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’s no higher standards. She lashed out at everyone and got caught.

Nope, happy to see her gone, was worried Keir would let her get away with it (although I’m sure he was told that the fall out from the public given the current shit show they have created would be too much).

People believed because of her background and politics she was different and honest, she played on this but has shown she is no different to the rest of them. When will these people understand that the rules apply to them?

Come on. Do you recall the media attacks on Sunak’s wife? Did you mind the nasty undertone there

The people who cheered that on are now seeing what the media does.

The right intentions to own numerous properties without paying the correct taxes? Perhaps they were her intentions. I don’t know if you can describe them as ‘right’.

It's certainly a shame. I imagine she could have inspired a lot of women from similar backgrounds to enter politics.

But you can't play the "Working class, woman of the people, I'm not like the rest of them" role unless you're whiter than white. Whether her mistakes were through carelessness or malice, the optics of what she did are awful.

So while I think it's a shame, I don't have much sympathy.

I don’t have a single shred of sympathy for her. I’m about as left as they come - I’ve always viewed her as someone who would buy and sell you to get what she wanted.

What she did was both stupid and arrogant - nothing to do with right wing press victimisation, this has come from someone who knows her well. Probably someone she has stood on at some point. That she has jumped before she was pushed tells me there is more to come out.

Too much of a big gob and should have known better.

I mean, the people giving the legal advice completely dispute this, so please don’t write it like it is a fact.

Which advisors are you thinking of? She will have political advisors but they won't know the details of her personal finances and even if they did they wouldn't be able to give her the correct advice.
If you mean the conveyancing firm she used (and it appears she chose the cheapest she could find) they did give her the correct advice (seek specialist SDLT advice) but she ignored them.
She hasn't been badly advised she's been caught deliberately underpaying tax again, probably because she wasn't censured for it last time.

Why on earth would you take that chance.

To save £40,000.

Bit like accepting free clothes from Starmer's mate - she wriggled out of that one too.

As others have said - real life Animal Farm.

Do you honestly think she would have been differently if she was a man?

Agree her lie has led to this misinformation.

If people could be sued for repeating it I wouldn’t mind.

I’m inclined to agree with most of what you say. But, did she set up her son’s trust without legal advice? That would imply a level of knowledge of detail that perhaps wouldn’t have got the stamp duty issue wrong.

plus while it’s unfair that a working class woman in high office has to be cleaner than clean to avoid bad press, she knows that’s the world she operates in.

If you think it through, the Ashton property that she sold to her son's trust fund is her constituency home. Is she freeloading on the trust when she stays there or is she now paying rent to her son's trust fund?

As a trustee of the son's personal injury funds she has duties as a trustee to act in the best interests of her son.

What will be interesting is to see what property expenses she claims as a MP now she has no legal outgoings on the Ashton property and no free home in London.

I don't feel too sorry for her though as her net income is still around £5,000 per month - though she does have a £650,000 mortgage to pay.

@Tryingtokeepgoing Margaret Thatcher's school was private at the time she went. In 1945 it became a Direct Grant grammar, where some places were reserved for competitive scholarships paid for by central government, the majority private. From 1976 most went into the state system though some stayed private. I think KGGS also 'went state' then.

Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School - School History

Her father was chair of governors of the school for 26 years! He was a local dignatary - he owned more than one shop, was an Alderman, was a JP, involved in Rotary etc.

It's hard nowadays to understand what regional social life was like a hundred years ago. They were a prominent family, if not metropolitan middle class, and that stratum of society has largely disappeared. They were Methodist, for example, rather than Anglican, which was much less 'establishment' at the time - she switched to Anglicanism in her 20s as part of her upward mobility journey.

The family was historically Liberal. Involvement in small business/industry rather than the traditional professions/agriculture, ethos of self-reliance and self-improvement, being not-south-eastern, Non-Conformist, Liberal until the 1920s/30s all clustered together at the time. It was a different world!

Thatcher was a very bright and hard-working young girl, if not the most brilliant. From memory, she didn't get a scholarship to Somerville, so her family would have had to fund her. She got a solid second. There's a nice summary here of Thatcher-the-scientist: Margaret Hilda Thatcher. 13 October 1925—8 April 2013 | Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society

.Nope...

Sorry but honest mistake or not…..she would have absolutely crucified someone else if they had done the same. She had to go

Now that, I feel puzzled about. Puzzled, curious, and intrigued. And I’d like to know where the boyfriend mentioned by so many fits in to it all.

Me too. I like her. She’s always come across as ‘one of us’ and able to empathise with voters struggles as she’s struggled too in the past

In terms of a feminist angle on this whole sorry saga. I feel she was over promoted either because she’s a woman or because she’s ’working class’ or a combination of both.

It goes to prove we have to look at these roles only based on merit, people can’t be employed just because they are women, it’s too important.

Also, she was more aggressive than almost all the men in politics, it just wasn’t a good look for females in politics. Some of the things she said she got away with just because she’s a woman.

Really? Nothing on breaking the ministerial code and lying to try to push a small conveyancer under the bus.

To be fair, the property in trust for the child does complicate things. She thought she’d “sold” that house to the trust, and didn’t realise that she would still be classed as “owning” it as the child’s parent.

The online calculator wouldn’t flag that as an issue, you’d need professional advice to know that (which she clearly should have sought instead of winging it).

Well, we have to assume the boyfriend is an innocent party. However, further questions will no doubt be asked about the £280,000 payment made to Great South West (and why an exception was made for them after Rayner's department had previously axed core funding), given the link with Tarry.

I must be the only one who doesn't feel sorry for her. She lied to gain financially. She once said she was against the tories fiddling their taxes and expenses. My, how the worm has turned when faced with greed. I want every cheater in parliament to leave, regardless of their background or characteristics.

They calculate SDLT