Page 14 | I feel sad about Angela Rayner

Neededa · 2025-09-06T05:13:19+00:00

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.

RedToothBrush · 06/09/2025 09:40

IGaveSoManySigns · 06/09/2025 06:34

Me too.

She took legal advice, it was wrong, and now she’s being hung out to dry over it. Meanwhile, the tories fleeced us for years and got celebrated for it.

The legal advice she took explicitly said that it wasn't tax advice and that she should seek specialist advice.

She's an MP and was in a very senior role. Attention to detail on points like this is an essential thing to understand and take seriously.

Her background is irrelevant to this point.

She SHOULD have known better from a due diligence point of view, because it literally was her job to have the skills to do this. She KNEW she was in a position where she's under additional scrutiny to get it absoluetely right too - both legally AND morally.

You can't be dealing with very serious issues which may involve huge liabilities and consequences and not understand when someone says 'this is a suggestion only and we lack the expertise in this area to say this is the course of action you should take and you should take expert advice instead' as Deputy PM!

You might kill people or lose millions of pounds in compensation claims if you fuck up on governmental things for a similiar mistake, however 'genuine'.

So no I don't feel sorry for her. She should have done better.

dijonketchup · 06/09/2025 09:40

I agree OP. She seemed to trust that people would give her the benefit of the doubt. She is careful with money because she needs to be, with no generational wealth.

Willing to bet the amount of tax she owed is nothing compared to what the average Tory MP squirrels away offshore over their career. Her only mistake was not having enough friends in high places and not hiring an expensive enough accountant.

GwendolineFairfax8 · 06/09/2025 09:41

Neveranynamesleft · 06/09/2025 09:37

We have no way of knowing what advice she did or didn't get. Thoughts of the woman as a person are irrelevant in this situation. She must have known the second that word of the house sale and the tax got out she needed to pack her bags. She would have been down on anyone else in a similar position like a ton of bricks.

We do know she was advised to seek specialist tax advice about the Trust. It is written in the report that led to her resignation.

Menopausalsourpuss · 06/09/2025 09:41

awaynboilyurheid · 06/09/2025 09:35

I don’t see why Labour MP’s can’t own own multiple houses or be from millionaire backgrounds ( although I’m sure the tories have more of examples of this) I liked the Labour MP Anthony Wedgwood Ben previous Labour MP who was the son of a peer AND I liked Angela Rayner too. I don’t get the how dare she own several houses she’s worked for it good on her!
However she is in government and needed to be scrupulously careful she was following all the rules, as Barack Obama said when they go low we need to go high , in other words Labour must not go down the , rule flouting is ok for us Tory party highway. But agree with op it’s a pity she had to go.

Edited

She hasn't worked for it she's just sponged off the taxpayer all her life and created no value whatsoever, people who've worked for it and created jobs etc. are small business people, farmers etc who Labour are destroying. I'm afraid in the case of Labour they have lower morals than most of the general public.

awaynboilyurheid · 06/09/2025 09:41

LovelyLuluu · 06/09/2025 09:37

They can have as many houses as they like.
Tony Blair collected them along the way- lost count of how many he has now.

But at a time when we are short of homes and house prices are unaffordable for so many people, she comes over as unable to read the room.

Lack of intelligence or just sheer self-interest?

Or both?

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Good for him and good for Angela , are we counting the houses of a tories too? Does David Cameron’s shepherds hut count ?
newsflash you can still vote Labour and be wealthy
The tories are allowed but not Female working class MP’ s ?
how very dare they!

PrincessScarlett · 06/09/2025 09:42

I feel sad and let down. I think she was a brilliant advocate for females in politics and was a hell of a lot more popular in both the party and with the public than Kier Starmer is.

The press played a huge part in this. They went after her from day one looking for anything to bring her down. Female politicians are always torn apart by the press more so than their male counterparts. Theresa May was treated appalling by the press. Look at Teflon Boris and all he has done and Angela Raynor puts one foot wrong and she is vilified.

Yes, she should have made sure she was squeaky clean (even though many male politicians are not squeaky clean and have not lost their jobs) but I feel politics will be worse off for not having a woman like Angela Raynor as a MP.

TeenagersAngst · 06/09/2025 09:42

Friendlygingercat · 06/09/2025 08:01

Some people have mentioned that Nigel Farage used tax avoidance techniques in that his house is owned by his partner, a first time buyer. The likes of Farage who come from a moneyed background grow up hard and sharp where money is concerned. This why they are rich. They pay tax lawyers to advise them knowing that the money will be well spent. Raynors' background went against her. She cut corners and took tax advice from a little local conveyancer. Had she asked the right questions of the right people she would (probably) not have made the naive mistake. If you are going to mix with the top people in their world you better behave like them. Otherwise they will carve you up.

If her background makes her so naive, why the fuck is she the Housing Minister? Her actions and decisions affect millions of people.

She’s either incompetent, arrogant or naive. Are any of those character traits ideal for a top ministerial role?

anotherside · 06/09/2025 09:42

Tryingtokeepgoing · 06/09/2025 09:38

Mandleson made a comeback or two after a property and an immigration scandal ;)

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He did but he was a member of a centrist/centre-right party/government. Not sure the same rules will apply to Rayner.

TheSquashyHatofMrGnosspelius · 06/09/2025 09:43

RoseAndGeranium · 06/09/2025 09:14

I feel a bit sorry for her because she's a human being who has ended up in a financial mess. Beyond that, no, absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. If it were just this one error then I might feel differently, but it's not, is it? Because there was also all this, in no particular order:

The obviously intentional tax dodging she did over the sale of her ex-council house. All the (still working class) neighbours of that address were clear she hardly ever went there. She actually lived less than a mile away with her husband and other children. Yet she claimed it was her primary residence to avoid paying CGT on it.
Gross hypocrisy: she would have hounded any Tory who cynically lied to the authorities in order to avoid paying tax, and she also sought to end the right-to-buy scheme, from which she herself had profited. One rule for Ange, and plenty of other rules for everyone else, including the working classes.
She tried to blame this on her conveyancing firm, despite the fact that they were quite clear about the fact that they were not solicitors or qualified to advise on tax issues. They told her she should seek qualified legal advice on her specific tax situation, and she didn't. Really unpleasant to try to land this on a small business and be damned to the stress, financial consequences and potential media attention those working for that business might suffer as a result. What a selfish woman.
As a PP has pointed out, careful inspection of the government website or a chat with Grok would have told her the correct position regarding tax in her situation. It's not good enough for a government minister who has repeatedly attacked the politicians on the other side of the political divide for attempts to avoid tax to commit actual tax evasion and then think she can get away with it by crying on TV. That doesn't wash for Tories, it doesn't wash for normal members of the public, no way it washes for Ange.
She has made much of the fact that this was all about looking after her disabled child. Really? Really? Taking money out of her child's trust to buy her out of her share in the family home so she could move to a luxury flat hundreds of miles away from her disabled child and her constituents? Sorry, but what does any of that have to do with taking care of her disabled child? She used her disabled child as a human controversy shield and it's gross.
She and this government have had absolutely no sympathy for the many parents across the country who are genuinely doing absolutely everything they can to 'just look after their children'. The people scrimping and saving and never taking a foreign holiday and certainly not splashing out 800k on luxury homes hundreds of miles away from their kids so that they could send their children, many of them with special needs, to private schools that make education accessible for them. The farmers working 14 hour days every day of the week, usually alongside their kids, and hoping to leave those farms to those children, who have also invested huge amounts of time and work and love in them. No sympathy for these groups at all. Instead, endless yells of 'PAY YOUR TAXES'. No, Ange, you pay YOUR taxes.
She has used hideously intemperate language about her opponents in the past, such as the notorious 'Tory Scum' comment. She deserves to be held to the very highest of the standards she's expected of others.

As for your woe about her being a properly working class woman. I'd love to know what you think of Margaret Thatcher and the way people talked about her. Thatcher grew up in a working class household. She and her sister saved their pocket money so they could pay passage for a Jewish teenager who had escaped Nazi Germany to come and live with them. She won a scholarship to a Grammar school and worked her way up, on her own merits, first to Oxford, and then to Westminster. Do you have a feminist interest in Thatcher, or do you revile her as a filthy milk stealing Tory, like so many of the others I've seen sighing over Angela Rayner?

Thanks for this. I voted for Margaret Thatcher and would do again. She would not have tolerated Rachel Reeves lying on her CV either.

Menopausalsourpuss · 06/09/2025 09:43

dijonketchup · 06/09/2025 09:40

I agree OP. She seemed to trust that people would give her the benefit of the doubt. She is careful with money because she needs to be, with no generational wealth.

Willing to bet the amount of tax she owed is nothing compared to what the average Tory MP squirrels away offshore over their career. Her only mistake was not having enough friends in high places and not hiring an expensive enough accountant.

I don't think you need an expensive accountant to know how much sdlt to pay (and if you do there's something seriously wrong). Any intelligent person (not Rayner obvs) should be able to work it out.

Iwishicouldflyhigh · 06/09/2025 09:43

Redburnett · 06/09/2025 07:21

I think it highlights how difficult it is to be a female figure in public life. How do you negotiate dealing with a disabled child, ex-husband, buying a home and so on as well as all the demands of a senior political role? I believe she genuinely thought she was paying the right stamp duty. It has left me wondering how people in these positions should be supported with day to day life when they are focused on their political role, because clearly she needed an adviser to assist her and if she had one they failed. I find the vitriol utterly depressing, and I don't know how anyone can cope in public life in this social media age.

It’s her job (was her job). Millions of women have similarly high pressure jobs with other life issues and cope.

Landlubber2019 · 06/09/2025 09:44

"Careful with money because she needs to be"

Aren't we all? Perhaps we can all write this on our tax forms this year..... Tax unpaid cause I need a beach house 😂

JumpingPumpkin · 06/09/2025 09:44

I am not massively bothered by what has brought her down this time, sadly that level of corruption appears pretty normal these days. I am bothered that people are feeling sorry for her as she has successfully risen from a difficult start, as though being deputy prime minister is a consolation prize of sorts.

If anything happened to Starmer she would have been running the country. I want sharp leaders who know what questions to ask to make sure they’re on top of things.

ByQuaintAzureWasp · 06/09/2025 09:44

SomethingFun · 06/09/2025 09:36

No one needs an expensive flat in Brighton. No one on MP wages needs to be borrowing from their disabled kid’s trust fund to buy another very expensive home. It’s all a problem of her own making and smacks of thinking she is better than the rest of us and deserves more. No working class values here at all.

There is no Venn diagram where people who dgaf about Nigel Farage’s bullshit and people who would like Angela Raynor if she hadn’t done this crossover I’m afraid 😁

I don’t understand why the Labour Party doesn’t do more to ensure its MPs aren’t better advised and also don’t keep fucking up with hypocritical shite all the time.

She didn't "borrow" from her disabled son's trust fund. She sold her 25% share in tbe house, at an over-inflated price, to her son's trust. She therefore breached her responsibilities as a Trustee and acted despicably and without a modicum of integrity.

DenizenOfAisleOfShame · 06/09/2025 09:44

CurlewKate · 06/09/2025 09:39

No. As I have said several times. However, Laurie Magnus does.

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Hurrah, “Laurie”.

We all now know what advice she got: the conveyance is fine but get specialist tax advice, she was told. Why she didn’t do so is not answered by Sir Laurie or anyone else.

Pigsinpants · 06/09/2025 09:45

RosesAndHellebores · 06/09/2025 06:56

Nope. No sympathy whatsoever.

She was a Cabinet Minister, one the highest in the land and she didn't have the good sense and basic acumen to take expert legal advice in relation to a complex tax matter involving three homes and a Trust, notwithstanding the optics of public office. On that basis, she is not fit to be in office.

Let's see what else, oh yes, Secretary of State for HOUSING. Also, the law firm, a tiny, family firm run by a woman, employing women, which she tried to throw under the bus. A tiny firm in Herne Bay, a million miles from Hove, London and Manchester. Why? Because they were cheap? I can't see much evidence of any respect for women there.

The evidence indicates she is not fit for office. One hopes now for a better Deputy Prime Minnister.

Edited

This

CurlewKate · 06/09/2025 09:46

Tryingtokeepgoing · 06/09/2025 09:39

Like the self described ‘working class’ Sir Kier? Did you know that his father was a tool maker…

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Yes, I did know he was a toolmaker. What class would you say he was?

MaturingCheeseball · 06/09/2025 09:47

I agree that it all rather went to her head. A trough was seen, and a snout stuck in it.

I absolutely do not get the “I didn’t know” excuse. You are the Deputy Prime Minister! What kind of arrogance leads you to believe that indulging in questionable tax arrangements will not be uncovered and, moreover, is acceptable when you have been vocal about others indulging in similar?

I also do not get the “woman” thing. I’m not holding a senior politician to a lesser account because of their sex. How insulting! And no tears when you’re caught, thank you.

Hiptothisjive · 06/09/2025 09:47

Sure but then I also felt very ‘sad’ about when Teresa May was PM and was bullied and cried. She stood up when no one else did. It sometimes isn’t about politics it’s about a person. So my question is did you feel the same when it happened to her?

Another2Cats · 06/09/2025 09:48

IGaveSoManySigns · 06/09/2025 08:25

The conveyancers said that to cover their own arse. It’s unacceptable.

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No, it is not "unacceptable"

A conveyancer is there to do a straightforward task of buying and/or selling a property. They are not there to give advice but simply to take your instructions.

If you instruct them that you do not own another property for the purposes of SDLT then they will act on that basis.

What tax you need to pay on it is something else entirely. There will be firms of solicitors that have the necessary inhouse expertise to give that advice as well as undertaking the conveyancing. But this will cost more than a small conveyancing firm that is just there to take your instructions on buying a flat.

EdithBond · 06/09/2025 09:48

@Neededa Thanks for posting this thread.

Like you, I’m surprised how devastated I am she’s gone. I don’t always agree with her politics and I think she had to resign, given what she’d done and how she tried to ride it out. Plus, she’d gone after people in the past, so had lived by the sword so had to die by it.

But, it was refreshing to see a woman like me as DPM - and being tipped for PM.

The field I work in is a route into politics. People go on to be MPs and Ministers. ‘Senior’ jobs frequently go to middle-class careerists, who’ve flitted from place to place (sometimes in roles where they have to do, or tacitly condone, dastardly things) to get that all-important range of experience.

It was refreshing to see a woman in power who’d taken the scenic route and come up through the ranks in a union. No private school or Russell Group university can teach you about the realities of real, hard life.

But I don’t think it’s the end of her. I think she’ll be back. In fact, the risk for Starmer is she’ll be a huge threat from the back benches.

LovelyLuluu · 06/09/2025 09:48

dijonketchup · 06/09/2025 09:40

I agree OP. She seemed to trust that people would give her the benefit of the doubt. She is careful with money because she needs to be, with no generational wealth.

Willing to bet the amount of tax she owed is nothing compared to what the average Tory MP squirrels away offshore over their career. Her only mistake was not having enough friends in high places and not hiring an expensive enough accountant.

What a load of cobblers.

How on earth do you know she's careful with money? Is she your bestie?

Her mistake was being dim or calculating- take your pick.

I suppose you aren't aware of the other times she used her position for freebies she didn't declare? Taking her boyfriend on a freebie to new York when she wasn't supposed to, getting free clothes (never declared) and God knows what else.
Oh and having her house valued at higher than its real worth so her 25% share could be enough to buy the flat in Hove.

It stinks.

TiggyTomCat · 06/09/2025 09:48

All these saying she made simple honest mistake having taken legal advice...she didn't. She took advice from a local conveyancer/advisor that recommended she take more specialist advice and she ignored it. You have to ask why she did that. I'm cynical enough to think she knew what that advice would be.

wrongthinker · 06/09/2025 09:49

RoseAndGeranium · 06/09/2025 09:14

I feel a bit sorry for her because she's a human being who has ended up in a financial mess. Beyond that, no, absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. If it were just this one error then I might feel differently, but it's not, is it? Because there was also all this, in no particular order:

The obviously intentional tax dodging she did over the sale of her ex-council house. All the (still working class) neighbours of that address were clear she hardly ever went there. She actually lived less than a mile away with her husband and other children. Yet she claimed it was her primary residence to avoid paying CGT on it.
Gross hypocrisy: she would have hounded any Tory who cynically lied to the authorities in order to avoid paying tax, and she also sought to end the right-to-buy scheme, from which she herself had profited. One rule for Ange, and plenty of other rules for everyone else, including the working classes.
She tried to blame this on her conveyancing firm, despite the fact that they were quite clear about the fact that they were not solicitors or qualified to advise on tax issues. They told her she should seek qualified legal advice on her specific tax situation, and she didn't. Really unpleasant to try to land this on a small business and be damned to the stress, financial consequences and potential media attention those working for that business might suffer as a result. What a selfish woman.
As a PP has pointed out, careful inspection of the government website or a chat with Grok would have told her the correct position regarding tax in her situation. It's not good enough for a government minister who has repeatedly attacked the politicians on the other side of the political divide for attempts to avoid tax to commit actual tax evasion and then think she can get away with it by crying on TV. That doesn't wash for Tories, it doesn't wash for normal members of the public, no way it washes for Ange.
She has made much of the fact that this was all about looking after her disabled child. Really? Really? Taking money out of her child's trust to buy her out of her share in the family home so she could move to a luxury flat hundreds of miles away from her disabled child and her constituents? Sorry, but what does any of that have to do with taking care of her disabled child? She used her disabled child as a human controversy shield and it's gross.
She and this government have had absolutely no sympathy for the many parents across the country who are genuinely doing absolutely everything they can to 'just look after their children'. The people scrimping and saving and never taking a foreign holiday and certainly not splashing out 800k on luxury homes hundreds of miles away from their kids so that they could send their children, many of them with special needs, to private schools that make education accessible for them. The farmers working 14 hour days every day of the week, usually alongside their kids, and hoping to leave those farms to those children, who have also invested huge amounts of time and work and love in them. No sympathy for these groups at all. Instead, endless yells of 'PAY YOUR TAXES'. No, Ange, you pay YOUR taxes.
She has used hideously intemperate language about her opponents in the past, such as the notorious 'Tory Scum' comment. She deserves to be held to the very highest of the standards she's expected of others.

As for your woe about her being a properly working class woman. I'd love to know what you think of Margaret Thatcher and the way people talked about her. Thatcher grew up in a working class household. She and her sister saved their pocket money so they could pay passage for a Jewish teenager who had escaped Nazi Germany to come and live with them. She won a scholarship to a Grammar school and worked her way up, on her own merits, first to Oxford, and then to Westminster. Do you have a feminist interest in Thatcher, or do you revile her as a filthy milk stealing Tory, like so many of the others I've seen sighing over Angela Rayner?

This comment sums it up. (Except I don't feel even a little bit sorry for her, but maybe I should "be kind"er.)

LovelyLuluu · 06/09/2025 09:50

TiggyTomCat · 06/09/2025 09:48

All these saying she made simple honest mistake having taken legal advice...she didn't. She took advice from a local conveyancer/advisor that recommended she take more specialist advice and she ignored it. You have to ask why she did that. I'm cynical enough to think she knew what that advice would be.

Quite.

She assumed she was above the law and it's one of several close shaves with the ministerial code over money/ freebies she's had in the last year.