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.

The problem is that she ignored the legal advice. It was a very complex transaction and her conveyancer advised her to seek tax advice ie ask her accountant. She didn’t, winged it and is now paying the price.

When I sold my business my accountant warned me that although they were going to process it as Entrepreneurs Relief, but That HMRC may query it and insist on Capital Gains being applied, so I should be prepared for that eventuality. Nothing is clear cut with regard to tax, even experienced tax accountants are not always confident about how HMRC will view certain transactions.

Capital gains is due on disposal of property or assets unless it’s your main home. I suspect that the arrangement of the trust she placed her Manchester home into may have been a grey area when she sold her interest to the trust in view of her living arrangements.

Im not a big fan of Ange but I do feel sorry for her. Her meteoric rise means that she has been flung into a world that maybe her background has not prepared her. I suspect that she has declined a lot of help through the years, admirable but not always sensible.

Hopefully, she returns to the back benches and serves her constituency as she set out to do.

Not if they told her to get advice and she didn’t!

Our conveyancer insisted we get separate tax advice on SDLT (even though our situation was a completely standard purchase), and she insisted on seeing it in writing.

TBF I suspected she was trying to push their in-house hideously expensive tax advisor onto us (we used our own). But it would be a brave conveyancer who gave legal advice outwith their sphere (ie tax), so no I don’t believe they ever told AR that she wasn’t liable for the higher rate.

I expect AR put the details into the gov.uk SDLT calculator herself, and failed to realise that her own situation was more complicated due to the trust.

He says working class. Evidence says middle class. Can’t trust what a politician says :)

You aren't holding up another woman. You're holding up a tax evader.
There should never have been any question about whether she was sacked or not - class and background are irrelevant.
A woman vocal about taxing the rich who doesn't even pay her own taxes fairly - good riddance

Oh please. Thatcher was as middle class as they come. Daughter of a small business owner, married to a lawyer, Oxford graduate. She was driven out by the sheer idiocy of her poll tax policy having ruled her male colleagues with a rod of iron for over a decade.

I don’t feel sorry for Rayner as much as frustrated at her carelessness. After the furore over the sale of her first house there’s no excuse for this misstep. I also think she’ll be back, stronger and hopefully more careful. She’s too much of an asset to be permanently lost.

She really needed to take advice from an SDLT specialist. It’s not for the conveyancer to provide, even a lot of tax advisors won’t advise on SDLT/LBTT.

Yes. That’s what Laurie Magnus said and why she resigned.

I don't think AR's downfall is due to sexism or classism.

What she and others fail to understand is that if you don't play by the rules it is easy to spot and report on in this digital age with online land registry information.

What irritates me is the line of argument that as a working class woman without a degree her dishonesty must be a mistake whilst the conservative politicians who defraud millions are scum.

The amount taken is totally irrelevant and you do not need an education or a degree to have principles.

If she was clever enough to be briefing the chancellor on SDLT reform to cover the 40 billion black hole she was savvy enough to google the HMRC advice that covered her circumstances and the trust on the Ashton home.

She then compounded her errors by blaming others and saying they were at fault - not her.

On the free clothes front, both she and Starmer previously worked in organisations where the only freebie allowed was a box of chocs at Xmas - so why did they both think that they could say they were bringing political change but be just as dishonest and money grabbing - albeit on a smaller scale?

She should have set a better example. She's proved to be corrupt and self serving like the rest of the politicians. She's only sorry she was caught.

Which evidence says middle class? He obviously is now, but if we’re talking backgrounds, he is certainly working class.

I think shes been made an example of .Shes loud ,brash and fearless! Clothes loud too .RW press dont like her!

Rayner attacked everyone and got caught out.

Since when was running a grocer's and tobacconist's middle class? Certainly not back in the 30s-50s, when middle class very much meant lawyers, doctors, etc! It's only recently that 'working class' has come to mean mostly 'people on benefits', whilst cabbies are somehow redefined as middle class for political reasons. You also have to take into consideration that many Oxford colleges were still male-only when Thatcher went to university, and politics was far, far more of a public school old boys' club than it now is. She may not have had as deprived a background as Rayner, but in the context of the time she grew up and began her career in she faced considerable class and sex based obstacles. It's not at all feminist and, in my opinion, pretty petty to try to minimise that for political reasons.

"...and shown the Left is no different to the Right in terms of the ability to be led by greed and personal gain."

That's an interesting comment. Did (or do) you really believe that people on the left of the political spectrum are somehow more morally "correct" or "righteous" than those on the right of the spectrum?

Couldn’t disagree more on that one.

Thatcher wasn’t working class. Her father was a local worthy: businessman, clergyman and local politician, who became the mayor.

We’re still feeling the aftershocks of her nasty policies. She ruined the country IMHO. I was embarrassed the first woman PM was so awful.

She thought nothing of getting rid of people who challenged her. So, like Rayner, if you live by the sword you die by the sword.

I think people do still think that on here tbf

I feel sorry for her too. I'm a conservative middle class accountant, so by usual tropes I probably am not meant to. But I admire what she has achieved - and in contrast have no real time for our "elders and betters" like Boris Johnson and assumed he was/is.

I believe she will be back on the front line in future. Maybe leader in opposition etc

No sympathy from me.

My circumstances have many parallels to AR and I still paid my taxes accordingly.

Arrived in the country as a penniless immigrant 25 years ago and worked my way up through hard work.

Due to the nature of my children's disabilities I could not sell and buy a new home simultaneously. I had buy a second home, adapt it to their needs, move in and then sell the old one. So I had to pay the massive SLDT surcharge on the new home at it had to be treated as a second home. The HRMC website was crystal clear on this - no exemptions possible.

My conveyancing solicitors were explicitly clear: we DO NOT give tax advice, especially in your complex situation. You need to get that from accountants or financial advisors. Exactly the same as AR's conveyancers. So I did as they recommended and got the additional advice then paid my massive SDLT as required.

AR lied to the nation that she got incorrect legal advice. She got perfectly good legal advice same as I did. But she decided not to take the advice in order to evade taxes; and then tried to pass the blame to the advisors. Typically politician: accountability is for the plebs, not for us.

I would have lost my career too if I had done as she has done. It right that she lost hers.

Her fake tears act on TV are the most galling part of whole act.

But it's fine, she will write her autobiography and a good publisher will make her millions to keep comfortable. And I'm sure she will take take tax advice on how avoid any taxes on the royalties.

That’s very fair. A bit hard on the barriers facing a grocer’s daughter in the 1950s perhaps, but generally fair.

I really can’t agree about the “asset” value in Angela Rayner though. I struggle to see what intellect or achievements she can be credited with.

There are lots of unimpressive politicians, of all parties. Other than AR’s notable shoutiness there’s nothing to set her apart from them.

Being appointed to the top of Labour to keep the left of the party happy is not an achievement.

No he’s not. A toolmaker was a skilled job, and his father owned the factory. What makes it working class?

Why? She spent her time attacking people. Because she spun a story to try to stay?

Politicians really should have access provided to suitable professional advice in all sorts of areas.

The Oxford college Thatcher went to was women only. Business owners then were most definitely middle class, hence her father’s involvement in local politics as a Conservative. As for it not being feminist to criticise her - she was the most unfeminist politician ever. She didn’t appoint a single woman to her cabinet in eleven years. She was the ultimate example of pulling the ladder up.

Thatcher and Starmer were probably both the same kind of working class, not very.

Another politician bites the dust.

Though long before this, I have noticed particular animosity towards Angela in some quarters because she is a woman, she is not a Tory, she has popular support, and she has bettered herself from humble origins.

You can always tell when the Conservatives are scared of someone, by the incessant attacks.