Let us look, today, at a politically challenging event that has recently taken place in the United Kingdom; both incident and treatment chosen for location, within what is generally viewed as a working democracy.
On this occasion, the focus is not on Nigel Farage who is riding the crest of a wave after an especially encouraging prediction – that he’ll be the UK prime minister in four years’ time. It’s about a lady called Angela Rayner. Now this person – often behaving less like a lady and more like a tiger – has resigned as deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom (UK) because her errors became too much to handle. She appears to have resigned without coercion from the upper powers of the governing Labour Party. However, you never know what goes on behind the closed doors of 10, Downing Street, London, the home of the UK prime minister. What appears possible is that if the government of Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, had a more solid foothold, Rayner might have got away with it.
She made a mistake. It’s even remotely possible that she made it in genuine ignorance of the rules of British taxation, which are complicated. She may have acted in good faith. However, the fact is that she cheated the British Government out of £40 000 (E920 000) of stamp duty land tax (SDLT) on the purchase of an apartment on the south coast of England. She had relied on non-expert advice – and a note of caution from that advisor – when she claimed that a property she had placed in trust for a disabled son was no longer owned by her. That entitled her to the lower rate of SDLT. The independent adviser on ministerial standards, responsible for investigating the misdemeanour, stated formally that he believed Rayner acted in good faith when obtaining the lower rate, but simply ignored the advice to seek more expert counsel on the issue. She then failed to pay the requisite amount of SDLT until coming under public scrutiny; thus breaking the ministerial code of integrity.
It is not for the writer to be waving the flag of forgiveness (she’s not my type anyway!), but there are a number of issues that might have softened the severity of the penalty. Firstly, she resigned voluntarily, she was not fired. Secondly, her career is in ruins; one not easy to revive. Additionally, this is a woman who, in 2024, was voted Politician of the Year by the Spectator magazine.
The third issue is her highly-deprived family background and upbringing. She was brought up in a low-level council estate by parents who had insufficient resources to provide their children with a decent life. She left school pregnant at 16 years of age and was on the fast route to nowhere. Rayner, however, got herself together, completed her education and, through union activities, developed an ascending reputation, eventually becoming member of parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015. This is where irony creeps in. Her meteoric rise in the Labour Party will have occurred for no better reason than she was the ‘working class hero’. Now, she no longer fits that category and the vast number of critics are throwing it in the face of the Labour Party and especially the prime minister.
I think that, if the matter were to be judged in a court of law, the extenuating circumstances – ignorance of the practicalities after a very poor upbringing, together with her busy life as a top politician and the independent adviser’s comment ‘she behaved with integrity’ – would have given rise to a judgment of ‘carelessness’, especially in not seeking expert legal advice on the nature of the property transaction and the SDLT payable. This, though, was the court of public opinion. The Labour party, given its poor rating at the present time, could not afford the inevitable loss of public opinion. Angela Rayner had to resign.
An unusual blemish on the whole scene was the extent to which the ‘research’ into this woman’s honesty may have arisen from a hunger for revenge. In September 2021, she publicly referred to the senior members of the Conservative Party as ‘a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile… of banana republic… Etonian… piece of scum’. Ouch! That’s not ladylike. But politics can be a dirty business, and the public exposure of her tax offence may have been payback time, though this should not be construed as an accusation, merely a suggestion, and not targeting anyone in particular.
However, the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009 revealed many politicians cheating the authorities. Was Ms Rayner the only politician investigated? Furthermore, despite the error of her ways, many middle-class people will continue to admire ‘Grangela’ Rayner – a gogo at 37 – as a working-class achiever who defied every obstacle in her path. The alpha-woman of today who could probably run a country.
Is there any good to come out of this? It does reveal the benefits of democracy. If you break the law, you will be exposed and held accountable, regardless of your rank in society, and that’s how to run a country fairly and productively, making democracy the morally appropriate political dispensation. However, it’s messy and you can still get dictatorship components creeping in. Like the executive order attempting to rename a country’s Department of Defence as Department of War. That must be Russia? No, it’s the great democracy, America.
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