Unable to get worked up over issues like Rayner stamp duty and Tory pandemic parties

I broadly agree, OP.

I dislike the vitriol with which parties attack each other’s behaviour and policies, only to display the same behaviour and use the same policies once they are in office.

My beef with AR is more about her gleeful finger pointing in the past, while making mistakes herself.

This current government were excoriating about policies they are now following.

Most people in RL are just annoyed by her hypocrisy I think.

As mentioned above, you need to be squeaky clean if you’ve demanded the head of others previously.

She’s called on others to resign previously, so needs to hold herself to her own standards.

But as a pp said .in order to even attempt to keep things going, the No 10 staff had to be there working in close quarters all day. It literally made no difference that they extend the day by an hour and have cake. Different to people who were keeping separate but coming together to socialise. More importantly, the fuss over it totally distracted from far more important questions about mismanagement and unpreparedness....the second of which is far more important than the first. It's really easy to stand around at a distance and with hindsight and say they should have done X but at the time, noone knew what the fuck was going on. That should be the focus .. preparedness for something else in future.

I agree OP. But I’ve never been one to get particular outraged by things that others seem to.

As they all are of whatever persuasion when captured with their fingers in the till so to speak.

I care less about rayner taking tax advice than I do about the tories taking billions from the public purse during Covid and getting away with it.

The response to something like this is often "sigh - it's what politicians do". We must not allow this to become the status quo. We must hold our highly paid elected representatives to the highest standards of integrity, and when they fail, they must pay the consequences like everybody else, preferably according to their incomes. What is a £50 fine to a wealthy politician like Boris Johnson?

The pandemic parties were NOT an honest mistake - Saint Boris and his merry men knew exactly what they were doing; and so did the Conservatives, in that video of them dancing in front of "social distancing" signs. The fact that Johnson tied himself in knots so much, pretended the parties didn't happen, then pretended they weren't parties, then pretended they were somehow "essential" says it all: he knew that there would be a massive public backlash, and he tried as hard as he could to get away with it. If it was an honest mistake, whoever was in charge (not Johnson - he doesn't know what truth is) would have admitted the full truth at once, grovelled profusely, especially about how he was doing this at a time he was ordering the public to make massive sacrifices; not once did he acknowledge that, and he didn't even agree with lockdown himself (this was obvious). He kept saying "I've paid the fine - pleeeeeeeeeeeease can we move on?" Because of government lockdowns, people lost their jobs and businesses, children lost their education, many people now have mental health problems because of the government deliberately scaring the shit out of them with their "people will die" rhetoric, and far as I am concerned, lockdown has caused much more harm than good, especially the extremely clumsy way it was implemented and communicated. They might have got away with Partygate if it wasn't for all that. It also serves as proof that while they were moralising "don't kill granny", they were clearly not afraid of killing their grannies. Ordinary people (and Chris Huhne) can be sent to prison for lying about who was driving a speeding car, yet Boris Johnson and Tony Blair can tell huge lies to Queen and country, and face no consequences at all. One rule for them, another rule for us.

All this has done is widen the already vast gulf between politicians, and the people they represent. Politicians are paid much more than average people (yes, I know they're not the highest paid), and they have extremely generous expenses, including alcohol, all at the taxpayer's expense. And that's another thing: I haven't forgotten the expenses scandal, which proved everything I had suspected about politicians.

As for Rayner: I am disappointed; she had plenty to say about Partygate. If only many of us had the funds to buy one, never mind two houses. The Tory press are not going to let this go, this has been a massive gift to the Tories and to Reform.

She's only sorry she was caught.

Scotland was grim during COVID so many nutty rules that made no sense.
And she who must be obeyed with her daily lecture, absolutely no compromise with Sturgeon.

I personally really struggled with partygate because I worked in education and it was so so difficult sticking to the rules. It just really stuck in my craw.

my dad also died at the beginning of Covid.

i care a lot less about minor financial scandals (and I count Rayner and quite a few tories in that box).

Ideally I’d like politicians who are competent and have integrity. But if I have to choose I’d take competent and no personal integrity.

I just want a Government that doesn't play into the hands of that snake oil salesman and detestable fucker Farage.
It's a terrible sight seeing British people being pitted against eachother.

So you weren’t prevented from seeing a loved one who died alone due to the pandemic, whilst the politicians partied?
Being forced to wear the ridiculous face masks,
whilst queueing for hours at the supermarket. Mental health went out the window for a lot of people, some took their own lives.
I’m not blind to the plight of others even though I sailed through lockdown and now get to work from home as a result-amazing for me.

Politicians are all in for themselves but it would be nice if they stuck to the rules they made! Bunch of self serving idiot toffs, the lot of them. I’ve no respect for any of them.

Honestly, its all a smokescreen

There's people that are dying. There's a genocide happening. The nhs has been destroyed

All allowing someone to profit whilst we all suffer

I just dont particularly care

Angela! What have I told you about coming on mumsnet??

But she has done wrong, and it looks like after the conveyancer statements that she has lied also.
Every MP should be held accountable and she for one is happy to call out poor behaviour. This isn’t criticism of her but she then can’t complain that the only reason she’s getting called out is because of class.
If she had done nothing wrong this whole issue wouldn’t be getting discussed.
If you think the media have got it in for her unfortunately she’s literally handed it to them on a plate on this one, and it doesn’t look like her defence is that great

agree op, labour sleaze, tory sleaze etc., politicians being lying cunts, what else is new

I think anyone would find whatever loopholes they could to avoid paying stamp duty. The whole Taylor swift tickets and handouts for the MPs doesn't bother me at all. Perks of the job, surely. The pandemic parties were an absolute piss take, but the Tories could do anything and British stupid fuckers would still vote them in.

I totally agree. Partygate was a load of nonsense and Angela will pay the extra stamp duty.

It doesn’t wind me up but I do find it slightly irritating. People behaving idiotically is rather irritating. If you choose to be a politician then it is blindingly obvious that there will be journalists who disagree with your politics and so make it their jobs to try and dig up stuff on you. So make sure that there is no stuff for them to dig up. It is damn obvious. In 5 years she probably will be be a nonentity again and she can do whatever she wants and no one will care.

It's everything that's gone before. There is so much hatred for an outspoken, working class woman who has climbed her way to being deputy prime minister. A sense that she should have kept in her lane, rather than celebrated as a fantastic role model.

There's a special vitriol saved for her that other high profile front benchers don't get, either because they are men or perceived to be middle class.

How did you “nearly wake the kids up”? You either wake kids or you don’t. There is no “nearly”.

And AR called him out for each one, rightly so, but why is it classist and misogynistic when she is held to account?

It feels to me that the deeply classist and misogynistic media would have eventually got Rayner for something. It's grim to watch.

Didn't Boris Johnson resign over Chris Pincher, at least as the final straw, rather than partygate? He survived a number of scandals, not just being pushed out after the first one.