how can you possibly say that only those likely to shift from Labour to Reform are the problem for Starmer?
Can I invite you to read what I’ve written again?
If Starmer tacks left he might win back some of the people peeling off to his left, and head off the threat of ‘the serious alternative sitting to the left’. Absolutely.
But in terms of votes, if that motivates remaining Tories to break for Reform, shores up Reform, and annoys enough people who bluntly just don’t want left wing policies then it’s still game over for Labour in 2029. So, again, it’s not about Labour losing more voters to Reform.
It’s about what effect Labour going left will have on the voting intentions of the people to the right of them that already aren’t voting for them. I think Labour-Reform switchers are pretty near irrelevant, and likely to remain so until/unless we reach a tipping point of voter intention for whatever reason.
Again, if I were them I’d be governing as though I was already toast in 2029 so might as well think the unthinkable and be hanged as a tiger rather than a sheep. But they don’t seem to have the stomach for that.
The idea of a party choosing its policies according to their effect on the voting intentions of people who would never vote for them is simply bizarre. The whole political landscape is so odd at the moment.
Ran out of editing time. so I will add some more now. Everything feels like it's is so lowest common denominator, so completely devoid of ideas or ambition that all we are left with is marketing based axiom that all that matters is the rosette of the person in No 10. Policies arise out of a very prescribed pool - irrespective of the rosette in "power". There is no tolerance of variation, unless it is moving to the right, towards desiccation, towards closing down possibilities for all but the richest. All because punitive jealousy is the political recreation du jour.
The idea of a party choosing its policies according to their effect on the voting intentions of people who would never vote for them is simply bizarre. The whole political landscape is so odd at the moment.
In a perfectly spherical frictionless rigid political system where moving to the left unites the right out of fear it makes sense. The trouble is we don't live in that system. Not everyone votes tactically, and most people don't have views that fit neatly on a continuum from left to right or even on a two-dimensional economic/social chart. For starters you have a chunk of tories who consider Reform to be below-the-salt riff-raff and a chunk of Reform supporters who have bought the idea that they're somehow 'anti-establishment' so won't touch the tories.
This far out from an election people being polled are registering their views, not necessarily indicating how they might vote if they're tactically inclined.
Broadly, I think Labour trying to thread the needle of being left wing enough to not hemorrhaging support to the left and right wing enough to avoid scaring the right into unity is a mug's game. Even if it were possible there are too many variables to calibrate it effectively. It would also, in case anyone hasn't realised, be deeply immoral to use people's lives and livelihoods, and the services they depend on, as pawns that can be sacrificed to keep you in power.
The idea of a party choosing its policies according to their effect on the voting intentions of people who would never vote for them is simply bizarre. The whole political landscape is so odd at the moment.
No argument there. We’ve got a government on a historic low vote share, with a huge majority, and MPs of all colours sitting on historic low personal majorities. Labour staggered over the line with a safety first manifesto, boosted by a tailwind of people (rightly) being sick of the Tories and complete disarray on the right, with many Tory voters sitting on their hands rather than vote Tory. The right now appears to be at least open to coalescing again, because a party has appeared that short circuits the ‘normal’ political cycle that would have the Tories coming back in about ten years.
So the prize for Reform (God help us) is that essentially the 2019 red wall and southern shires coalition is not only there for the taking, but looks like it’s at least feasible. Both existing Labour and Conservative MPs are sitting on the sort of majority that would be gone in a tiny swing, never mind an electoral earthquake.
So it would get more bizarre if the wave that swept Labour in last year swept them back out again within one parliament (unprecedented - unthinkable- really) - but thanks to the basic maths of the ‘odd’ political landscape the last general election bequeathed us it is very much possible.
Which is why, arithmetically, this government is so vulnerable to what the people that don’t/didn’t vote for it last year do.
To be clear, I’m not supporting it, and nothing happens in a vacuum so it can’t be the whole story, but it is a big problem that most governments don’t face but this one does.
Despite the majority, this government is probably best seen as part of the total instability we’ve seen since the 2017 election. I think 2029 is likely to result in a 2017 or 2015 style outcome, with some combination of Reform and the Conservatives governing on a coalition/confidence and supply basis mid70s/2010/2017), or Reform outright on a small majority (2015), but with a sensible vote share for the opposition on the basis of a ‘stop that happening’ ticket.
Which in the long run, assuming society gets to 2034, means ‘normal’ service with a ‘normal’ government might happen from the election after next. With the emphasis on an optimistic ‘might’
Or in other words, the country has been radically destabilised by Brexit, and we will be living with the economic and political consequences of that for many years. The fact that the people who inflicted it on the country are the ones complaining about anything and everything other than the sunlit uplands which will and can never ever exist merely serves to intensify this instability. We are, in other words, totally and irremediably fucked.
Everyone's face is now being eaten by the leopard. How can accountability for this be correctly addressed.
Or in other words, the country has been radically destabilised by Brexit, and we will be living with the economic and political consequences of that for many years. The fact that the people who inflicted it on the country are the ones complaining about anything and everything other than the sunlit uplands which will and can never ever exist merely serves to intensify this instability. We are, in other words, totally and irremediably fucked.
Everyone's face is now being eaten by the leopard. How can accountability for this be correctly addressed.
Brexit is the wrong starting point.
The 2008-9 economic crisis and austerity are far more important here.
There is so much more complexity and subtlety here. Labour is VERY different from Reform (although not as different as they should be) AND Labour sounds very similar to Reform in certain areas.
It is also true that the media landscape is beyond ridiculous.
How many MPs do Reform actually have? How many MPs do the LibDems have? How much has the government put into capital investment is the last year? Spending on 'hotels' is way down. Applications are being processed faster...
The national conversation is divorced from reality.
I take your points, but I would say that the two posts can be added together.
At the 2010 election, the population totally unjustly blamed Brown for the 2008 crash, when actually Darling had handled it amazingly well
the coalition government disturbed those naturally in favour of the EU by bringing the LDs, who are still most closely associated with Europe, into the ambit of some profoundly anti-European, and indeed anti-human policies, including the horrific Hostile Environment, for which May bears responsibility
Cameron as Prime Minister cemented Blair in place as the leftmost wing of the acceptable range, rather than a centrist with as much to the right as to the lefft
Brexit then emboldened the worst voices, as I described before
I take your points, but I would say that the two posts can be added together.
At the 2010 election, the population totally unjustly blamed Brown for the 2008 crash, when actually Darling had handled it amazingly well
the coalition government disturbed those naturally in favour of the EU by bringing the LDs, who are still most closely associated with Europe, into the ambit of some profoundly anti-European, and indeed anti-human policies, including the horrific Hostile Environment, for which May bears responsibility
Cameron as Prime Minister cemented Blair in place as the leftmost wing of the acceptable range, rather than a centrist with as much to the right as to the lefft
Brexit then emboldened the worst voices, as I described before
then more or less as above.
Indeed. Agree with all of that.*
But since 2008, most people in the UK are worse off. Both in direct material terms: real incomes are down and with a destruction of the public realm.
Brexit is both a symptom and a cause. Many voted for Brexit due to deep dissatisfaction with the status quote. Brexit has worsened the very things there were unhappy about.
AFZ
*we need to stop the myth that Cameron was a centrist. He really, really wasn't. And Starmer is actually a long way left of him.**
**not as left as I want him to be. Not as left as he needs to be for the good of the country. But that's all beside the point here.
Wouldn't disagree with any of that, except that I don't think Starmer is materially to the left of Cameron. And in any case the former has an authoritarian streak a mile wide which makes right/left distinctions more or less irrelevant.
Wouldn't disagree with any of that, except that I don't think Starmer is materially to the left of Cameron. And in any case the former has an authoritarian streak a mile wide which makes right/left distinctions more or less irrelevant.
Well quite, my question to alienfromzog would be 'How many trans people have you asked?', equally 'Have you listened to the rhetoric on immigration?'
Thinking a little on Starmer's self presentation as being concerned with human rights .. I've just finished Seth Harp's book on the possible war crimes committed by JSOC, and in that connection was reminded of this article indicating the same thing going on the both sides of the pond: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3j5gxgz0do
As the article makes clear, the Cameron government would have known about it from the Milliband-era onwards, they waited to bring the Overseas Operations Bill forward until there was someone on the opposite benches who could be relied upon to nod things through with minimum fuss, and Operation Legacy the whole thing:
Walking along motorways to hang flags on gantries would be very dangerous and illegal. Closing motorway lanes to deal with the almost inevitable accidents that would result, or to safely remove flags from gantries, would be very popular with drivers (not!).
FWIW I am feeling rather sorry for Angela Raynor. I also think a law firm saying, “we didn’t give tax advice, we just calculated the stamp duty” is being very disingenuous - as in “calculating stamp duty” is telling someone (advising) how much tax (stamp duty) they need to pay.
I was feeling very let down by her, as I continue to feel about Starmer, until I read her statement, at which point I felt - you know, fair enough. In the past I have almost never found a politician's explanation of something like this convincing.
FWIW I am feeling rather sorry for Angela Raynor. I also think a law firm saying, “we didn’t give tax advice, we just calculated the stamp duty” is being very disingenuous - as in “calculating stamp duty” is telling someone (advising) how much tax (stamp duty) they need to pay.
I agree. However, it would seem the firm concerned isn't a "law firm" but a conveyancing firm - not solicitors but supposedly specialists who do nothing but conveyancing. As I understand it these outfits do nothing but property deals. They're saying she didn't brief them properly - in ther words its CYA time.
It sounds as if the situation was complicated because of the house being in trust for Ms Rayner's disabled son with her owning only a portion of the house. For her sake I hope she has a paper trail.
Of course, if we had sensible tax laws this situation would likely not have arisen but, as many have pointed out, the attitude here is that ignorance of the law is no defence.
FWIW I don't think for a moment this was deliberate. As a general rule Ms Rayner is pretty unfiltered and strikes me as being a rare example of a politician who is on the whole truthful.
Also, of course, the political discourse over this carries a stench of bias.
A question to ask is, how much have you heard about an extremely wealthy politician who in addition to MP salary has significant incomes from TV show appearances and other employment who bought a house in their constituency deliberately putting that in the name of their partner so they only paid the standard stamp duty rather than the higher rates for second homes? That's a deliberate move to avoid the same tax that Angela Rayner is being dragged across the coals for accidentally not paying. That other politician, that would be the serial tax dodger Nigel Farage.
FWIW I am feeling rather sorry for Angela Raynor. I also think a law firm saying, “we didn’t give tax advice, we just calculated the stamp duty” is being very disingenuous - as in “calculating stamp duty” is telling someone (advising) how much tax (stamp duty) they need to pay.
I agree. However, it would seem the firm concerned isn't a "law firm" but a conveyancing firm - not solicitors but supposedly specialists who do nothing but conveyancing. As I understand it these outfits do nothing but property deals. They're saying she didn't brief them properly - in ther words its CYA time.
It sounds as if the situation was complicated because of the house being in trust for Ms Rayner's disabled son with her owning only a portion of the house. For her sake I hope she has a paper trail.
Of course, if we had sensible tax laws this situation would likely not have arisen but, as many have pointed out, the attitude here is that ignorance of the law is no defence.
FWIW I don't think for a moment this was deliberate. As a general rule Ms Rayner is pretty unfiltered and strikes me as being a rare example of a politician who is on the whole truthful.
If you are conveyancing your specialism is property law, if they sold the house they must have known she didn’t own the whole house and they must have known who/what they sold the house to.
FWIW I am feeling rather sorry for Angela Raynor. I also think a law firm saying, “we didn’t give tax advice, we just calculated the stamp duty” is being very disingenuous - as in “calculating stamp duty” is telling someone (advising) how much tax (stamp duty) they need to pay.
I agree. However, it would seem the firm concerned isn't a "law firm" but a conveyancing firm - not solicitors but supposedly specialists who do nothing but conveyancing. As I understand it these outfits do nothing but property deals. They're saying she didn't brief them properly - in ther words its CYA time.
It sounds as if the situation was complicated because of the house being in trust for Ms Rayner's disabled son with her owning only a portion of the house. For her sake I hope she has a paper trail.
Of course, if we had sensible tax laws this situation would likely not have arisen but, as many have pointed out, the attitude here is that ignorance of the law is no defence.
FWIW I don't think for a moment this was deliberate. As a general rule Ms Rayner is pretty unfiltered and strikes me as being a rare example of a politician who is on the whole truthful.
If you are conveyancing your specialism is property law, if they sold the house they must have known she didn’t own the whole house and they must have known who/what they sold the house to.
Well a conveyancing solicitor, yes. This is a conveyancing firm that (AIUI) is not a law firm. My neighbour used such when they sold their house and ended up regretting not having used a solicitor…
A conveyancer helpfully explained this on the radio yesterday. Essentially the way it works is that you give the customer a form to fill in and do the calculation on the basis of their answers.
They basically said words to the effect of ‘if you want more than that, don’t use a conveyancer, that’s what law firms are for.’
It’s actually more nuanced than I’ve just said on checking - they are a law firm (that Ms Rayner used), but are clear that they don’t do taxation or trust advice.
In my view (as a voter for neither of the big two parties so trying to be non-partisan) she’d be on less sticky ground had she not been one of the main attackers of any slip-up (from slight to major) on the part of the Conservative government when in opposition, and a sort of walking megaphone of resign first, explain/get exonerated later as an attack line.
That and actually having housing in her ministerial portfolio means she’s, um, in a tight spot. Even if it’s basically a mistake.
It’s actually more nuanced than I’ve just said on checking - they are a law firm (that Ms Rayner used), but are clear that they don’t do taxation or trust advice.
Right and it's often hard to know that there *is* a tax issue involved even for a lawyer in an adjacent field.
I carry no brief for Rayner, but I'd note that currently the Political Editor for Sky has 25+ posts about Rayner on her social media feed and none on - say - Farage's appearance at a congressional hearing.
It’s actually more nuanced than I’ve just said on checking - they are a law firm (that Ms Rayner used), but are clear that they don’t do taxation or trust advice.
Right and it's often hard to know that there *is* a tax issue involved even for a lawyer in an adjacent field.
I carry no brief for Rayner, but I'd note that currently the Political Editor for Sky has 25+ posts about Rayner on her social media feed and none on - say - Farage's appearance at a congressional hearing.
Though given who the political editor of Sky News is… there are other explanations beyond this being a helpful distraction from Farage, viz:
- she wants to go hard to keep a lid on allegations of supporting/being overly friendly to Labour
- this is useful to a particular faction within Labour
- Etc
Though given who the political editor of Sky News is… there are other explanations beyond this being a helpful distraction from Farage, viz:
- she wants to go hard to keep a lid on allegations of supporting/being overly friendly to Labour
- this is useful to a particular faction within Labour
- Etc
I wasn't assuming 'helpful distraction' more commenting on the balance of coverage, but yes at some point the faction around Streeting is going to be leaking stuff on all their potential opponents.
So she did get tax advice, but not good enough tax advice. Frankly, I think it is ridiculous she should have to resign over that. In law, intent matters, there is no intermation she attempted to deceive or defraud.
So she did get tax advice, but not good enough tax advice. Frankly, I think it is ridiculous she should have to resign over that. In law, intent matters, there is no intermation she attempted to deceive or defraud.
Not quite - LBC (Shelagh Fogarty’s slot so again broadly Labour friendly) are saying 2 of the 3 opinions told her to *get* specialist tax advice and she didn’t…
One suggested, and one recommended. Yes I saw that.
I note the letter also says interpretation is very complex,
I wonder if you would get the same device from expansion and every specialist. It looks a lot like she has been too transparent and honest for her own good - a lot of richer MPs would simply have keep lawyer shopping till a specialist said what they wanted to hear.
It will be interesting to see if she stands again for deputy leader, or whether this might actually free her to lead the party once Starmer crashes out.
She screwed up; resignation is appropriate, but I don't think this will or should be career-ending.
I also wonder whether Lammy is being shifted from the FO for occasionally being honest - Cooper has demonstrated an ability to say any old shit to justify whatever horrors the government is perpetrating which is probably what Starmer wants just now. Deputy PM is a sinecure, just as it was for Prescott much of the time.
One suggested, and one recommended. Yes I saw that.
I note the letter also says interpretation is very complex,
I wonder if you would get the same device from expansion and every specialist. It looks a lot like she has been too transparent and honest for her own good - a lot of richer MPs would simply have keep lawyer shopping till a specialist said what they wanted to hear.
That comes down to the higher bar for elected representatives though, which Labour made a big thing out of. If you keep going until a specialist says what you want to hear, that’s actually more of a defence.
If people are telling you to go to a specialist, and you don’t, and you’re the deputy prime minister, then leading horses to water and drinking come to mind.
I’m actually less sympathetic having read the report than I was beforehand, and I didn’t see that coming - it’s not like no one tried to point her in the right direction.
If people are telling you to go to a specialist, and you don’t, and you’re the deputy prime minister, then leading horses to water and drinking come to mind.
This is actually one of the chief problems that I see with the sort of arse-covering boilerplate that is so prevalent these days. We have become so used to seeing earnest and overly-paranoid disclaimers attached to everything that it is harder than it should be to distinguish between "we have to include this paragraph, but it's fine" and "no, your case is really quite complicated, and you need specialist help to understand what the correct answer is".
If people are telling you to go to a specialist, and you don’t, and you’re the deputy prime minister, then leading horses to water and drinking come to mind.
This is actually one of the chief problems that I see with the sort of arse-covering boilerplate that is so prevalent these days. We have become so used to seeing earnest and overly-paranoid disclaimers attached to everything that it is harder than it should be to distinguish between "we have to include this paragraph, but it's fine" and "no, your case is really quite complicated, and you need specialist help to understand what the correct answer is".
I was thinking about that. The number of times I've seen "you should seek independent legal advice" and glibly ignored it.
To quote James O’Brien this morning, normal people check once, conscientious people check twice, government ministers should check three times.
Everyone makes mistakes, sin and stones and all that, but honestly, even the most well meaning lovely people in the world, when government ministers and there’s multiple tens of thousands of pounds of tax at stake… and you’re not doing the basic due diligence as a ‘not normal person’ of ‘can this blow up in my face’
I'm sure there are 'richer MPs' and Farage will be one of them, but Raynor is worth a cool £4.7m apparently.
I'm sure it was a genuine mistake but mistake it was.
What bugs me most about the whole thing is how the media are rushing to Farage for comment as though he's de facto Leader of the Opposition - which he seems, thanks to them, to have become.
She was just plain stupid. As mentioned the government are trying to crack down on tax avoidance/evasion, so have a prominent minister try it is disastrous. She says it was for the future of her vulnerable child. She will be back.
It's a number that doesn't seem to be credible, but I've also not seen any indication of where it comes from. Her register of interests doesn't show any additional source of income over and above her MP (and until recently, Ministers) salary. So, 10 years or so mostly on a salary below £100,000 per year - even if she didn't spend any of that she'd only have a net worth of £1m. Before becoming an MP she was a social worker and union rep, that's not going to have resulted in her making anything significant in savings or investments.
We do know she owns one property valued at about £800k, with a mortgage on that, with the approx. £160k she got from selling her share of the marriage home to her sons trust going towards that. For most people, the biggest asset that they have and well over half their net worth is their house, at least as far as most of us are concerned (as a question, would a nominal value of pension funds be counted as part of our assets?). That would indicate a worth in the £1m region, not close to 5x that.
I'm sure there are 'richer MPs' and Farage will be one of them, but Raynor is worth a cool £4.7m apparently.
I have seen this quoted on social media quite a lot but am yet to see it from a credible source. Any ideas where it came from originally?
AFZ
One thing that makes me suspicious is that it's numerically identical to the figure for flights allegedly taken by her staff that kept being floated about on right wing websites about a month or so ago.
I would also add, I don’t think she was stupid, I think she was stressed - her child was permanently disabled due to some injury at birth and her marriage appears to have finally collapsed around the time of the pandemic. Though the divorce didn’t become final until 2023 in the run up to the general election. Meanwhile she has been doing a shared care arrangement for her children, including her disabled son - and given they’ve needed a court appointed trust I am going to guess their son has high needs.
Frankly, if I was in that position I think I’d have had a nervous breakdown years ago - let alone not quite asked enough tax lawyers about selling my house.
Comments
Can I invite you to read what I’ve written again?
If Starmer tacks left he might win back some of the people peeling off to his left, and head off the threat of ‘the serious alternative sitting to the left’. Absolutely.
But in terms of votes, if that motivates remaining Tories to break for Reform, shores up Reform, and annoys enough people who bluntly just don’t want left wing policies then it’s still game over for Labour in 2029. So, again, it’s not about Labour losing more voters to Reform.
It’s about what effect Labour going left will have on the voting intentions of the people to the right of them that already aren’t voting for them. I think Labour-Reform switchers are pretty near irrelevant, and likely to remain so until/unless we reach a tipping point of voter intention for whatever reason.
Again, if I were them I’d be governing as though I was already toast in 2029 so might as well think the unthinkable and be hanged as a tiger rather than a sheep. But they don’t seem to have the stomach for that.
In a perfectly spherical frictionless rigid political system where moving to the left unites the right out of fear it makes sense. The trouble is we don't live in that system. Not everyone votes tactically, and most people don't have views that fit neatly on a continuum from left to right or even on a two-dimensional economic/social chart. For starters you have a chunk of tories who consider Reform to be below-the-salt riff-raff and a chunk of Reform supporters who have bought the idea that they're somehow 'anti-establishment' so won't touch the tories.
This far out from an election people being polled are registering their views, not necessarily indicating how they might vote if they're tactically inclined.
Broadly, I think Labour trying to thread the needle of being left wing enough to not hemorrhaging support to the left and right wing enough to avoid scaring the right into unity is a mug's game. Even if it were possible there are too many variables to calibrate it effectively. It would also, in case anyone hasn't realised, be deeply immoral to use people's lives and livelihoods, and the services they depend on, as pawns that can be sacrificed to keep you in power.
No argument there. We’ve got a government on a historic low vote share, with a huge majority, and MPs of all colours sitting on historic low personal majorities. Labour staggered over the line with a safety first manifesto, boosted by a tailwind of people (rightly) being sick of the Tories and complete disarray on the right, with many Tory voters sitting on their hands rather than vote Tory. The right now appears to be at least open to coalescing again, because a party has appeared that short circuits the ‘normal’ political cycle that would have the Tories coming back in about ten years.
So the prize for Reform (God help us) is that essentially the 2019 red wall and southern shires coalition is not only there for the taking, but looks like it’s at least feasible. Both existing Labour and Conservative MPs are sitting on the sort of majority that would be gone in a tiny swing, never mind an electoral earthquake.
So it would get more bizarre if the wave that swept Labour in last year swept them back out again within one parliament (unprecedented - unthinkable- really) - but thanks to the basic maths of the ‘odd’ political landscape the last general election bequeathed us it is very much possible.
Which is why, arithmetically, this government is so vulnerable to what the people that don’t/didn’t vote for it last year do.
To be clear, I’m not supporting it, and nothing happens in a vacuum so it can’t be the whole story, but it is a big problem that most governments don’t face but this one does.
Despite the majority, this government is probably best seen as part of the total instability we’ve seen since the 2017 election. I think 2029 is likely to result in a 2017 or 2015 style outcome, with some combination of Reform and the Conservatives governing on a coalition/confidence and supply basis mid70s/2010/2017), or Reform outright on a small majority (2015), but with a sensible vote share for the opposition on the basis of a ‘stop that happening’ ticket.
Which in the long run, assuming society gets to 2034, means ‘normal’ service with a ‘normal’ government might happen from the election after next. With the emphasis on an optimistic ‘might’
Everyone's face is now being eaten by the leopard. How can accountability for this be correctly addressed.
Brexit is the wrong starting point.
The 2008-9 economic crisis and austerity are far more important here.
There is so much more complexity and subtlety here. Labour is VERY different from Reform (although not as different as they should be) AND Labour sounds very similar to Reform in certain areas.
It is also true that the media landscape is beyond ridiculous.
How many MPs do Reform actually have? How many MPs do the LibDems have? How much has the government put into capital investment is the last year? Spending on 'hotels' is way down. Applications are being processed faster...
The national conversation is divorced from reality.
- At the 2010 election, the population totally unjustly blamed Brown for the 2008 crash, when actually Darling had handled it amazingly well
- the coalition government disturbed those naturally in favour of the EU by bringing the LDs, who are still most closely associated with Europe, into the ambit of some profoundly anti-European, and indeed anti-human policies, including the horrific Hostile Environment, for which May bears responsibility
- Cameron as Prime Minister cemented Blair in place as the leftmost wing of the acceptable range, rather than a centrist with as much to the right as to the lefft
- Brexit then emboldened the worst voices, as I described before
then more or less as above.Indeed. Agree with all of that.*
But since 2008, most people in the UK are worse off. Both in direct material terms: real incomes are down and with a destruction of the public realm.
Brexit is both a symptom and a cause. Many voted for Brexit due to deep dissatisfaction with the status quote. Brexit has worsened the very things there were unhappy about.
AFZ
*we need to stop the myth that Cameron was a centrist. He really, really wasn't. And Starmer is actually a long way left of him.**
**not as left as I want him to be. Not as left as he needs to be for the good of the country. But that's all beside the point here.
Well quite, my question to alienfromzog would be 'How many trans people have you asked?', equally 'Have you listened to the rhetoric on immigration?'
Thinking a little on Starmer's self presentation as being concerned with human rights .. I've just finished Seth Harp's book on the possible war crimes committed by JSOC, and in that connection was reminded of this article indicating the same thing going on the both sides of the pond: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3j5gxgz0do
As the article makes clear, the Cameron government would have known about it from the Milliband-era onwards, they waited to bring the Overseas Operations Bill forward until there was someone on the opposite benches who could be relied upon to nod things through with minimum fuss, and Operation Legacy the whole thing:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/23/minister-says-labour-took-uk-into-wars-during-commons-debate
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25432047.keir-starmer-said-hangs-england-flag-number-10-flat/
Cooper followed up by encouraging people to hang flags on motorway gantries:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/sep/02/cooper-reeves-starmer-green-party-leader-badenoch-devolution-latest-updates
.. While suggesting that asylum seekers could be rehoused from hotels to warehouses.
Labour are now ginning up the issues on which they'll be flattened by the far right, and shifting the Overton window at a pace.
I agree. However, it would seem the firm concerned isn't a "law firm" but a conveyancing firm - not solicitors but supposedly specialists who do nothing but conveyancing. As I understand it these outfits do nothing but property deals. They're saying she didn't brief them properly - in ther words its CYA time.
It sounds as if the situation was complicated because of the house being in trust for Ms Rayner's disabled son with her owning only a portion of the house. For her sake I hope she has a paper trail.
Of course, if we had sensible tax laws this situation would likely not have arisen but, as many have pointed out, the attitude here is that ignorance of the law is no defence.
FWIW I don't think for a moment this was deliberate. As a general rule Ms Rayner is pretty unfiltered and strikes me as being a rare example of a politician who is on the whole truthful.
A question to ask is, how much have you heard about an extremely wealthy politician who in addition to MP salary has significant incomes from TV show appearances and other employment who bought a house in their constituency deliberately putting that in the name of their partner so they only paid the standard stamp duty rather than the higher rates for second homes? That's a deliberate move to avoid the same tax that Angela Rayner is being dragged across the coals for accidentally not paying. That other politician, that would be the serial tax dodger Nigel Farage.
If you are conveyancing your specialism is property law, if they sold the house they must have known she didn’t own the whole house and they must have known who/what they sold the house to.
Well a conveyancing solicitor, yes. This is a conveyancing firm that (AIUI) is not a law firm. My neighbour used such when they sold their house and ended up regretting not having used a solicitor…
A conveyancer helpfully explained this on the radio yesterday. Essentially the way it works is that you give the customer a form to fill in and do the calculation on the basis of their answers.
They basically said words to the effect of ‘if you want more than that, don’t use a conveyancer, that’s what law firms are for.’
That and actually having housing in her ministerial portfolio means she’s, um, in a tight spot. Even if it’s basically a mistake.
Right and it's often hard to know that there *is* a tax issue involved even for a lawyer in an adjacent field.
I carry no brief for Rayner, but I'd note that currently the Political Editor for Sky has 25+ posts about Rayner on her social media feed and none on - say - Farage's appearance at a congressional hearing.
Though given who the political editor of Sky News is… there are other explanations beyond this being a helpful distraction from Farage, viz:
- she wants to go hard to keep a lid on allegations of supporting/being overly friendly to Labour
- this is useful to a particular faction within Labour
- Etc
I wasn't assuming 'helpful distraction' more commenting on the balance of coverage, but yes at some point the faction around Streeting is going to be leaking stuff on all their potential opponents.
Not quite - LBC (Shelagh Fogarty’s slot so again broadly Labour friendly) are saying 2 of the 3 opinions told her to *get* specialist tax advice and she didn’t…
I note the letter also says interpretation is very complex,
I wonder if you would get the same device from expansion and every specialist. It looks a lot like she has been too transparent and honest for her own good - a lot of richer MPs would simply have keep lawyer shopping till a specialist said what they wanted to hear.
She screwed up; resignation is appropriate, but I don't think this will or should be career-ending.
I also wonder whether Lammy is being shifted from the FO for occasionally being honest - Cooper has demonstrated an ability to say any old shit to justify whatever horrors the government is perpetrating which is probably what Starmer wants just now. Deputy PM is a sinecure, just as it was for Prescott much of the time.
That comes down to the higher bar for elected representatives though, which Labour made a big thing out of. If you keep going until a specialist says what you want to hear, that’s actually more of a defence.
If people are telling you to go to a specialist, and you don’t, and you’re the deputy prime minister, then leading horses to water and drinking come to mind.
I’m actually less sympathetic having read the report than I was beforehand, and I didn’t see that coming - it’s not like no one tried to point her in the right direction.
This is actually one of the chief problems that I see with the sort of arse-covering boilerplate that is so prevalent these days. We have become so used to seeing earnest and overly-paranoid disclaimers attached to everything that it is harder than it should be to distinguish between "we have to include this paragraph, but it's fine" and "no, your case is really quite complicated, and you need specialist help to understand what the correct answer is".
I was thinking about that. The number of times I've seen "you should seek independent legal advice" and glibly ignored it.
Everyone makes mistakes, sin and stones and all that, but honestly, even the most well meaning lovely people in the world, when government ministers and there’s multiple tens of thousands of pounds of tax at stake… and you’re not doing the basic due diligence as a ‘not normal person’ of ‘can this blow up in my face’
It’s downright stupid.
I'm sure it was a genuine mistake but mistake it was.
What bugs me most about the whole thing is how the media are rushing to Farage for comment as though he's de facto Leader of the Opposition - which he seems, thanks to them, to have become.
I have seen this quoted on social media quite a lot but am yet to see it from a credible source. Any ideas where it came from originally?
AFZ
We do know she owns one property valued at about £800k, with a mortgage on that, with the approx. £160k she got from selling her share of the marriage home to her sons trust going towards that. For most people, the biggest asset that they have and well over half their net worth is their house, at least as far as most of us are concerned (as a question, would a nominal value of pension funds be counted as part of our assets?). That would indicate a worth in the £1m region, not close to 5x that.
One thing that makes me suspicious is that it's numerically identical to the figure for flights allegedly taken by her staff that kept being floated about on right wing websites about a month or so ago.
I don't think I'd buy a scoop off them either!
https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/fake-firm-rests-case-awards-glut-winning-legal-prize
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-legal-awards-company-denies-it-sham
Yep.
This seems to be a more accurate summary:
https://www.tuko.co.ke/facts-lifehacks/celebrity-biographies/595784-is-angela-rayner-a-millionaire-what-net-worth/
In short, no, she is not a millionaire is my takeaway.
Which of course begs the question: why would people claim she is?
I accept that is not a difficult question.
Frankly, if I was in that position I think I’d have had a nervous breakdown years ago - let alone not quite asked enough tax lawyers about selling my house.