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

[Willgetflamedforthis1]

NC for this for obvious reasons…but I find myself unable to see what all the fuss is about for these storm-in-a-political-teacup issues that seem to frequently dominate the headlines in the UK media.

At the moment it’s Rayner’s stamp duty balls-up. Before that, it was the Tory’s Pandemic Parties. They just feel like unneeded distractions from actual corruption and the real problems people are living with.

Why are we in such a frenzy over a politician making an honest mistake with the UK’s mind-numbing stamp duty and trust laws, when hundreds of thousands of leaseholders are being fleeced by offshore freeholders every year or are STILL trapped in unsaleable flats because of the cladding scandal?

Frankly, I don’t care if a politician misjudged a property tax matter. She’s not a tax accountant. What matters is integrity in office, not whether she misunderstood a rule so complicated most solicitors have to double-check it.

And on the Tory side? I find it so hard to get worked up about people already in the same office all day standing around in the same office but this time with wine and a Christmas jumper on. Yes it was ill judged and bad optics. But compared to PPE contracts and billions wasted in cronyism, it’s laughable that Party Gate was given airtime at all let alone given a dramatised documentary on Channel 4.

We are not living through a slow news day. We are in the thick of environmental collapse, a housing crisis and spiralling costs of living. Yet the media somehow thinks these non-issues deserve top billing and people lap it up.

It’s an absurd waste of the energy we should be focusing on solving our actual problems. Does anyone agree?

She didn't make a mistake. She took tax advice resulting in her putting a property in trust . This is tax avoidance. This is the same party who want to tax my pension 40%. They are do as I say but do different!

YABU. If you don’t hold politicians accountable for their lack of personal integrity, they won’t even make a pretence of having professional integrity.

How are you Rayner?

I feel the same. About both of those incidents. Couldn’t give a stuff about either of them. There is more to both those politicians than their mistakes.

😂 not having my best week tbh!

Absolutely agree in principle but don’t think the stamp duty thing reflects on her integrity - to me it reads like an honest mistake now rectified. Not a Tory but I can also see how people working in close quarters around the clock in that particular work context wouldn’t have thought much of having a glass of wine / saying a few words on a colleague’s last day. I don’t think it was malicious.

I do have some sympathy in that they are hostage to "advisors". Senior politicians are not often specialists of any kind, that's what the civil service and independent advisors are for, and consequently they are often given poor, or indeed completely wrong advice (sometimes, I guess, maliciously).

Boris's parties were not parties, and Rayners tax and trust affairs are just fock ups. However Boris went, and therefore so should Raynor.

Sorry but I don't agree that this was done for tax avoidance, she has a son born at 23 weeks with severe disabilities, any decent parent would try to ensure that he was provided for after they were no longer there to look after them! I'm personally sick of hearing about it and feel sorry for the poor woman having to disclose personal information with regards to her family and divorce which has nothing to do with the public.

She didn’t rectify it out of her own accord, she has no choice now it has come to light.

She has access to various government bodies like HMRC and the Ethics Committee but didn’t consult them. Her advisors have not come out in support of her.

She played the game and lost.

The rules are there for all. Other people also have disabled children and they don’t get this tax break and neither should she.

Anyone that offers themself to be a leader of a section of the population (i.e. an MP) needs to have the very highest standards of behaviour. Someone to look up to.

Sadly some MP's are mainly out for themselves and have absolutely huge egos.

It would be better if they did another job.

Completely agree with you op!

It’s more than that I think. The news reports reference an award given to her son following an incident at birth. There was a payout from the NHS. She sold her share in her house to the trust that has her son as the sole beneficiary. Which seems like a sensible decision to secure the already specially adapted housing of a severely disabled child. Especially since the parents were divorcing and you want that house kept separate in any subsequent marriages that may end in divorce.

But leaving that aside, whatever the rights and wrongs of it are, I think politicians should be banned from talking about other politician’s scandals. It’s so fucking tedious and predictable. Kemi Badenoch is outraged over this, but we all know she wouldn’t be if it was a Tory MP. Just like we all know the Labour MPs would be outraged rather than sympathetic if it was a Tory. Why bother asking any of them what they think.

She has tried to blame the solicitors but they have rightly pushed back:

Verrico & Associates managing director, Joanna Verrico, told The Telegraph: “We did not and never have given tax or trust advice.” She added: “We probably are being made scapegoats for all this, and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it.”

Because they're desperate for us not to be talking about the real issues that you mentioned. Johnson was a useful idiot when the real brains in the Tories were making millions for them and their mates.

The Rayner issue isn't comparable and the pile on is to try and oust her because they're scared of her

I don’t agree with the defence she took advice, the buck stops with her.
I think the issue that grates is she was very vocal on any conservative irregularities and rightly so. If you are happy to call out others you must be squeaky clean yourself and it seems that maybe she isn’t.
Its the hypocrisy that makes it worse

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.