Rayner cleared.

Not eat her all her dinner 😲, surely she would have been taken into care 🥲

Casdon

Sorry, my sense of humour has taken a nosedive now ove admitted to my son’s true identity.

Can't say I'm surprised at that 😂. I would need counselling in the circs.

Ohhhh, my heart goes out to Dan Hodges at this traumatic and difficult time.

We really need a sarcasm emoji.

What concerns me more is that as a corbinista and proud of it , the fact that she is now championing Diane Abbott shows the danger of Labour, I fear once in Starmer will be sidelined by the ultra left

ruthiek

What concerns me more is that as a corbinista and proud of it , the fact that she is now championing Diane Abbott shows the danger of Labour, I fear once in Starmer will be sidelined by the ultra left

He won’t. That’s why they are doing their damndest now to disrupt, it’s their last chance. Rayner is far from a darling of the left.

Verve?

As someone said, they are quite happy to accept that Angela Rayner is clear of any crime or tax evasion. But she still remains a hypocrite for playing a system she affects to abhor, I mean the sums of money were not that large and she has a well paid job.

Would you be willing to trust in government someone who is so morally dishonest in their private life,

M0nica

As someone said, they are quite happy to accept that Angela Rayner is clear of any crime or tax evasion. But she still remains a hypocrite for playing a system she affects to abhor, I mean the sums of money were not that large and she has a well paid job.

Would you be willing to trust in government someone who is so morally dishonest in their private life,

Compared to, say, the people who still support the Tories do you mean Monica?

would you be willing to trust in government someone who I so morally dishonest in their private life

Oh the irony. Johnson was morally dishonest in every area of his life. Angela Rayner used a legal system to buy her council house. Thanks to Mrs T this is available to council house tenants. Angela isn y wealthy. She worked hard and achieved good luck to her

Iam64

*would you be willing to trust in government someone who I so morally dishonest in their private life*

Oh the irony. Johnson was morally dishonest in every area of his life. Angela Rayner used a legal system to buy her council house. Thanks to Mrs T this is available to council house tenants. Angela isn y wealthy. She worked hard and achieved good luck to her

Yes.

There is nothing morally wrong with what she has done.

M0nica

As someone said, they are quite happy to accept that Angela Rayner is clear of any crime or tax evasion. But she still remains a hypocrite for playing a system she affects to abhor, I mean the sums of money were not that large and she has a well paid job.

Would you be willing to trust in government someone who is so morally dishonest in their private life,

It wasn’t just ‘someone’ who started this. It was tax evading, non-dom Ashcroft, writing in the Daily Mail, a paper owned by a non-UK resident.

He said hypocrisy was always the charge against her, not tax avoidance [which is doubtless news to GMP and HMRC] and that ‘the stain will dog her for years to come’.

I think he’s deluded, although I sure the right-wing media will keep slinging mud in the hope that some sticks.

She has criticised the sale of council houses and the discounts given to tenants. When it comes to her own purchase at a 25% discount she says ‘It was the right thing to do’. Is that not hypocrisy? Ok for me, but not for others. As far as I’m concerned it’s not ok at all, never has been and the practice should be stopped.

I don't agree with it either, but I took advantage of the fact that a mortgage was cheaper than the rent.

I've just checked, and she was a carer at the time she bought her place.

Siope The fact that the \daily Mail and lord Ashcroft said something does not automatically mean it is wrong. On this occasion I am more than happy to agree with them both.

I feel exactly the same about Boris Johnson.

I would add. I have never in my life voted Conservative, but I hope I never become so narrow minded that I cannot see and accept an idea I agree with just because the person who says it is a party or person with whom I am generally disagree with.

I don't care who said it.
She broke no rules, she wasn't in politics at that time, and she bought her council house, just the same as lord knows how many other tenants.

Casdon

M0nica

As someone said, they are quite happy to accept that Angela Rayner is clear of any crime or tax evasion. But she still remains a hypocrite for playing a system she affects to abhor, I mean the sums of money were not that large and she has a well paid job.

Would you be willing to trust in government someone who is so morally dishonest in their private life,

Compared to, say, the people who still support the Tories do you mean Monica?

So ordinary people who support the Tories are corrupt. Really. Which Labour MP was sent to prison.
Which Labour MPs, all seven of them, jailed sentences, suspended or sent to jailed.
Starmer was skewered by Marr, when talking about Tory sleaze.
Yes a few years ago but you Labour voters have very selective memories.

I may be a Conservative voter but I am not, nor ever could be described as, corrupt.

So every person who bought a council place is morally corrupt? 😂

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Almost 200,000 council homes have been lost since the Tories came to power in 2010, new analysis has revealed - a number equivalent to all the homes in Bristol.

The latest government figures show that the number of homes rented from councils has dropped from 1,786,000 in 2010 to 1,592,000 by the end of 2018 - a fall of 194,000, or 11 per cent.

The number of council homes has dropped every year since 2010.

The fall is likely to be attributed in part to changes made under the Coalition Government, which drastically cut funding for council housing and diverted investment into "affordable housing". With "affordable" rents set at up to 80 per cent of market rates, this is typically much more expensive than council homes offered at social rents.

My idea of morally corrupt

MissAdventure

So every person who bought a council place is morally corrupt? 😂

No, of course not. But she seems to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

I agree that it's not, and never has been ok to sell off council houses (or nationalised industries, but that's another thread), but it wasn't 'morally wrong' of those who took advantage of the chance to do so. For many people, it would have been their only chance to own a home, and a refusal to do so would have been a drop in the ocean, as so many people were doing it. That doesn't make it 'right', but at a time when house prices were rising so rapidly the chance to join the much-vaunted 'home owning democracy' will have seemed much better than continuing to pay rent, particularly as many estates fell into disrepair because of the lack of rents coming in as the housing was sold.

To those with socialist leanings it was clear at the time that it was wrong, and with hindsight, it became obvious even to many of those who voted for Thatcher that the scheme was responsible for the state of the housing market now. So many young people are unable to find an affordable home, partly because there were so few new council houses built with the proceeds of the sales, partly because many were bought up as buy-to-lets and rented out on insecure tenancies at high rents. Many people bought their parents' homes with the discounts, so they inherited them when the time came, and rent them out, continuing to profit from the fact that the social housing stock was so reduced in numbers, and reducing the availability of cheaper housing in many areas.

That situation would be remedied if people who have made £££ just by living in their houses (ex-council or not) decided that it would be morally wrong to accept sums significantly higher than they paid when they also take advantage of the way the housing market was skewed and sell their homes to the next generation. How is it morally right for someone who bought a house at (on average) three times the average salary for (again on average) eight times the average salary? It would be relatively easy to come up with a formula that would value a house for sale as equivalent in real terms to the price that was paid for it, and money spent on improvements could be set against rent-free years when the mortgage was paid off. Anomalies of other types could, I'm sure, be relatively easily ironed out, too.

Would anyone saying AR was 'immoral' vote for that? Thought not.

We bought our house in Brixton in 1978/9 when the GLC was still in place. At that time mortgage lenders had strict criteria for lending, particularly on rundown houses. The GLC bought in a scheme where they would buy up old houses and then sell them on to people who had the ability to do them.

The house that we purchased was sold to us by a couple of developers who had hoped to benefit from that scheme but didn't and so they sold it on. We were only able to get a mortgage because I a former colleague was the accountant for a small building society.It cost us an arm and a leg.

I believe that such schemes have existed elsewhere and I think it would be better if young people, with some expertise, were able to do this now. Furthermore, there are warehouses, which could be purchased by local authorities, with govt funding, divided with wiring and plumbing installed and then sold on for young people to buy and fit out as and when they could afford to do so.

Our house was about to be condemned but the local council delayed the closing orders because of the change of ownership. My DH did most of the work (rewiring, plumbing, installing central heating etc etc). When we sold it was bought by the son of a Tory minister who set up what is now an influential contemporary art gallery. They were impressed by the fact that our little enclave was mentioned in Harpers and Queen and the Sunday Times as being an up and coming area.

Doodledog, how can you compare the purchase of a council house - a property provided and maintained with taxpayers’ money - at a discount and its subsequent resale at a profit with the purchase of a privately provided, maintained and owned house for 100% of market value and its subsequent sale for a profit?