The matter of Angela Rayner's house sale isn't going away.....

TinSoldierthank you. I didn’t know if Angela Rayner’s childhood and life leading to being voted deputy leader of the
Labour Party.

GSM if she wants to do all she can to protect children and mothers from the same lifestyle she is right being honest and
you assume she betrayed her mother , she may have had her full support

You sent a link to an interview with AR. We are not talking about what other people do or say, though this has been the constant way of deflecting criticism of Rayner throughout this thread. My latest post was about Rayner’s cruel exposure of her mother’s problems, in order to further her own cause. She has made the information available because it suits her agenda. She can protect herself. Her mother cannot, she is an extremely vulnerable woman and her daughter has laid bare her woeful (and entirely understandable) inability to care for her family. For any daughter to do that to her mother is appalling. To do it to bolster her public image, emphasising the contrasts with the way she looks after her own family, is shameful.

Angela Rayner is very unusual in doing so well given her deprived childhood. Having worked in child protection for over. 20 years I know how rare that is.
Instead of congratulating her I don’t understand why you are being quite so unpleasant.

Every person who has ever written an autobiography describing a difficult childhood, given permission for a biography that does similar, written a novel based on their life (write what you know), written an autobiographical poem, performed an autobiographical song, given an interview where they have spoken about their childhood … has done the same thing. Frank McCourt won a Pulizter Prize for Angela’s Ashes. Only a few weeks ago, the Channel 4 series The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson began with an episode about his chaotic childhood. The makers has footage and photos of him as a child obtained from somewhere.

This very controversy has been sparked because of an unauthorised biography. Ashcroft is cashing in on dissecting Rayner’s life. Newspapers are cashing in on dissecting Rayner’s life. Do you despise them too?

If Rayner hadn’t have outed her mother and her problems and inadequacies she would not have been speaking to the press would she?

The mother didn’t have an education so couldn’t make her own
.decisions ?

Would she have told her story unprompted by her daughter? AR has cashed in on her mother’s misfortune.

Despise? Unforgiveable?

Rayner’s mother has herself spoken openly about her struggles and has given interviews with Angela.

And this:

www.theguardian.com/global/2024/mar/23/angela-rayner-roots-rough-edges-ready-for-power

Her mother Lynn was one of 12 kids born to out-of-work parents. Lynn had never been to school. “I followed the fair,” was how she described her upbringing to her daughter.

If anyone understands the lived experience of poverty, deprivation and lack of education, especially as it affects children and has both the will and (very soon) the power to do something about it - it’s Rayner.

Note the amendment at the end of the article. An earlier version said Lord Ashcroft had said Angela Rayner should have paid capital gains tax on the former council house she bought in 2007; in fact, in his book he set out details regarding the purchase and sale of the property but did not comment on whether such tax was due. If that is so then what is all the fuss about?

In fact, not at all….

Not exactly changing the subject though …..

I will change the subject, if I may, as we must have done the allegations to death. Something I despise about Rayner is the way she has, in the course of telling how she has come from nothing, made her mother’s illiteracy very public, even telling us that her mother would sometimes bring dog food home for the family to eat because she couldn’t read the label on the tin. It was a sad situation, but her betrayal of her mother in this way is something I find unforgivable and completely unnecessary.

Oreo

Angela Raynor has often accused others of lying or fraud so its now her turn to face the music.
I don’t know and neither does anyone else on this forum, what the truth of the matter is, but that’s what this investigation is for.
Just cos I vote Labour doesn’t mean I don’t want any investigations to be done.If this was a tory MP he would be hung out to dry on here.

Which is exactly what virtually every Labour supporter on this thread has said. The rumour, gossip, speculation and exaggeration is coming from elsewhere.

Angela Raynor has often accused others of lying or fraud so its now her turn to face the music.
I don’t know and neither does anyone else on this forum, what the truth of the matter is, but that’s what this investigation is for.
Just cos I vote Labour doesn’t mean I don’t want any investigations to be done.If this was a tory MP he would be hung out to dry on here.

TinSoldier

I don't understand your point. The allegations, as I understand them, are that she was registered to vote at the property she owned and not the property owned by her husband.

Again. What unjust advantage has she obtained? Whose rights or interests has she injured? Nobody seems to want to answer that question.

Both properties are in Stockport, apparently a mile from one another and both in the same Parliamentary constituency. If she was only registered at one property and voted once what harm has been done? Where's the fraud?

She should have been registered to vote at her permanent residence and should have given notification of any change of permanent residence. If she had let her house to her brother then it could not, during the term of the tenancy, have been her permanent residence. There is no requirement for an unjust advantage to be obtained in order for the offence of giving false information to be committed. The offence is the giving of false information, not fraud.

Hearsay is only relevant where evidence is given in court. The neighbours could be called to give evidence (but obviously won’t) or they could be required to give a formal statement to the police (which is possible).

Perhaps her neighbours are the sort of people who can see someone passing by, and know that they have the latest iPhone?

Hearsay: information received from other people which cannot be substantiated and usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.

Not seeing something is not evidence that it didn’t happen.

I didn’t see the accident, therefore it didn’t happen is nonsense.

I didn't see Rayner at the property, therefore she was never there is equally nonsense.

I can look out at at my neighbours' homes and have no clue if they are inside or not or which of their family members spend time there ... or if anybody is being charged rent.

Semantically, to let is to hire or rent.

Letting refers to the act of renting out a property. If a property is advertised as "to let", it's available to rent.

For tax purposes, if a property is occupied completely rent free then it falls outside of the lettings regime. It only becomes relevant if a tenant is ‘connected’ to the landlord (a brother would be deemed a connected person) and pays rent at less than the market rate. Then HMRC will enforce rules which centre round the amount of expenses that can be claimed as a deduction from the rental income received.

I don't understand your point. The allegations, as I understand them, are that she was registered to vote at the property she owned and not the property owned by her husband.

Again. What unjust advantage has she obtained? Whose rights or interests has she injured? Nobody seems to want to answer that question.

Both properties are in Stockport, apparently a mile from one another and both in the same Parliamentary constituency. If she was only registered at one property and voted once what harm has been done? Where's the fraud?

TinSoldier

It is exactly as I said. Here:

www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/who-can-vote/other-registration-options/voting-and-second-homes

It says:

If you split your time between two homes, you may be able to register to vote at both addresses. For example, you might own two properties and split your time between them, or you might spend time at different family addresses.

Rayner's brother is her family. If she spends time at a different family address she can register there.

Again, even if the time she spend at her owned property was limited, what fraud has she committed? What unjust advantage has she obtained? Whose rights or interests has she injured?

Again, the Electoral Commission says that fraud includes:

*making false statements about the personal character of a candidate
*offering an incentive to someone to get them to vote, to vote a certain way, or to stop them from voting
*interfering with postal votes
*including false statements or signatures on a candidate’s nomination forms
*registering to vote under a false name or without someone’s consent
*influencing someone to vote against their will
*pretending to be someone else and using their vote

www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/report-electoral-fraud

Is she alleged to have done any of those things?

But this isn't about where she was registered to vote. It was about the address she put on her nomination form to be an MP in 2015.

LizzieDrip

^Her neighbours have said she didn’t live there. One called her an effing liar.^

Malicious gossip! I dare say one of my neighbours would call me an effing liar and I would call her the same. Neither based on truth or evidence but based on the fact that we can’t effing stand each other

I once had a truly "delightful" neighbour, who accused me of smoking and blowing the smoke into his garden. He also wrote to my landlord and said he'd witnessed me coming home drunk and falling over in the road.

Both the above were amazing because I have never smoked and hardly ever drunk any alcohol.

He approached me once and started swearing at me, making the accusations. I was shaken, so told him to go to Specsavers. That was a huge mistake on my part because he then assaulted me, leaving bruising on my arm.

I went to the police and reported it. Amazingly, the police took action and issued my neighbour with a caution and arranged for a female police officer to give me her direct contact details, in case anything similar happened.

I found out on the grapevine years later that he was struggling to pay the mortgage and wanted a council house. He didn't qualify because he already had a property, so claimed that living next door to me was intolerable and he needed to move. Fortunately, he did sell up after that and found somewhere to rent. Maybe he ended up as Angela Rayner's neighbour!

PS. Most of my neighbours have been lovely - he was the only "coarse" one I've ever had.

As I said above, once it gets to the point of door stepping neighbours and vitriolic attacks on Raynor personally I support the no comment approach until it has been investigated, including the source of advice and the issue of intentionality.

Germanshepherdsmum

If you genuinely divide your time between two homes you may be able to register both but the Electoral Commission looks at things on a case by case basis. If you have let one of the homes you don’t live there. The basis of registration at an address is whether that address can be considered your permanent residence. If you spend half your time in one house and half in another then both might fall within that definition. But not if you have let one and therefore spend all your time in the other.

But that's not relevant to the accusations against Angel Rayner. Where she was registered to vote hasn't even been mentioned.

Suddenly they are, it seems.

^Why would anyone trust Rayner's ex neighbours?
Presumably thay are similar to her.
Speak roughly, are coarse and abrasive, and generally not "the sort of people" to be trusted.^

Quite MissA. Very unreliable witnesses I would imagine!

MissAdventure

Why would anyone trust Rayner's ex neighbours?
Presumably thay are similar to her.
Speak roughly, are coarse and abrasive, and generally not "the sort of people" to be trusted.

Come on now, I’m sure they are pillars of moral rectitude!

If you genuinely divide your time between two homes you may be able to register both but the Electoral Commission looks at things on a case by case basis. If you have let one of the homes you don’t live there. The basis of registration at an address is whether that address can be considered your permanent residence. If you spend half your time in one house and half in another then both might fall within that definition. But not if you have let one and therefore spend all your time in the other.