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.

No but calculating SDLT payable is part of the service.

They were conveyancers, not qualified lawyers. Their role was to advise on the purchase of the property, not the tax position vis a vis a trust. Their fees will have reflected this.

And then tried to throw the company that told her to get advice under the bus by saying she followed their advice.

I agree too. It is a complex area I work in it.

I am surprised MPs aren’t absolutely paranoid about this sort of thing though - especially high profile ones who have attacked other MPs.

Sobering lesson to not be tight about paying the right solicitor. There are some things to save money on some things are worth paying for. Proper legal advice is one of them. Don’t get me started on “free wills 🙄” well done you’ve saved yourself £300 but your family will end up paying thousands to sort out the mess.

I feel sad that she turned out to be such a disappointment.

No it isn’t.

'She is just another greedy politician, in a long line of greedy politicians. She hid behind her working class roots and accent whilst being no different to the rest'

This.

She set herself up as some kind of moral adjudicator of other politicians and ended up being exactly the same.

It is very disappointing but she was a fake.

The conveyancers work out SDLT based on the information the purchaser gives them.

So if the purchaser signs a declaration to confirm they are a first time buyer, or only own one home or anything else, the solicitor will use that information to calculate the tax due. Anyone who has ever purchased a home would be expected to know this, much less so than the Secretary of State responsible for Housing!

It was a very silly decision from her, and I didn’t want her to have to leave, but in this situation, she HAD to go.

Disagree. She's stupid and she broke the rules because of her own greed. It does women and the working class down to defend her.

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.

"Her departure comes after the prime minister's ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus said Rayner had "acted with integrity" but concluded that she had breached the ministerial code.
He said she did get legal advice when buying the property, but failed to seek further expert tax advice as recommended."

Quote from BBC report. Conveyancing solicitors never give tax advice, they advise the amount of stamp duty payable based on information provided by client and always refer for complicated tax advice, this is common knowledge. She didn't do this and tried to blame the firm.

I have no wish to be represented by Angela Rayner because she's a working class woman or a woman. I want to be represented by individuals who are intelligent enough not to do what AR has done regardless of class, sex, colour or creed.

She's blown it just as Zahawi and Johnson blew it. Arrogance which is no respector of origin.

I completely agree.

It’s also sad that working class women/ women/ Labour women are held to a higher standard than the rest of the political class (anyone male and anyone a Tory or reformer).

Yes, we should hold them to the highest standard. But if we did, there would be NONE left. This “scandal” wouldn’t have even made page 11 if it was a Tory. It’s very sad, but that’s our right wing media for you.

This.

except I don t admire Nadine dorries - she’s a grifter

Exactly Tinny. I am insured to advise on one thing. Clients are always asking about their divorce / row with neighbour / / selling their business / daughter arrested for drunk driving. I explain I can’t advise give them an overview of the issue and the details of solicitors who specialise in that area who is I know are decent. They all totally accept that and are grateful no way would I launch into advising on an area I am not familiar with and not insured to advise on.

I agree. I also think she has been bullied out by opposition / newspapers when others have done far worse and that making her pay the correct tax and a huge fine would have done.

But on a more general theme I hate the fact that people can resign and walk away from a problem instead of being made to stay and sort it out (or David Cameron walking away after the Brexit vote).

Because she wasn’t undertaking a straight forward conveyance. Most people aren’t funding their house deposit out of their child’s trust fund.

If you can get yourself elected you’re probably capable of realising when your financial affairs have become more complicated than Mr and Ms Average.

I don’t care how my MP speaks, I don’t care if their parents were rich or poor. I care that they are principled, have good morals and want to do what’s best for all citizens. Frankly, its insulting that people are seen to hold different views than me because they speak posh and went to a private school, whereas my life has followed a similar path to Angela Rayner, and I live 15 miles away from where she was brought up.
It’s almost akin to critical race theory - Northern + Poor = good, posh + rich = bad.
Currently, my northern town with its poor northern working class citizens is awash with flags hanging from lampposts which are in theory sending a message that those people love GB, but in reality we all know it’s the racist knobs who think immigrants should be ‘sent back home’ who have passively aggressively placed them there.
Angela Rayner should be acknowledged for working hard to get into the position she did against the odds - but don’t ignore the actions she took to get her there, nor the principles that seemed to disappear once she held what is a very powerful position in Government. At the end of the day, perhaps she just wasn’t up to the job.

I find the excuses depressing. Plenty of women deal with all the stuff listed including a senior role in their industry AND pay the correct tax. Women are very capable of it and it’s really insulting to say they’re not in order to make excuses for a greedy politician. If they do the right thing, regardless of how much scrutiny they’re under in their public life that they choose, they’ll cope just fine.

Yes if she has done wrong then she should take the consequences.

but she really has had to work much harder than most to get where she is, genuinely inspirational how far she has travelled in her life - a true self made story, and the press have had it out for her as a lefty female working class woman and I’m sad this has happened

it does stick in my throat that this situation wouldn’t have arisen for the majority of the MPs who being from privately educated backgrounds it can be inferred they/their families have significant wealth and probably therefore accountants looking after their money and this situation wouldn’t have arisen

She made a mistake, whether it was genuine or not I really don’t know. I’m inclined to give her the benefit of doubt.

However there is definitely a gleefulness from the RW press of “working class woman know your place” about her resignation.

It just reeks of patriarchy doesn’t it? Working class woman gets ideas above her station and the pigs at the top were just rubbing their hands together at the opportunity to put her back in her place. I think she was right to resign and it shows her principles - I don’t recall any of the other lot doing the same. There’s a guy on fb - scouse comedian called sam avery who summed it up beautifully talking about one of the right wing papers tearing her down on the front page with a nice little column further in the paper talking about how to avoid stamp duty on your second property. The hypocrisy makes me want to vomit. The way this government is being treated in general is absolutely vile.

Using a high street conveyancer when you have complex tax affairs, and then giving them incorrect information because you didn’t take tax advice you were recommended to get is a bit silly though. A conveyancer can’t give tax advice. But what did for her was lying about it IMO.

There are plenty of people who have worked hard, come from modest backgrounds and that have achieved positions of power in business or in public life that do manage to follow the rules and, as importantly, have done so without overtly playing more on their background than doing a good job. There are even more people who, when a mistake, error or deliberate misstatement is uncovered, don’t throw other people under a bus to save their skin. No one accidentally throws people under a bus; it’s always a deliberate action.

I’m sad she felt the need to react in the way she did though; she should have had more support. But I don’t feel sad she’s gone because if she’d stayed it’d have sent completely the wrong message.

Me too. I am gutted for her to be quite honest and the government.
Just got up and can't even be bothered to read the papers.
However, I cannot believe she cocked this up. All the info is there when you google it.
We were also in a first home/second home situation a few year ago and made sure it was all above board taxes wise. It is complicated and I cannot see how they didn't double and triple check.

Look, I really didn’t start this post about the rights and wrongs of what AR did or didn’t do. I know there have been loads of posts about that.
I did say right from the word go, I am left leaning and if it was Nigel Farage, I would be “fuming”. I do understand that politically many of us disagree and she did have to go.
I guess my point/question and why I posted in feminism, is, is this a feminist question? I somehow feel it is. And also classism?
One of the most interesting points of view I have read from PPs is that working class women feel MORE disappointed. That AR was a role model who has let us down, I hadn’t thought about that at all. Interesting.