Angela Rayner is a scrounger, grifter and shameless hypocrite.

Maybe it would have pleased a section of society if AR had been humbled/humiliated/debased. Many of those will be the ones who tried to humble/humiliate/debase her because she wore an unfortunate trouser suit/had a baby out of wedlock/speaks with a Northern accent, and there isn't much that can be done about that sort of attitude when we have the free speech that many of them claim to support.

If I were suddenly catapulted into public scrutiny, I don't know how I would cope. Whether I would wear the 'right' things, whether my voice, figure, family would withstand close scrutiny, and I consider myself a reasonably respectable person.

Would you put you and yours through that in all honesty? It's easy to present ourselves as respectable articulate fashion icons when we are anonymous, nobody can hear our voices, see our exam results or see us wearing whatever we wear, and we can type responses and edit them to remove signs of irritation before making them public; but if everything we did ended up being filmed and recorded I'm not sure that many people would come out of it consistently well.

Anyway. My understanding is that politicians get payoffs because they (well, most of them!) give up other jobs to take office, and many will have relocated, so they need some money to tide them over until they find another role or are re-elected. A redundancy payment, basically.

Maybe it is more than someone leaving a minimum wage job would get, and maybe that's not fair, but the reason is probably that higher earners have higher outgoings.

The over 65s don't get such payments as they are/were eligible for pensions, in the same way that people can't claim other benefits when claiming the state pension, so Dorries' claims are spurious to say the least, and malicious at worst.

I will leave everyone reading this to assess the claims of those trying to attack AR. There is no point in trying to change people's minds, I think.

Well they might choose to look up the difference between legality and morality 😉

I get it all right - it’s some others that don’t

I would love to be surprised by a politician doing the right thing, what a rarity.
No wonder many people say they’re all the same.

Or is there going to be a pedants corner reprimand about the use of ‘grey area’ 🤔

Plevey08

Legally yes. Morally no. That's the grey area.

I don’t think Tuliptree gets that.

Legally yes. Morally no. That's the grey area.

Oreo

There is a grey area, as there’s a difference in something being legally right and something being ethically right, as am sure that you know already.

The difference between something being legally right and ethically right is not a grey area. That’s a complete misunderstanding of what a grey area is.

It’s depressing that so many political snouts are in the trough as soon as they make it to high office.
Starmer did it from day one with his designer suits and specs.

There is a grey area, as there’s a difference in something being legally right and something being ethically right, as am sure that you know already.

This is very black and white. I have already explained what the rules are. Where is the grey area?

The fiasco was the media circus.

She did not make an error of judgement. Her counsel have provided documentary evidence to HMRC that she was given definitive (albeit wrong) advice to pay only the standard rate of SDLT. HMRC say she was not careless. She has now paid the additional tax due.

What more do you want? She was legally entitled to severance pay and she is legally entitled to keep it whatever anyone out to discredit her says.

So it would have put her up a level to have returned the money.she didn't read the room which doesn't bode well for her.

Plevey08

As MOnica says it would have faired better for her regardless of her being exonerated, if she had been humbled by the fiasco. Been gracious and acknowledged that she had made an error of judgement To regain a sense of trust especially in high office would have served her better. She appeared smug and entitled, not a good look and the electorate deserves better.

I agree with you and Monica 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

As MOnica says it would have faired better for her regardless of her being exonerated, if she had been humbled by the fiasco. Been gracious and acknowledged that she had made an error of judgement To regain a sense of trust especially in high office would have served her better. She appeared smug and entitled, not a good look and the electorate deserves better.

It's not just about rules though. Not everything is black or white, there are grey areasn

Primrose53

So says Nadine Dorries who did hand back her severance pay of approx £17,000 whilst AR is refusing to give hers back. ND was given hers by mistake as those over 65 are not entitled to it but she did give it back.

This has been covered in all the papers and TV channels and I have yet to hear anybody say AR deserves to keep it.

That is factually accurate in broad terms, but it omits the important context that Dorries' payment was an ineligible payment made in error, whereas Rayner's payment was one she was entitled to under the applicable rules.

Please read the public documents related to this.

Magnus made his decision in under 48 hours, a decision that was not based on all the available information and which has been disputed by Rayner's lawyer.

How many times do I have to say that HMRC has seen the documents and found that she was not careless?

If Magnus was wrong then resigning her ministerial post was unnecessary, in which case she would have received considerably more in salary for the last ten months than she received in severance pay.

People seem to let their irrational dislike of someone cloud the legal aspects of a case.

Magnus described her as acting with integrity and with a dedicated and exemplary commitment to public service.

AGAA4

😲 Don't mention the green .....

You can mention it but only if you post a photograph of yourself so we can -gossip about discuss your styling and post it all over the Internet and the trash press.

WHY is she entitled to it?
She lost her job because Sir Laurie Magnus was asked to investigate her conduct concerning the complex use of funds from the sale of part of her house and the trust fund for her disabled son, and her failure to pay the correct amount of tax owing. He wrote:

"Her unfortunate of failure to settle her SDLT liability at the correct level, coupled with the fact that this was established only following intense public scrutiny, leads me to advise you that in matters relating to this matter she cannot be considered to have met the highest possible standards of proper conduct as envisaged by the code. Accordingly it is with deep regret that I inform you that in these circumstances, the code has been breached".
She claimed to have been given the wrong advice, which was swiftly refuted by the estate agent and legal firm dealing with the sale, and therefore had no option but to resign.This is the third time the sale of property which she owned has needed to be investigated for tax purposes.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the perfectly correct investigation into Farage's financial affairs; he is not part of the present government.
This is entirely a matter for the Labour party, and Burnham's decision to reappoint Rayner to the same position is a gross misjudgement; echoes of Starmer and Mandelson. Having to leave a post because of a failure to maintain the highest standards of conduct is a stinging indictment of any MP; refusing to return £17,000 severance pay when she has been reappointed is reprehensible.
It is insulting that a woman of such poor moral character is deemed fit to hold office. One really wonders why.

Rules are rules.

A huge fuss was made over Rayner's council house sale when it was always glaringly obvious here was nothing to see - as HMRC confirmed.

There is a lot more to the SDLT case than the media can be bothered to report in its fervour to discredit Rayner, not least that Graham Aaronson KC has said, and shown evidence to HMRC, that she received definitive advice that the standard rate of tax applied. It is said to involve a complex chain of correspondence. The leading case law is clear that you can rely on professional advice. The documents have not been released to the public but HMRC has seen them and confirmed that she was not careless.

Why should someone have to repay money that was paid to them legally just because the media, with its usually bias, clamours for them to do so? I would argue in this case that the decision that she had breached the ministerial code was made with undue haste precisely because of the media clamour.

We have just seen a Prime Minister resign after two years of unrelenting media attack. Are we really going to let unqualified hacks and embittered former MPs (who don’t seem to know the rules themselves) decide what should and shouldn’t happen?

Bet Rayner doesn’t have time to write 1000 words a day on her latest novel in the way Dorries did when she was a MP; too busy working hard doing her proper job.

I f you want to view the trouser suit thread just enter

Angela Raynor Trouser Suit

into the gransnet search engine.

Liz Truss took severance pay.

She received £18,660 in 2022 after resigning from her 49-day tenure as Prime Minister.

Michael Gove and Grant Shapps, to name but two, both did exactly the same as Rayner, in fact the only person I’m aware of who returned the severance money when he was appointed into government again was Rishi Sunak. Where was the outcry then M0nica?

There may not be a legal requirement to pay the money back, but it would have been a graceful and tactically astute move to do so.

By not paying it back, it will damage her future political career because she is showing herself to be as cloth eared as people like Starmer in failing to see that she and the party she belongs to are showing themselves up to as being as personally greedy as the members of any other party, when they grab everything free that comes their way.

It will alsoenforce the general opinion of her, after the housing tax debacle, as being financially untrustworthy