Once again, this lamentable excuse for a government has been hoist spectacularly by its own petard.
In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer pompously vowed Labour would be a standard-bearer for a more honourable brand of politics.
A key component of his election victory was the promise to wash away Tory sleaze and corruption, and replace it with a new administration of rectitude and integrity.
‘Lawmakers,’ he intoned piously, ‘cannot be lawbreakers.’
Yet after just over a year in power, the party is up to its neck in scandal.
It has already lost a transport secretary over phone fraud, an anti-corruption minister engulfed by corruption allegations and a homelessness minister who threw her tenants on to the streets.
Now Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, has gone too.
After confessing to dodging £40,000 of stamp duty on her luxury apartment in Hove, she bowed to the inevitable and quit.
In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer pompously vowed Labour would be a standard-bearer for a more honourable brand of politics
Not immediately, of course, which would have at least preserved some dignity.
Instead, she clung on until independent ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus found she had breached the ministerial code.
Sir Laurie flatly contradicted Ms Rayner’s claim, made in a tearful mea culpa on Wednesday, that she had received unsound financial advice.
Rather, he concluded, she had ignored recommendations from lawyers to seek specific guidance from tax experts about her stamp duty obligations. And only then after ‘intensive public scrutiny’.
Why, then, did the watchdog say she had ‘acted with integrity’? This is an odd way to describe a minister who many suspect deliberately tried to dupe the taxman and is only remorseful at getting caught.
Her resignation letter contained barely a whiff of contrition. Ms Rayner regretted her ‘error’, but as anyone who has come into conflict with the HMRC knows, ignorance is no defence – even for an MP.
In the court of public opinion, vanishingly few will feel much sympathy for a politician we now know is a rank hypocrite.
She has been relentless in loudly demanding the resignations of Labour’s political adversaries for tax avoidance. Having lived by the sword, she is now dying by it.
Angela Rayner has been relentless in loudly demanding the resignations of Labour’s political adversaries for tax avoidance. Having lived by the sword, she is now dying by it
For a man who vowed to clean up politics, it is hard to comprehend why the PM didn’t insist on Ms Rayner stepping down when she admitted tax dodging on Wednesday
She was also second-in-command of a government that is hammering Middle Britain with ever more punitive taxes, while merrily exploiting loopholes to benefit herself. This is toxic for Labour.
The whole shabby affair has once again highlighted both Sir Keir’s appalling judgment and his cowardice. For a man who vowed to clean up politics, it is hard to comprehend why the PM didn’t insist on Ms Rayner stepping down when she admitted tax dodging on Wednesday. He must have known her position was untenable.
The suspicion is he lacked the bottle to sack his lieutenant in case she became a rallying point for his increasingly disgruntled Left-wing backbenchers. Now she’s among them again, they will become more restive.
His inaction gives the sense Labour believes it should not be bound by the rules set for everyone else, fuelling the idea Sir Keir has a two-tier approach to governance.
He also does not seem to understand the public anger at repeated political scandals.
This can only provide more ammunition to Reform, which has a growing poll lead. Indeed, in his conference speech, Nigel Farage denounced Labour as ‘unfit to govern’.
He’s right. But is his insurgent party capable of going it alone? To have the best chance of ousting this atrocious Starmer Government, all the most gifted on the Right must coalesce around that aim. Will they, for Britain’s sake, see sense and do so?
