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.

I disagree, but also a leftie, she was in a position where she had to be totally above the law, and she let us down. In my opinion she was greedy and I find it ironic that we have a housing shortage and she goes and buys a £800k property not even her sole residence. She has forgotten her roots. An embarrassment to working class women(northerners too).

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you can't criticise a woman who has done something wrong. She has in fact done a massive disservice to feminism by behaving the way she did.

I am not sure I feel sorry for her as I hate hypocrites but I do feel she was a huge asset . She was fantastic when she filled in for Keir at PM questions and think she would have made a great leader.
I also felt sad when I read her back story that her mum was bipolar and she would sleep at the end of her bed like a dog to keep her mum safe. She grew up before her time.
I also think the wealthy owners of the media have been out to bring someone so popular and promising down for a while

She wasn't being very working class when she was fiddling £40,000 in tax. Either she really is very stupid and should never have such an important job, or she's pretty smart and thought she could get away with it, I go with the latter. She has had a few other brushes with the tax man too. And buying and then selling her council house doesn't sound like much of a socialist.

I don’t necessarily feel sorry for her (although I do a bit, I think she actually cared about being a politician)
BUT, what I keep saying, is a feel a bit sad that we have lost a working class woman as deputy prime minister.
I liked the idea that our front bench wasn’t just middle class, middle aged men.

@Neededa hmmm. There are some fundamentals here. Did you read her resignation letter? Basically, sorry I made a mistake but aren’t I wonderful otherwise? And all because the Labour Party gave me a council house and benefits so I could provide for my family and make something of myself. And then proceeds to actively look for a way to reduce the stamp duty as much as possible by taking advantage of her disabled son’s trust fund. Whether or not she was given poor advice doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t want to top up the government coffers with her own money despite her ‘gratitude’ for what she’s had and took active steps to avoid it.

No sympathy
She thought she was better than us
She used her disabled sons money which was from the NHS
She sold the house at double the value
She then used the son for sympathy

Aha could have went further and maybe been PM and maybe others saw this.... And then knew she had to go

So no sympathy. Her political career gone .. for £40 k

There would have been a very clear statement in her engagement letter with the conveyancing firm that they don’t provide tax advice and she should seek separate advice on tax. She chose to ignore it.

Me too. Yes she made a mistake, but the press have been out to get her from day 1.

Agree. It’s not always about ‘poor customer service. It’s about ‘poor customer attitude’ . Angela Rayner sure likes to think she is something special.

That’s not a good look is it.

Though for the avoidance of doubt I mean the ‘do you know who I am’ approach of using headed paper from the House of Commons. Not the Star Wars shoes ;)

This. We have very short memories and the level of corruption during covid in particular was appalling. The media really don't like her and the witch hunt was unreal.

Horse poo!

We weren't in any sort of depression in 2010, we weren't even in a recession!

But as you you want to blame Labour for worldwide crash, i'll blame Covid on the Tories and that they caused food inflation to hit 30% and general inflation to go to 12%.....

I hate all this identity politics bullshit. If she was a tory male, she'd be scum, right? But because she's a Labour woman then cheating, lying, and corruption are just a sad mistake?

Ffs. Let's judge people on their actions and character, rather than on what genitals they have.

I feel the same. I’m sad she’s gone but at the same time cross with her for giving Farage an open goal. After the last 14 year shit show and corruption Labour need to be squeaky clean.

Farage is also dodging tax but with advice it’s just about legal if not morally right.

I feel sad, but also angry. She let all women down by succumbing to greed and justifying what was being said about her all along. And, not only that, but the unforgivable act of trying to bring down her lawyers to save her own skin. They were hard working too but she showed us in this one act who she really is.

I’m really struggling to understand how she allowed this to happen and it is disappointing. It suggests a level of incompetence even in the best case scenario. But I do agree that she has been subjected to double standards and targeting by the press and that others do far worse things and get away with it.

I think it was right that she’s gone, we need to hold MPs to a much higher account and standard than the corrupt mess the Tories presided over. I’m pleased that Labour are doing so, even though it doesn’t necessarily help them politically.
But I still think it’s a great loss and hope that she will return to the front line eventually. Her life story is inspirational and she is the sort of person we could go with more of in politics. I feel very sorry for her in that this seems an honest, if careless, mistake in very difficult circumstances. More so because it just feels that the client journalist media we suffer with in this country have had her in their sights for years and we’re not going to stop until they brought her down, whilst turning a blind eye to the dubious tax affairs or Farage and his ilk.

This sums it up for me I am afraid.

She essentially stole from her own disabled son. That's not a mistake. That;s deliberate. We have a disabled trust set up for our DS1. We got advice from a trust lawyer when setting it up (he was left money while a minor by a relative and it had to go into trust by law). There is simply no way she had the house accidentally over-valued by such a significant amount. There is alot more to that story as well because where were the other trustees when that happened? I assume her ex-husband is also a trustee as it makes sense in these situations for parents to be trustees. Was there anyone else and who was making decisions?

Lots of people manage more complicated financial situations just fine without the advice she was capable of affording.

Whether or not it was deliberate dishonesty or a genuine mistake is rather moot point.

It’s a shame she’s gone as her politics was rather interesting. As someone from a v. WC background who has had to fight hard to get where she has in a world dominated by Eton and Harrow men, so is well aware of how hard a white working class woman has to work to stand a chance, I have enormous respect for what she achieved.

But what she did or didn’t do was always going to be the end of her ‘political’ career and that’s right. Just because you are a MP or DPM doesn’t mean you are above the law, regardless of whether advice was correct or incorrect. You lead by example and you take the fall for your deliberate, or otherwise, errors

But then she played into their hands. The media didn’t make her do what she did. They worked with what she presented them with.

I am working class woman with a regional accent people take the piss out of and have done well. I can guarantee if I forgot to pay 40k tax or didn’t understand I was meant to pay it, hmrc would come after me in an instant and I would be treated like a criminal until I paid them or was actually criminalised for not paying them. And no one would give two shits because I’m one of those higher earners who people have been encouraged to see as parasites who don’t pay enough tax in the pot for everyone else. They wouldn’t be making statements about feminism and classism on my behalf. No sympathy for me because I don’t come from a family where getting advice from accountants or solicitors is in the air I breathe.

Live by the sword, die by the sword I’m afraid. She should’ve known by now that you cannot get away with a snouts in the trough mentality when the other snouts don’t want you in the trough. She also earns a lot of money and has expenses and all sorts, if she can’t afford a home with all that she has now without not paying her dues then she is one of the few people in the country that can actually do something about expensive property and complex tax. Or she was before she fucked it over 40k. All the working class women I know wouldn’t have been so stupid/ naive and grasping.

She completely ignored the legal advice which told her to seek specialist tax advice!

I agree. Having working class roots is not an inoculation against greed.

As Housing Minister AR couldn't afford to make the mistake she made. Her and Keir had already taken advantage of other perks which people hadn't expected them to have availed themselves of so I think a pattern was starting to emerge about her character before this. AR was at best naive, at worst taking the pass IMHO. They do say absolute power corrupts absolutely which i think was the case here. I think AR let down many northern working class women with her behaviour tbh.