Angela Raynor - a thread for sane centre left/lefties

I agree she had to go. I feel let down by the fact that I thought she was better. No idea who might replace her. I wish Yvette Cooper would take over from Starmer to be honest….she seems the most sensible out the lot of them. The media and public are so against Starmer now (rightly or wrongly) that I feel him remaining in charge is just damaging the party.

Unfortunately that won’t wash. The Tories have paid the price for all those things …..they’ve been voted out and voted out so overwhelmingly that they are now a small minority party.

So I really do not understand this stand point from Labour that everything and anything is ok “because it’s not as bad as the Tories.”

The Labour Party should be better ….. we should expect more not just because they are fundamentally supposed to be about the people but they literally ran on an anti-sleaze campaign. In a campaign short on actual policy, they won being trustworthy. And within days it turned out they weren’t but the whataboutery was the excuse and so it continues.

Reform will be an unmitigated DISASTER for this country and the Tories absolutely deserve to be in the wilderness given their dishonesty BUT that doesnt mean that we should play down, ignore, what about, “blame the right wing press” when Labour do the same. Our response should be ferocious until these fuckers learn that we won’t tolerate it from any of them anymore.

Unless you actually divorced, this wouldn't work. Spouses are linked for SDLT.

There is no evidence at this point that Rayners actions constitute tax evasion, so there is no reason to suppose any kind of criminal prosecution would be brought.

I am really going to have to avoid the news now. Having had such a shitty Tory government for 14 years I had high hopes for Labour sorting shit out, but all this has done is show me they aren't really in charge and there is fuck all hope of anything changing. I wish I had never had kids. Meanwhile my local Labour MP who seems pretty decent got kicked out of the party for disagreeing with their cowardly policies towards vulnerable people and potentially disagreeing with SEND reforms.

I think we really need proportional representation now. The only way we can do that is instead of these 'get the current incumbents out' campaigns in general elections we all decide to vote independent to get party politics out.

I hope my banished MP doesn't go back to Labour for this reason.

Even if you think what she did was wrong, the scale of it is miniscule compared to the rank corruption of Farage and the Tories. COVID funding diverted in the hundreds of millions. Unfortunately people have short memories.

Well I must admit after seeing this if I was to buy a second property now, say to rent out, I’d take my name off the deeds of the family home a few months before. Pretend we were splitting up and only pay basic stamp duty.

I mean if me and dh were to reconcile down the line that can’t be predicted. And let’s face it Angela would have got away with this if it wasn’t for the media. And doesn’t sound like she’s going to prison. So I’ll chance it and cry and say sorry if caught, say I misunderstood 🤷‍♀️😁

I agree 100% with this.
The other sites on Mumsnet are full of hatred for her.
As I posted there, we will never know the complete truth about the tax issue.
It’s difficult to believe she would purposely & callously avoid tax, as she knows she has to be more than ‘squeaky clean’.
I truly despair at the political situation in Britain & the World. My parents were alive in the pre WW2 era & I grew up being assured by them that another war with atrocities could not happen again.
Now I fear for my children & grandchildren because I can see nothing but Right wing horrors in the future.

Well I must admit after seeing this if I was to buy a second property now, say to rent out, I’d take my name off the deeds of the family home a few months before. Pretend we were splitting up and only pay basic stamp duty.

I mean if me and dh were to reconcile down the line that can’t be predicted. And let’s face it Angela would have got away with this if it wasn’t for the media. And doesn’t sound like she’s going to prison. So I’ll chance it and cry and say sorry if caught, say I misunderstood 🤷‍♀️😁

I'm in the weird position of wondering whether Wes Streeting will end up being our PM.

The temptation must have been huge.

She should have bought a property within her budget. Us plebs would tot up the cost of SDLT to the cost of the property, to see if we can afford it.

But Labour have done nothing to tax these people with offshore accounts. They are literally int he driving seat ploughing through people listed with HMRC rather than the ones with all the backseat money and power. Of course he won't be caught, because Labour went for the easy fruit hanging from the middle classes tax tree rather than putting in work to get the big bucks from the big guys.

Ah but I think this is it - the £40k surplus is a huge amount of money for her.

You are misguided about who ‘the rich’ are.

The total tax on the new property would be more than her entire annual salary after tax.

I think there's something inherently worse about someone going on about how they came from nothing, had all the odds stacked against them, believed in making it better for 'people like me'...

...and then goes and does this and tries to dodge the system for tax.

She was advised to get proper tax advice but ignored this.

It's going to be a huge disappointment for those who thought she was the future of the party and would make genuine changes in a way that someone from a comfortable background couldn't replicate because it carries an extra sense of betrayal.

She's done so much damage to Labour it's difficult to quantify. It plays into the hands of Farage perfectly.

I actually do feel desperately sorry for anyone who put faith in her.

It pisses me off and I'm not anywhere near as too the left as her.