I feel sad about Angela Rayner

[Neededa]

OK, I am left leaning so maybe I am already biased, BUT, I do feel sad that a woman who overcame early issues, who was “proper” working class, who didn’t speak the kings English, but rather with a proper local dialect, and achieved a high office without a single spoon in her working class mouth, has gone.

i do understand that many people will agree with what has happened. I would have been fuming if the story played out the way it had as a different party, and I understand that Angela had to go, BUT as a woman who believes in holding up other women, particularly those who aren’t born to certain families, or have expectations placed on them from word go, I do feel a bit sad this morning.

There was a working class woman in the House of Commons. A working class woman was the deputy prime minister of this country. It is not even 100 years since working class women could vote. I feel sad.

There absolutely is question around her integrity.

Sir Laurie Magnus' report clearly stated that:

"c) in those two instances, that advice was qualified by the acknowledgement that it did

not constitute expert tax advice and was accompanied by a suggestion, or in one case
a recommendation, that specific tax advice be obtained; and

d) if such expert tax advice had been received, as it later was, it would likely have
advised her that a higher rate of SDLT was payable"

Angela openly lied about the 'legal' advice she received, throwing Verrico & Associates (a small company) under the bus, knowing full well they advised her she would need to seek tax advice as this was not something they do. They work only with the figures she provided.

As the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government it is laughable.

It's legal.

I feel very sad that she’s gone too. I would never have suspected I owed second homes stamp duty in her situation. It makes me laugh when people think she had access to the best tax advisors in the country - you can’t use advisors from your job for personal business. She’s not totally loaded - expert tax advice is very pricy - she made the wrong judgement not to pay for it. People (including leaders) make judgement calls all the time - some good some bad - that’s a reality many people seem unwilling to face. She made the wrong call when it mattered and so she falls on her sword.

But Boris never claimed not to be wealthy and privileged - he wasn’t a hypocrite in that respect. In fact he played up his poshness.

ummmmm Zahawi was found to have evaded tax by HMRC..... £5m in un paid tax as the bloody Chancellor!!

They used to have far more impact, and still do in some quarters. But trade unions, like much of the public sector, were very early in favour of equality. Care work is very female oriented, so there wouldn’t have been much competition from men in her area of trade unionism.

I didn’t say that. It’s not fine when ANY politician evades tax.

I don't feel sorry for her. She was sorry she got caught. Didn't take the correct advice and shes paying for it. Plus she is a hypocrite. She had to resign

That is really interesting, when you put it like that. Good point, and I am not being sarcastic. I actually posted today about how I felt. About a sad feeling about losing a trades union woman from the front bench.

But you are correct, the Tories have accepted women and people of colour as seniors in the party.

His first name is Laurie. (Just like AR is Rayner not Raynor, which the Labourite MNers frequently jump on.)

But more to the point, Sir LM found that she’d breached the code. His opinion (and that’s all it is) about integrity was a teaspoon of sugar. Unless every player in the saga had to cough up all their documents and be cross-examined under oath we can’t place any weight on findings about AR’s state of mind.

So far as it matters, I go with Sir Laurie. But that’s based on my own assumptions and conclusions on the facts that have come out, nothing more.

John Prescott had similar issues. Mocked by the Opposition and the Press. As we know he would settle matters physically but Tony said That's John!

It's nothing to do with class it is about intelligence. Someone like Farage is unlikely to do something like this as he is too intelligent (whether you like his politics or not). They're are plenty of wc people who would also look at all the details and check and check again (like me) and I find it insulting that people imply we wouldn't. Whenever I've seen Rayner she's come across as thick and unable to understand or rebut basic arguments, like when she was on the Trevor Phillips show and couldn't explain why building more houses is no use if you're planning to import millions more people like Labour is. The idea she would have made a great leader is laughable - just look at Thatcher's old interviews and weep at the dross we have now.

Yup. And the plebs all lapped it up and let him get away with feckless, lazy, nonsense instead of actually doing his job.

Whatever you think of Angela Raynor, she’s a grafter and has worked hard to better the lives of working class people like her.

She made a mistake and she was right to resign, but we have lost a very effective force for good in government and we should all feel sad about.

I’m a Labour voter. I feel sad about it because I remember the 90s when Thatcher and Major government ministers slagged off ‘gymslip’ teenage mums. I say that even though she’s a flawed person like we all are. But I think she didn’t mean anything bad by it. She was a bit naive and didn’t have the social capital/experience that would tell another government minister that you must check these things out with the most expensive professionals you can find, just to be sure.

I was shocked to think she had 3 jobs as well as being a MP which seems loads and taking advantage of a woman. I bet she will be replaced by 3 other people in those roles. I heard her civil servants liked and respected her which is impressive.

And also her having a profoundly disabled child I did not know that about her. It makes me feel less sympathetic to the overall government situation on PiP etc in some ways.

If she’d been a Tory MP she’d just have ridden it out and not given a fuck.

I don't. Not even a little. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Ok, well my opinion is she’s always been a grifter.

You know I agree our tax and income and property situation in this country is far too complicated. I agree on that. But I don’t think this was a complicated situation. And she is the deputy prime minister. She can’t say she’s not well advised. Not that that makes a difference. I use an accountant. I am aware that if he fucks up it’s still my fault so I send a little prayer every year that I hope to good he’s bloody done it correctly.

My issue with her is it’s always the tip of the iceberg. Like the time she was having children with a man and bought two council houses, and then was married to said man and pretended they didnt live together when she sold it. Ridiculous. The first is legal but not in spirit. The latter is downright evasion. Yet the headline argument was over 3k evasion. Not the hundreds of thousands in having an extra council home not in spirit.

You know there’s plenty of not in spirit things you can do in this country. And I am not sure they are any better than evasion tbh.

I was doing some maths last week and realised the gov would give us 1k UC as a household if my partner and I up our pension contributions to 2k each. I thought ooo, that would be nice. We could probably manage on that. But that’s ridiculous no? Is that in spirit?!

But then I see shit like this and think maybe I should be doing that. Angela certainly would have.

And yes the politics of it does annoy me. Labour seem to thinks everyone else has an unlimited pot of money to take. But not them. No. The others one. The richer ones! Oh… they don’t have more money. Well, fool them for not knowing all the loop de loops.

I’m working class and I’d love to see more working class people in power and top industry roles - I’m sick of the Etonian elite default but jeez how hard is it to just get your snout out of the trough and be decent?

Abide by the rules, play the game with integrity and do good even when no one is watching. I do it in my shit poor job. Every day. I wfh but never take the piss with company time, or expenses etc I just do my job to the best of my ability every day. Why is that so hard for politicians?

She deserved to go.

I voted labour and I think it’s sad that she made those choices. I am not convinced it was a mistake as £40,000 was kept in her pocket. She has called out others for tax evasion and rightly so. As housing minister she has responsibility and should have taken extra care. If everyone else is doing…call them all out don’t join in.

I think her financial affairs have left a damaging effect on politics, Labour’s reputation and public opinion. I don’t see her as a working class hero

This. It's such a shame, I do wonder why sitting cabinet members don't have better advice around this kind of thing. Surely there's some way of going through a list of potential major scandals - get your house in order kind of thing. It must be so disruptive to actual governance.

Yes this was pointed out on HIGNFY last year that the tories dont' care who you are as long as you protect those with money :)

a simple misunderstanding

She must have known that people woul dbe out to get her and therefore absolutely every damn thing had to be perfect. She had the money to employ the best of the best to dot the i's and cross the t's. Why didn't she?

This country is abhorrent really.

I think I speak for most when I say I don't give a monkeys what class politicians are, I would just like to see some competence for a change. Maybe we need to pay more to attract a better quality of leader who isnt corrupted by money (I read that leader of Singapore which is an extremely well run country earns £0.5 m pa).

I can't believe someone so intelligent did this on purpose, I believe it was a genuine error unfortunately.

Haha what has led you to think she's intelligent?