Is Angela Raynor a liar or is it all anti Labour media bias?

[CormorantStrikesBack]

I’m well aware how anti Labour a lot of the main stream media seem to be so I wasn’t paying much attention previously to all the stuff about how she should have paid capital gains tax on her house, etc. she was adamant that she didn’t need to.

So it seems like she said it was her main residence so not liable for capital gains tax. But her husband and kids lived in a house a short distance away apparently for the first five years of their marriage which is unusual. A neighbour who lived next to her “husband’s” house said it was the main family home and Angela definitely lived there.

I’ll be sad if she has lied. Always thought she was on the side of the ordinary person. I guess the police/tax man might have a hard time proving anything though regardless of the neighbour’s statement. If all bills, etc were in the individual names there’s no evidence.

Firstly not all labour voters are going to agree on everything. Just like not all Tory voters do. Some Tory voters actually agree that this current government lack any integrity.

Secondly funny not to accept a link from the Guardian. Would you accept one from the Telegraph or Times?

Thirdly I almost linked to an academic paper which basically said the same but decided the Guardian link was more interesting. There's lots of evidence out there that Thatcher was in no way good for women. Only you don't really want to Google when it could be spoon fed, I remember from your previous comment of Why should I Google.

No there is nothing wrong with allowing people who have paid rent for several years to be able to buy a council property, it helps an area improve as home owners tend to take more pride in their property, allows better social mobility.

Labour were in for 13 years and never changed it but just like the TOries before and after, never allowed councils to build, like for like, more council houses.
Instead the BTL sector was just allowed to grow with no restrictions.

Thats what is wrong, not AR buying a council house.

Surely most voters in the U.K. are somewhere in the middle, which is why despite having mainly Tory governments we still have the NHS, and why Labour governments give tax incentives to businesses and share holders.

The current increased support for nationalisation of key services is driven by pragmatism, and people don’t have a problem with council housing stock being sold (transferring responsibility of maintenance to long term tenants) as long as it is replaced.

It might be irritating, but politicians are required to be hypocrites. It’s part of the job description in an adversarial system.

I agree with some of that. And some of it is, as I said, perfectly reasonable opinion - which I may not share, at least not in full, but can’t be said to be factually wrong.

But you’ve completely misrepresented what I said about a pp making an assertion of fact and then being completely unwilling/unable to back it up.

I agree, except that I think that very extensive regulation of private landlords would be preferable and more effective. Essentially, I would end the right to own more than one property except where rental is done under licence conditions that would turn private landlords into dedicated social housing providers. If they don’t wish to do that they would have to dispose of their properties.

I wholeheartedly approve of Angela Rayner buying her council house.

Politicians are required to be hypocrites in some respects. But it’s a universal feature of Labour supporters and politicians (not exclusively Labour - it’s also true of the Libs) that they trumpet themselves as being more moral than the Tories. Which is completely false.

The Tories’ opponents quite rightly pointed out Tory hypocrisy about ‘back to basics’, for example. Labour must expect the same when they attack dishonesty, greed and privilege but can be shown to be dishonest, greedy and motivated by personal advantage themselves.

Nationalisation is an interesting one. There’s a respectable case for it in some respects. But if it happens it’ll be interesting to see whether anything improves. People’s memories are all too short.

That would never work, as the private LLs need to make a return on their investment and that means market rents and in many case, minimal spend on the property.
They often to need more than one property to spread losses too e.g a bad tenant or extensive repairs, say a new roof/heating system/windows...

There is also the real problem that LLs almost always eventually sell up, forcing someone to lose their home.

Council housing is a proven way to provide cheaper housing but what it does need to tighter enforcement on idiot tenants and incentives to look after the housing stock they have, this was an issue with "some" tenants under the previous system, some estates just turned into sink housing.

Anyway, still no one seems to be able to provide any proof that AR acted illegally.

That’s my point. Private LLs could make a return on their investment, but not so great a return as a basically unregulated market allows. They should be required to have large cash holdings for repairs and cash flow issues, and they should not be able to sell other than to another tightly regulated private LL or to the tenant (who should have a right to buy). The market rate would come down.

The platform for all this is the end of multiple ownership.

If that disrupts the housing market in the short or medium term, so what? I regard private LLism as a blight. And I’m generally a free market capitalist!

The trouble with house building is that it ignores the existing housing stock. And NIMBYs are found everywhere. It’s much more difficult than people suppose to build your way out of housing shortage on a densely populated island.

I expect that housing associations, I.e. non-profits, would have to be empowered to step in at the start. But if that meant that lots of homes become housing association property in the longer-term, good: a right to buy HA properties would apply for those who want/can afford to buy; those who continue to rent at least avoid Rachmanism.

@WhatsTheUseOfWorrying LLs would either leave the market or not enter it the moment anything like that was mentioned.

LLs are also at the mercy of interest rates, as few can buy out right and even with historic average rates ie 5%, returns (if not capital growth) can be higher in a savings account.

HA's just mimic what councils should be doing & employ directors etc on excellent salaries.

Agree on house building, new housing down here (Cornwall) is slowly destroying why people come here on holiday, places like Newquay, Bude Truro Penzance have been ruined but v large housing estates, no employment or services, not even sewage & terrible traffic congestion.... its madness.

I accept it wouldn’t be easy and there’d have to be a run-in. I do believe a properly regulated private rented sector could be achieved though.

How would councils acquire housing stock if not by building?

“But it’s a universal feature of Labour supporters and politicians (not exclusively Labour - it’s also true of the Libs) that they trumpet themselves as being more moral than the Tories. Which is completely false.”

At the moment I think voting Labour just implies a desire to get rid of a Conservative Party that has allowed the lunatics to take charge of the asylum. (Many people were worried about voting Labour in the Corbyn years for similar reasons - but at least he was never actually PM)

Very few people feel so strongly about a political party that they want to join.

Yes, as far as it goes. But the principal criticism of this government that’s thrown around is that it’s corrupt. That’s what I challenge. There’s no evidence for that, at least none that distinguishes this government from any other, or the Tories from any other party.

This is a tired and fractious government which should be changed, I agree. But it’s an illusion to suppose that standards in government or public life will get any better under a different government.

One happy thought for an instinctive Tory is that the reason Labour (principally) is playing the bogus corruption card is that there aren’t actually any particularly redistributive or interventionist left-wing policies on offer. It’ll be pound shop Blair.

I don't think that sleaze is the main driver of anti-Tory sentiment at all. Rather I think that 14 years' worth of senseless austerity flavoured chickens are coming home to roost, and it's obvious that this government just doesn't care.

Playing the bogus corruption card

What do you mean with this? Any examples?

Yes, as far as it goes. But the principal criticism of this government that’s thrown around is that it’s corrupt. That’s what I challenge. There’s no evidence for that, at least none that distinguishes this government from any other, or the Tories from any other party

No, this Tory Government, certainly since Brexit, has been the most corrupt i ve ever witnessed.
Look at the PPE contracts, the personal involvement of Sunaks wife in policy decisions, peerages, shares in vaccine companies, the Liz Truss budget, one that cost the nation billions, in addition to the pensions and mortgages it devalued.
Then there is Zahawi, Hunt and property, NHS contracts given out to companies backing the Tories.
Failure to investigate Islamophobia or Russian money in the Tory party and the Brexit vote.

What we do have though is a right wing media (that has pretty much ignored whats been going) seeking to destroy the political career of Rayner over at most £2k and before she was an MP.

Or as someone said on here, there is no corruption in the Government because they have legalised it.

All your examples are untrue or have nothing to do with corruption in government.

A great many Labour areas voted for Brexit (I didn’t).

Please show one proven example of a corrupt covid procurement contract, for example.

Edited ‘cos pressed too soon by mistake.

See my response to CurlewKate above.

We’ll have to amicably disagree about that.

There is a double squeeze on the Tories though. They inherited an economy heading for bankruptcy (no, I’m not referring to the Treasury note: that was a joke and a convention) and then had the costs of covid on one hand, and an angry middle class remainer group on the other (I voted remain, FWIW).

But corruption allegations are the driver. Just look a few posts up!

@WhatsTheUseOfWorrying while not necessarily all of them are true some most certainly are.

The whole Johnson thing with resignation honours and attempts to get Mad Nad into the Lords in breach of normal protocols where she'd resign her seat immediately. Indeed the whole Dorries saga is corruption suma cum laude.

So are the shenanigans around Russian money and Brexit.

The Tory party is, without doubt, Islamophobic.

Whether Labour areas did, or did not vote for Brexit has no relevance to whether the vote was corrupted by foreign cash.

Do you mean your response to Alexandra2001?

Are you talking about claims by posters rather than the Labour Party?

Dodgy peerages! You mean like Blair’s cash for peerages? It’s a very well trodden path - the Liberals invented it.

Islamophobia? Maybe, but it’s nothing to Labour’s grotesque antisemitism.
I’m
What foreign cash in the Brexit vote? Aaron Banks won a massive libel action for that allegation (and was cleared by the NCA and Electoral Commission).

Russia? Mandelson and Deripaska? And sanctions were put in place quicker than in just about every other European country.

I think the principle criticism is incompetence. They chucked out many of the reality based Conservative politicians after Brexit.

Populist politicians from any political party are great at rabble rousing, but bad at government. Eventually that shows.

That I can readily agree with.

I think everyone has awareness of this highest-profile case

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63871448