To think that surely Rayner has to go.

[Blankscreen]

Well well well.

So now it emerges that Rayner rearranged her property affairs and declared to HMRC that her new flat in Brighton is her main residence and saved £40k on the SDLT bill as a result.

She has then apparently declared to the local councils the complete opposite.

I'm sure slimeball Kier will defend and say it was perfectly legal blah blah blah.

Not to mention she has a grace and favour house funded by tax payers in London as her constituency office is so far away. Yet she 'lives' in Brighton - surely she could just commute that distance like may others do every day.

Surely she has to go.

What is speculation? Her child was born at 23 weeks, survived against the odds, thanks to the NHS care and is a 17 yo young man today. If anything her case would be upsetting to women who were not so fortunate. And to top it off she was for removing PIP payments from disabled,inc child like hers knowing PIP is a lifeline for disabled who can not work at all.

I wonder if her working class roots made her hesitant of paying huge fees to tax specialists? The mega wealthy don't bat an eye paying these fees as they know in the long term they are justified and help make them v rich. Working class people don't often have that luxury and look for the cheaper option. A guilt complex even that money is not to be wasted. She comes across as a tough woman who has fought hard and possibly does not find it easy to accept advice. It's a shame as she did achieve such success from a hard start in life.

All she had to do was Google Gov.uk
that would cost her nothing

Yeh I’m not sure about that one. We all try to do the right thing tax wise and it takes looking stuff up and working things out.

what are you talking about

I am having to pay out a large some of tax on a property, I could of course not declare it but this is the wrong thing to do. I am working class. She is also, in her own words, a socialist, so a believer in higher taxes for those with money

And many wealthy people do not pay a high amount of tax, we have a number of loopholes that really need to be sorted out. If you have money behind you you have money to pay for someone to hide it for you - and its made easy for them

Its really not complicated she choose to not the advice to seek specialist advice (twice) because she preferred to pay the lower amount of tax

aka tax dodger plus she is a hypocrite, the worse thing you can be especially as a labour politician

Yes you're right but I get the impression she put it all in the hands of a trusted legal person for mates rates. Possibly the third trustee of the trust? While she carried on with her ministerial and constituency work. I'm not justifying it, more just thinking of why she ended up in this mess. I'm sure that the entire history of these trusts will now be fully scrutinised.

We’re all up against it with tax. There’s no excuses just because she had an accent or is wc.

I agree with you and I'm not making any excuses for her. I'm annoyed about all of it.

Have we seen Starmer's letter? What a chaotic mess!

He must be a sweating mess right now. Rayner will have plenty to say about him and quite a few others when the dust settles.

Those letters are dribble aren’t they. Both wanging on like that. Bloody hell

Rumours that Yvette Cooper will not be Home Secretary for much longer!

She's gone....well from HO at least.

Tbf you don’t know why she didn’t take up specialist tax advice, you’re only speculating. Whatever the motive it was clearly the wrong thing to do and now it’s cost her her job and possibly her career.

I do agree with you that wealthy people tend to have a safety net of colleagues or paid people to either catch or to hide mistakes. AR doesn’t. So yes, she could have been dense enough to think she’d save the tax and get away with it (which feels quite unlikely) or she could have been a bit naive and thought it’s probably fine, conveyancers know their onions and they just cover their arse saying ‘it’s not expert advice’.

Crikey. .do we know who's replacing her?

Yes I do

She chose to ignore the advice twice to get further specialist advice

Are we really going to analyse this further when its it there in black and white

Shabana Mahmood.

Thank you. It's all happening.

Lammy is justice sec

Ridiculous just shuffling cards

Lammy is just a waste of space wherever he goes but from Starmer pov he is a useful idiot?

Unless you actually know her and have discussed it, of course you don’t know why she ignored that advice, that’s patently obvious.

You know that she ignored the advice and you believe it was for a particular reason. You’re entitled to your opinion, but you can’t claim it as fact.

It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

Yes when the problem is actually the huge fucking sinking ship

Who cares about facts🙄