[Abernathy]

Strangely, we don’t seem to have a dedicated thread for the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader, our very own “John Prescott in a skirt”, the lovely Angela Rayner.

She was standing in for James O’Brien this morning on LBC, and I was slightly surprised that she was great -relaxed, articulate, capable, and totally on message.

I’m impressed with her, despite her having been previously thought of perhaps as a “Friend of Jeremy”, and despite her continuing nookie nazums relationship with troublesome deselected Trot MP Sam Tarry.

Though she is nominally Deputy Leader, I think we all know that the real deputy leader is Rachel Reeves, and Angie seems to be perfectly okay with that - to her credit.

What does the team think ?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Completely agree. The party has a good squad of highly capable and effective women, and Angela is a star, and very relatable.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Chancellor/Shadow is always going to be the second most powerful at least.

Angela has a more active role than Prescott did, and ranges across a few areas that are well-chosen. And does it very well.

[Boiler]

Rayner on LBC today.

[Andy McDandy]

I would.

[Youngian]

If 4 million landlords put their properties on the market, that would collapse the price. Perhaps councils could buy them en masse for next to nothing? They could use the housing benefit budget to fund it.
As for the landlord worried about not being able to evict troublesome junkies and alchies, a couple of grand and a crate of Special Brew should do the trick.

[Watchman]

I would.

You are not Lawrence Fox, and I claim my £5

[Crabcakes]

I would vote for her because she’s a talented MP and passionate about helping people, and I’m sure she’d much rather be rated on her skills and deeds than objectified based on her physical appearance.

FTFY.

[Abernathy]

I would.

Angie has had her jubblies fixed, didn’t you know ?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ring-it-on

[slilley]

I see on X Dan Hodges is trying again to breathe life into the Angela Rayner house “scandal”.

[satnav]

Dan Wootton has also jumped on board the band wagon. Like many right wing commentators he is running with the line that she should resign because she has a long record of calling for Tory Ministers and Prime Ministers to resign. Surely the role of the deputy leader of the opposition is to hold government ministers to account. Many Tories clearly think this is there chance to get their own back on Rayner whether she is guilty or not.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Same thing happened with Ed Davey, who lost office in 2015 but was apparently supposed to resign in 2024 for in effect doing nothing worse than assuming the Post Office weren't lying to him.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Big story on Sky news because 'The Mail on Sundsay has this story'. I quote. Bigger than the deaths of aid workers in Gaza? Apparently...

I am sickened at how much influence the doublecunting cunt has on the news agenda. And how idle some journalists are just to latch on to it.

[satnav]

Whilst I understand why the Daily Mail are keen to run with stories like this I'm a little bit surprised at the Tories are wading in on the story. There are plenty of Tory MPs like Philip Davies and Esther McVey who have spent years manipulating the rules on second homes to make a bit of money on the side.

The only party that would benefit from a close inspection of MPs gaming the second home rules would be the Reform Party who only have one MP.

[Youngian]

Maybe parties for former foreign secretaries and KGB agents

[Andy McDandy]

Whilst I understand why the Daily Mail are keen to run with stories like this I'm a little bit surprised at the Tories are wading in on the story. There are plenty of Tory MPs like Philip Davies and Esther McVey who have spent years manipulating the rules on second homes to make a bit of money on the side.

The only party that would benefit from a close inspection of MPs gaming the second home rules would be the Reform Party who only have one MP.

"We're all as bad as each other, so why change? At least we don't pretend to be all holier than thou, or get all high and mighty about it."

Don't underestimate the power of hypocrisy. It's the sin we've all committed, and can't stand in others.

[Crabcakes]

Exact same playbook as Starmer’s beer & curry thing - entirely within the rules, investigated twice, no issue. But the aim was to spread some of Johnson’s taint because it sounds like it could be a similar thing, and they hoped some people would look into it no further.

Attempting to drag people down to their level instead of actually trying to do better or self-policing their number who don’t is perhaps the very worst aspect of the current (and hopefully final) version of the Tory party.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Exact same playbook as Starmer’s beer & curry thing - entirely within the rules, investigated twice, no issue. But the aim was to spread some of Johnson’s taint because it sounds like it could be a similar thing, and they hoped some people would look into it no further.

A.nd it's good material for shitposting

[davidjay]

In the same way that politically homeless is shorthand for extremist, so "They're all as bad as each other" means Tory.

[Abernathy]

I realised that I’m not even sure what the precise nature of what it is that Angie is supposed to have done.

I think it’s this :

She sold a property that, at the time, wasn’t her main residency, as she’d moved in with her husband. I understand this is a far from uncommon occurrence.

Theoretically, there would have been capital gains tax to be paid on the difference in the property’s value from when she moved out, and the date that she sold it. In theory, this could be zero or less. HMRC might be interested if there was a long period between the two dates (in theory they’d always be interested), but it would seem there wasn’t. It’d also all be down to a very subjective valuation of the property when she moved out. The average voter is not going to give a farmer’s fuck about this,

So if there was anything wrong, it is of virtually no significance. Like “currygate”, what it is is a measure of the Tories’ absolute and utter desperation.