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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

She's only sorry she was caught.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I just don’t care tbh. It’s not that big a deal. Our economy is in the bin, there is large scale social unrest due to migration, cost of living is sky high. this is not a top 10 issue

Yep this will be the issue, trying to blame the solicitors with lies

As for the op it’s the hypocrisy that will get Rayner after going after others, live by the sword etc

I’ll be honest if I could minimise tax I paid I would
the problem for her is she’s set herself up for this and she’s banged on for years publicly about people avoiding tax are the scum of the earth and morally corrupt
she’s called for many mp’s to be sacked or resign in similar circumstances

yet brazenly does the same herself

If you take the bucks then you have to be prepared to explain it.

Broadly agree. The pandemic parties were a total non event whipped up to ludicrous proportion.

Rayner probably won't survive this, and the tories will be crowing until the next time the boot's on the other foot. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

They've been wanging on about sleaze for as long as I can remember, yet here we are. Unless we can breed a new type of human in a test tube or something sleaze will always be with us.

Pandemic parties : medical staff were being vilified if they left their masks slip or appeared to not follow exacting hand washing advice, whilst politicians were partying and flouting all the rules. It was obnoxious.

Well she's gone. Good.

What bollocks! My granddaughter was born at 26 weeks and her mum stayed in hospital with her for months. She didn't sue the NHS and buy a family home with the "compo" not did she take her name off the title deeds so she could buy a third dwelling without paying the appropriate stamp duty. Any Rayner's gone now, big hypocrite that she is.

Oh please, do me a favour. If this were a Tory MP she would have been baying for their blood. I have zero sympathy for this type of hypocrisy! She was the bloody housing minister and deputy PM and she deliberately avoided paying her taxes. In no other profession would this be tolerated.