Angela Rayner not returning her 17K severance payment

[MissionCreep]

After a year out of gov Angela Rayner is back obviously and today saying she won’t return the 17K severance payment because she ‘will deliver again’ in government. Just seems so grubby.

Same for Liz Truss taking the PM pension after crashing the economy. Just so tone deaf. I’m sure there are loads of other examples and I don’t think they’re OK either.

I don’t want this Burnham government to appear to be one that just looks out for itself. That was terrible for us in the Boris Johnson era. We should obviously not be harbouring any corruption from those in office, but also I want politicians to do the right thing in office even where the law doesn’t absolutely force them to.

In principle no, but she dug a hole for herself by criticising Tories for the same thing. “A staggering lack of shame”.

I’m surprised that she doesn’t do it for PR value: give the money to some good cause in her constituency.

On principle she shouldn’t have to, but “the Tories did it” doesn’t work so well when she herself criticised them pretty strongly for doing it.

I think we should pay MPs a lot more and they should be less opportunistic about criticising each other for things like this.

She should never have been given the job back.

I generally vote Labour but would rather she wasn't back in the Cabinet as I don't liker her. She seems to create drama and I think referring to the Tories as "scum" is not the way a serious politician should behave. I also feel rather patronised that we are supposed to celebrate her as a salt-of-the-earth proper-working-class type based on her accent and background rather than examining her character.

All that said, this isn't an issue.