AIBU to predict Streeting will resign tomorrow & trigger leadership contest.

Streeting was a signatory on a secret group which was instrumental in witch hunting any labour female member who espoused anything other than trans women are women. Many long standing female members left,were hounded online or removed from their local labour party because of it.
I don't care if he is claiming he has had an epiphany, ( co incidentally just when public sentiment was changing). But I don't trust him to protect women's rights if it is a choice between his career and women.

You should work for HMRC, you clearly know more about AR case than they do 😆

He seems to be the best of a bad bunch.

The problem is, STARMER was supposed to be - and may still be - the best of a bad bunch to a large segment of the UK public. As the Labour Party itself appeared to be in 2024, and to many still does.

I can see the argument that Starmer should have gone over the Mandelson/USA debacle, but he didn't. The idea that he should go over local elections seems obviously contrived. The only things that are really coming across publicly from the MPs who've called for his resignation are (1) they think he can't win a Labour majority in the 2029 GE and another Leader might and (2) he doesn't communicate internally or listen to/accommodate the ideas and objections of Cabinet members and Labour backbenchers when he disagrees with them. Neither of those things is of primary importance to the average member of the UK public right now.

I don't see the point in replacing Starmer with another Labour Party Leader/PM when it's not at all clear to the general public what it is exactly that Starmer has supposedly done wrong and how another Leader - ANY one, since there's no front runner - would not immediately fall into the same patterns. I fear losing the relative good Starmer is doing on the international stage (although of course it's not as exciting as a lot of people would like) without getting the positive changes domestically that some people seem to be hoping for from a new Leader - which seem overly optimistic to me given that they'd still be following Labour's 2024 Manifesto.

IF Starmer goes, I'd rather have Yvette Cooper than any other current Labour MP, but I think her ship has probably sailed.

@Alexandra2001 thus is direct from the government’s own website :

What property the higher rates apply to
When you know who the rules apply to, you should work out how many residential properties each of you will own at the end of the day of your new purchase.
If any of you will own, or part own more than one residential property worth £40,000 or more, you will have to pay the higher rates on your new purchase (unless there is another reason why the higher rates do not apply).
Include any residential property that:

• is owned on behalf of children under the age of 18 (parents are treated as the owners even if the property is held through a trust and they are not the trustees)
• you have an interest in as the beneficiary of a trust

Either Rayner is completely thick or she was duplicitous. It couldn’t be written any clearer and HMRC have let her off the hook, which will have implications for the challenge of any future fines for ordinary people. As I said in another post I know someone who underpaid tax on some foreign income. It was taxed at source at 20% but it should have been 40%. Genuine mistake but he was fined 15% for carelessness. Goose and gander. If I were him I’d be asking for the money back. It’s no different to Rayner’s situation.

Anyone (above the tax threshold) filling out a SA will "owe money"

HMRC do not expect the same level of knowledge from a lay person as they might from a corporation & there is no requirement to seek tax advice either.

She had a bill to settle.

So she … had a bill to settle. That means she owed money, surely?

I’m a socialist, btw, with a fondness for class analysis including that of the two sex classes.

And Streeting is still sitting on unlawful Stonewall, Unison and other union policies in NHS England - to the detriment of women - to this day. He lied about bringing them into line after the Supreme Court ruling over a year ago. There was another court ruling to this effect yesterday. (See broadsheets today.)

Rayner loves the same unions. So does Lisa Nandy. And Bridget Phillipson. I despair.

So now, HMRC have given Rayner favourable treatment...😆

.....its unbelievable the lengths and the slurs the 'right will go to, even when found to have done nothing wrong... they still moan.

I don’t buy the genuine mistake argument, Rayner has been given cover. It categorically stated on the governments own website in relation to stamp duty what she should have done, it wasn’t a convoluted, hard to understand, little used rule. It was there in black and white.

it should have been ‘carelessness’ by HMRC standards* and she should have been fined. She was buying a property in Hove. Most people use a solicitor they’ve used before and have a relationship with, or a solicitor local to the area they’re buying in. Rayner did neither, and used a solicitor nowhere near Hove, which I think is suspicious.

*I know someone who was fined for carelessness when he didn’t pay the correct tax on some foreign income that had been taxed at source, but at the lower rate of 20% and not 40%. A new job had pushed him into the higher tax bracket. That was a genuine mistake too but cost him a 15% fine.

ah so now HMRC have let her off? err no they don't, ask Zahawi...

Rayner cannot win and thats the problem with Labour and the 'right ... whatever they do, its always "wrong"

I've twice made errors on my SA, twice just asked to pay the correct amount.

DWP is by far the most aggressive dept's out there.

Twiglets big subject Google it. He himself has conceded he didn't help women's rights at the time.

I don't mind her lack of quals and I think someone with a tough background could help us however the problem is who does she wants to help ?
Usually only a very narrow window on who labour ideology agrees are those who need it.

Ie see stameer on women's issues .
See Jess Phipps leaving statement
See not caring about Peter Medallions ties to epstein and so on

It's the vitriol and politics of envy I deeply dislike

@Alexandra2001 you don't make mistakes in tax ,it's one of the most aggressive departments there is.
Many of us struggle with the complex tax system as she seemed to and what helped her care was simply paying what was due.
Many more people will make genuine mistakes but won't have the money to pay it off. Let's hope HMRC deals with them in the same Clement manner.

They couldn’t do that yesterday because of the King’s Speech, even if the meetings went well.

See I think that is really unfair. Just how could someone thick as mince as you call her have achieved what she has? How are you judging her “thicknesss”?

But you can’t think that she’s so wonderful the only reason people might have to dislike her is classism?

...ok....

Whether advice sought or not, ultimately, its down to the individual & the Ethics Advisor doesn't work for HMRC.

HMRC see this as a genuine mistake, if they thought it was down to carelessness, they have the power to fine up to 30% of the amount owed.

I suspect, though i don't know, AR self reported to HMRC, believe it or not, they can be quite helpful in complex cases involving an individual.

Hardly a prediction. It looks guaranteed.

She’s also thick as mince.