a CV when applying for a job it is still enough that she should step down as it shows a character flaw that should be an automatic bar to office.
The country is governed by fucking idiots, left, right and centre.
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
Why do people do this sort of idiocy? If you are in a public position where integrity is important, lots of people are looking to bring you down and everyone can find out info at the push of a button, why on earth would you make claims that just aren’t true? It’s absolutely beyond dumb.
If Kemi made false claims like this, even if to just big herself up and not on a CV when applying for a job it is still enough that she should step down as it shows a character flaw that should be an automatic bar to office.
The country is governed by fucking idiots, left, right and centre.
Some people just like to boast to appear better than they are.
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
Why do people do this sort of idiocy? If you are in a public position where integrity is important, lots of people are looking to bring you down and everyone can find out info at the push of a button, why on earth would you make claims that just aren’t true? It’s absolutely beyond dumb.
If Kemi made false claims like this, even if to just big herself up and not on a CV when applying for a job it is still enough that she should step down as it shows a character flaw that should be an automatic bar to office.
The country is governed by fucking idiots, left, right and centre.
inter alia, they all make Farage look like a titanic figure of skill, charm, probity and intellect
Anyhoo, a reliable source has been in touch, they think Badenoch is more likely to go before Rayner, as more is set to come out about her past as the uni offers is just the tip of the iceberg.
She was sub- Westland crisis Kinnock at PMQs today.
She's toast, and she knows she's toast, and she knows everyone knows she's toast
It's sad. I like her. I had hopes. But she's seriously poor
I don't believe she is anything like as appalling as some of her would-be successors, but she seems to fall into bear traps that she herself set.
Freshwater Strategy for September Ref 33 (=) Lab 20 (-2) Con 17 (-1) LD 15 (+1) Grn 7 (+1) SNP 3(=)
To show how ridiculous Baxter has become, I put the numbers in and East Ham is a Reform gain from Labour.
Now, it's unlikely Labour will lose the seat as they've held it (and its equivalents) since the 1920s but if it were to be lost, it's much more likely it would go to an Independent than to Reform who start from 3.5% in fourth place in a constituency which is strongly Muslim. Even those who have become ardent Reform supporters on this forum have conceded East Ham isn't one of their more likely gains at the next election.
As we saw in the 2024 election, the pollsters seem unable or unwilling to pick up the "Independent" vote and I suspect that is inflating some of the Reform numbers. I would be astonished if Reform won East Ham at the next election - indeed, i'd be more astonished than if the Conservatives or Greens won it. The one thing that would be astonish me more would be a Liberal Democrat win.
The problem i think with big moves like we are seeing is that 1000 person polling will pick out the generic trend but it totally fails to identify the sticky bits where votes just won't decline further for one party or another to the same proportion and it applies big stick proportionate swings on things like Baxter which then throw up weird results. And, of course, the targeting at a GE will play a part. The lowish Reform share in 2024 seats that are more traditionally Tory but fell to Labour (as an example) will be key Tory targets next time - Wycombe, Banbury, Peterborough as examples of this and rather than Reform gaining per Baxter id e pect them to go Tory if Labour are still in the doldrums even at 17 to 20% nationally. Similarly, Reform arent going to be putting resource into targeting East Ham etc, limited resource and manpower, it will go in to sweeping areas in the North, East and Midlands not trying to squeak home in East Ham, or Wycombe.
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
That’s not true.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
Isn’t Starmer the anti-Bozo though, the grown up? Is it a good look after all the attacks on Boris’ integrity to then behave in a similar way?
I DEMAND SHE RESIGNS BECAUSE SHE CALLED FOR THE RESIGNATION OF ANOTHER GUY (who didn't actually resign, he got promoted...)
Yeah, great call
“ You will recall, no doubt, that while under investigation for his tax affairs, instead of resigning, BoZo MADE HIM THE FUCKING CHANCELLOR!”
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
That’s not true.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
The perils of getting your news from the Guardian.
Yup, Boris Johnson knew in 2020 about the investigations and still appointed Zahawi Chancellor.
Then I apologise to ScottP. I shall resign and return to the PB back benches. See, it’s easy.
You have discovered the hard way as so many Tory MPs that defending Boris Johnson never ends well.
Ha, definitely wasn’t trying to defend Boris, more thought that it was different if Zahawi had hidden the investigation and been promoted rather than been promoted despite. I blame the Guardian though and sticking to that excuse.
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
What a weird pivot. I don’t think anyone’s attacking her on the basis of her family arrangements. Does having atypical family arrangements/caring responsibilities excuse you from not paying tax?
The confusion (according to Rayner) arose because of the odd rules around trusts. AIUI, she declared she didn't own any other house and she didn't, but she was tripped up because she counts as owning a house that is owned in trust for her son. The reason she has a trust is because she has a disabled son.
But it doesn’t excuse it.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
Yes, she is responsible for the error. (If it's an error. If it's not an error, she is also responsible!)
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
But Rayner is not the average man /woman, she is DPM and housing minister requiring the highest of standards
Comments
(Scotland was different - was never a religious sacrament but a personal contract, much more easily dissolved.)
Rayner on camera demanding that Tory minister Zahawi MUST resign for dodgy tax dealings
"Nadhim Zahawi’s story about his tax affairs doesn’t add up. After months of denials, the truth emerges.
His position is untenable. Rishi Sunak must dismiss him from his Cabinet.👇🏻"
https://x.com/AngelaRayner/status/1616729550913949696
There is years and years of this, from her. She is now in a completely impossible position, and is damaging Starmer with every hour she stays
"Farage condemned as 'Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant' by ranking Democrat on House judiciary committee
Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee, says they do have free speech in the UK. He says Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News, even though Farage has a show on that station in which he criticises the government and calls for bans on peaceful protests.
He says Farage is able to parrot “Putin’s absurd talking points” on TV. He goes on:
"For a man who fancies himself to some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr Farage seems most at home with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on earth."
He says Farage wants to get rid of the Online Safety Act. But if he wants to do that, he should be advancing those arguments in the UK parliament, which is meeting today, Raskin says.
He goes on:
"To the people of the UK who think this Putin-loving, free speech impostor and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country, come over to America and see what Trump and Mega are doing to destroy our freedom, kidnap college students off the street, ban books from our libraries, militarise our police and unleash them against our communities, take over our universities … You might think twice before you let Mr Farage “make Britain great again"."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/sep/03/farage-starmer-badenoch-pmqs-news-updates-uk-politics-live
I don’t think that part of the whole affair is particularly egregious personally. Why pay an extra 5% stamp duty if you don’t have to & the rules are clearly setup to allow you to not make yourself liable for it? Normal people sell one property & buy another all the time & don’t pay the higher rate of stamp duty.
She got caught out by the rules on trusts, but I can well believe that she didn’t realise that what she was doing would leave her liable to pay the higher rate. It’s all going to come down to the details of her legal advice I suspect.
So, it read: "STOP THE WAR Brighton & Hove"
Someone came up to him and remarked that they hadn't known things had gotten that serious.
Bedlam will ensue. It is ridiculous for her to continue. Starmer needs to sack her then bring her back in some other position in a year or two
Nah, Rayner and her defenders can jog on. It's unedifying to see some defend her so hard when it's clear she's in the wrong and dodged £40k in tax.
Rep. Jamie Raskin tears into Nigel Farage as a "far-right pro-Putin politician" and a "Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe".
https://bsky.app/profile/adamjschwarz.bsky.social/post/3lxwvqp4bvc2k
Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey says he believes Deputy PM Angela Rayner's property decisions had been guided by her disabled child's interests.
Davey notes that often members of the opposition "jump up and down and call for resignations" in situations like this, but as a parent of a disabled child, he says, "I know the thing my wife and I worry most about is our son's care after we have gone".
"I completely understand and trust that the deputy prime minister was thinking about the same thing here," he says.
Davey, a vocal advocate for disabled people's rights and support for their carers, adds: "Perhaps now is a good time to talk about how we look after disabled people and how we can build a more caring country."
2. She was the fiercest and most unforgiving Labour MP demanding resignations for Tory MPs when they were in power. There can be no complaints about her receiving her own medicine right now - and this is also a lesson for any politician of any stripe, if you want to shout and scream and demand resignations make sure your personal circumstances are pristine and triple checked.
“A key question to ask Ms Rayner: when she obtained the stamp duty advice, did she tell the adviser about the trust?
It’s an easy yes/no question.”
https://x.com/danneidle/status/1963227661758570817
However, I have no doubt at all that her position is untenable and as long as she remains in office it will be a huge thorn in Starmer and Reeves sides
I suspect that the inquiry will find that she has mistakenly fallen foul of Trust and Tax Law in good faith, when trying to do the best for her disabled child. We will find out in due course. If she has been wrongly advised by a lawyer who thought they knew more than they did, welcome to the world many of us inhabit.
And now to be shown to be as venal as any Tory that she demanded resign. I imagine many of her previous targets are enjoying the irony of a Housing Minister - A HOUSING MINISTER - getting into a pickle about housing.
Ref 33 (=)
Lab 20 (-2)
Con 17 (-1)
LD 15 (+1)
Grn 7 (+1)
SNP 3(=)
Yeah, great call
Snooze.
AR herself? I'm not sure.
A mother-of-two has expressed her outrage after being handed a £100 fine for parking her car just two inches over a white line.
Lisa Henderson, 56, lashed out at the ‘ridiculous’ parking charge notice (PCN) issued by National Car Parks (NCP) in Newark, Nottinghamshire, on August 9 this year.
The coffee shop worker, who drives a green Mini, paid £1.95 for an hour but left after just 30 minutes to drive home – she did not foresee the problems that followed.
She was slapped with a £100 fine in a NCP letter, which included photos of her car’s front tyre ever so slightly crossing a parking bay’s painted white line.
https://metro.co.uk/2025/09/03/mother-twos-fury-handed-ridiculous-100-parking-fine-24064831/
Im aghast
What will determine her fate is whether, in Starmer's view, she is harming the Government over a period of time and obscuring the message - that actually determines all Ministerial resignations of this nature, if and when they happen. It's less to do with the facts of the case than the political impact of the case. Now, you know the anti-Labour media are going to blow it up into the greatest political crisis since (you can put in your own crisis here) so it's not how your enemies react but your friends.
The game will be up is if she loses her friends - what her enemies think is of little or no consequence. We know plenty of Conservatives (and others) have never forgiven or forgotten some of the comments she has made over the years and they scent a bit of revenge.
Life forces us into making all sorts of arrangements sometimes. These can sometimes be very difficult, and complicated, and I sympathise when people have to put these kind of arrangements in place: but it is still your responsibility to make sure that your affairs are above board. The average man/woman on the street doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_BXeVJaisQ
What's Farage does is another matter
That said I don’t care whether she resigns or not.
Zahawi was sacked by Sunak because he didn’t inform Boris that he was under/had been investigated by HMRC when he was promoted and at further stages after so trying to make it look like evil Boris made him Chancellor knowing he was under investigation is disingenuous.
Zahawi was an arse who rightly paid the price.
If the case is as she describes, I would have sympathy with her given the oddity of the rules. It's easy to see how one could be tripped up. It is not a situation most of us, thankfully, have to deal with.
The average man/woman on the street absolutely does get the benefit of the doubt in respect of this. The average man/woman on the street would not lose their job over this. They would not be plastered over the media because of this. If it was a mistake and they reported themselves to HMRC, they wouldn't be prosecuted and they would probably not be fined.
I hope and expect HMRC to treat Rayner like the average man/woman on the street.
I really don't give a crap either way about this tax thing; let the Revenue sort it out.
Over the last three years, housebuilding in London has collapsed. Molior recorded just 2,158 private starts in the first half of 2025, around 5% of London’s (low) targets, and still falling.
What is going on? I have posed this question to numerous specialists, most of whom cannot comment publicly for professional reasons. This thread is a summary of what I have gleaned.
https://x.com/SCP_Hughes/status/1963196403913494704
Whether or not she made a mistake or accidentally-on-purpose misstated her tax position is of minimal interest to me.
The fact that this government is proving as feeble as the last one in sorting out the planning morass, actually matters to millions of people's lives.
Probably just Chinese Wispas.
It just looks awful, and of course Reeves is not going to be happy just when she is about to launch property taxes
Nothing to do with her being labour and a woman
I just think your post, in this instance about absenteeism only holds water if it applies to all MPs, that King of Clacton and Putin apologist too.
You, like the whole of the UK media have just given Farage a free pass.
And shes the deputy PM. She should be subject to even stricter expectations of probity.
The idea she wouldn't have access to the very best advice on what isnt that complicated an issue is laughable.
‘It can also be revealed that Boris Johnson, home secretary Priti Patel and the Cabinet Office were all informed of the investigations.’
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/07/10/boris-johnson-learned-nothing-from-pinchergate/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chancellor-nadhim-zahawi-tax-investigation-hmrc-b2119590.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
You were the biggest defender of Johnson being "ambushed by cake" and Starmer and Rayner guilty of consuming a beer and a curry under the gaze of Ivo Delingpole's mobile phone camera.
She still needs to go mind.
Now, it's unlikely Labour will lose the seat as they've held it (and its equivalents) since the 1920s but if it were to be lost, it's much more likely it would go to an Independent than to Reform who start from 3.5% in fourth place in a constituency which is strongly Muslim. Even those who have become ardent Reform supporters on this forum have conceded East Ham isn't one of their more likely gains at the next election.
As we saw in the 2024 election, the pollsters seem unable or unwilling to pick up the "Independent" vote and I suspect that is inflating some of the Reform numbers. I would be astonished if Reform won East Ham at the next election - indeed, i'd be more astonished than if the Conservatives or Greens won it. The one thing that would be astonish me more would be a Liberal Democrat win.
The perils of getting your news from the Guardian.
*famous modesty klaxon*
.... yesterday I was put in charge of comms and media for the Labour Party's Big "Phase 2" Relaunch! Going pretty well, I think
Starmer and Rayner faced fair questions on currygate
And it is not about Rayner being Labour or a woman, just standards which Starmer said he would enforce
It's sad. I like her. I had hopes. But she's seriously poor
If Kemi made false claims like this, even if to just big herself up and not on a CV when applying for a job it is still enough that she should step down as it shows a character flaw that should be an automatic bar to office.
The country is governed by fucking idiots, left, right and centre.
Some people don’t think it will be found out.
And, of course, the targeting at a GE will play a part. The lowish Reform share in 2024 seats that are more traditionally Tory but fell to Labour (as an example) will be key Tory targets next time - Wycombe, Banbury, Peterborough as examples of this and rather than Reform gaining per Baxter id e pect them to go Tory if Labour are still in the doldrums even at 17 to 20% nationally.
Similarly, Reform arent going to be putting resource into targeting East Ham etc, limited resource and manpower, it will go in to sweeping areas in the North, East and Midlands not trying to squeak home in East Ham, or Wycombe.
Who does is another matter