For the past week, following her much-publicised appearance on the beach in Hove – wrapped in a £175 pink camo Dryrobe, sipping a glass of chilled wine on the pebbles and vaping in a kayak – Angela Rayner has kept an unusually low profile.
Had she retreated to her constituency home in Greater Manchester or taken refuge perhaps at her grace-and-favour flat in Whitehall to escape the fallout from her purchase of an £800,000 seaside apartment on the Sussex coast?
The new flat led to allegations that she ‘dodged’ thousands of pounds in stamp duty in the process – resulting in her being labelled ‘Three Pads Rayner’.
In fact, she was holed up in her newest posh residence which occupies 1,300 sq ft (bigger than the average British home) of the first floor of a grand Victorian mansion block on Hove Esplanade, where a workman was spotted measuring up for what could be new blinds or French doors.
The flat was bought earlier in the year, around May, it is believed, with a recently reported six-figure mortgage.
Unsurprisingly, she has spent time here over the summer.
Ms Rayner, 45, is more than entitled to take a break from her stress-filled role as a Cabinet minister, but MPs who inevitably have less time for constituency work during ‘term-time’ normally take the opportunity to catch up with their bread-and-butter duties during the parliamentary recess.
However, constituents in the vicinity of her home 260 miles away in Ashton-under-Lyne – which she shares with her ex-husband, union official Mark Rayner, and which is the home of her two teenage sons – have seen little of her, in contrast to residents in Hove who have seen a lot of her. Draw your own conclusions.
For the past week, following her much-publicised appearance on the beach in Hove – wrapped in a £175 pink camo Dryrobe, sipping a glass of chilled wine on the pebbles (pictured) and vaping in a kayak – Angela Rayner has kept an unusually low profile
Had she retreated to her constituency home in Greater Manchester or taken refuge perhaps at her grace-and-favour flat in Whitehall to escape the fallout from her purchase of an £800,000 seaside apartment on the Sussex coast (pictured, the interior)?
The new flat led to allegations that she ‘dodged’ thousands of pounds in stamp duty in the process – resulting in her being labelled ‘Three Pads Rayner’. Pictured: File photo of residential buildings in Hove
Ms Rayner has been on the beach, in the sea, at an outdoor sauna on the seafront, eating at a well-known Italian restaurant, enjoying pub lunches, visiting the local chippie, shopping in The Lanes (the historic shopping quarter) and attending Pride events.
Fittingly, she has a collection of glitter shoes from one of her favourite shops in neighbouring Brighton called Irregular Choice which specialises in garish footwear with names like Dazzle Razzle, Starbright Streamer and Blooming Bouquet which look exactly like their names suggest. Ms Rayner is a long-standing customer.
Often she has been in the company of her boyfriend Sam Tarry, the former MP for Ilford South who was part of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership team.
Under different circumstances, no one would give a damn about her new apartment.
Her story – reaching the Cabinet after being raised on a Stockport council estate, leaving school with no qualifications, being pregnant at 16 and a grandmother at 37 – is admirable in many ways.
But for someone who wears her socialist heart on her sleeve, as well as on her right leg (just above her ankle to be precise, where she has a tattoo of Labour’s red rose), isn’t it a bit rich to acquire a holiday home costing the thick end of £1million, her third property if you include her grace-and-favour accommodation in Admiralty House?
After all, her political reputation is built on being ‘normal’ – she likes to be called ‘Ange’ – and, to quote one supporter, ‘she speaks the language of ordinary voters and understands them the way the metropolitan elite around Starmer don’t’.
She is also Secretary of State for Housing. In that role, she is an enthusiastic advocate of allowing town halls to double council tax on second properties in affluent areas such as Hove – a policy inherited, admittedly, from the Tories, which came into force this year.
Constituents in the vicinity of her home 200 miles away in Ashton-under-Lyne (pictured) – which she shares with her ex-husband, union official Mark Rayner and where her two teenage boys live – have seen little of her, in contrast to residents in Hove who have seen a lot of her
It has added to the charge of hypocrisy because further measures making life miserable for homeowners could well be unveiled in the autumn Budget.
What has gone unreported in the current imbroglio is that Brighton and Hove has a homelessness crisis.
On a single night in March, 138 rough sleepers were recorded on the streets – among the highest in the country – when the national average for the month was 27.
Even some Left-wing commentators admit this makes Ms Rayner’s personal situation look more than a little incongruous and out of touch.
Her apartment was bought through Mishons Estate Agents and presented, according to the marketing blurb, ‘a rare opportunity to own a piece of coastal paradise in one of Hove’s most desirable locations which combines timeless elegance with modern living’.
The photographs and accompanying floor plan provide an intriguing peep behind the curtains.
The apartment has three double bedrooms, two bathrooms (one en suite), a high-ceilinged living room with period features, including an original fireplace, additional reception room, expansive terrace (‘perfect for al fresco dining’) and ‘breathtaking views of the sea’.
Her £159,584 salary as Deputy PM would have enabled her to get a substantial mortgage; even so, it is a huge outlay considering the £650,00 former marital home, bought for £370,000 back in 2016, has never been sold.
For someone who wears her socialist heart on her sleeve, isn’t it a bit rich to acquire a holiday home costing the thick end of £1million, her third property if you include her grace-and-favour accommodation in Admiralty House (pictured)?
It was, until recently at least, in the name of both her and her former husband, who remain ‘best friends’ after separating in 2020.
But it’s understood that following her split, ownership arrangements on the Ashton-under-Lyne property changed and she no longer has a stake in it.
They owned the house with a trust corporation. There are various reasons why people use trust corporations in these circumstances, including to achieve tax benefits and manage wealth for beneficiaries who are minors.
According to her last expenses declaration, the constituency house is listed as Ms Rayner’s primary address. Her allies insist that it still is.
The crux of the latest allegations, however, is that shortly before buying the Hove flat she told tax authorities it was to be her main residence, not her second home, which, if true, has saved her £40,000 in stamp duty.
The arrangement, although perfectly legal, is extremely complicated and, no doubt, more light will be shed on the matter in the coming days.
But a spokesman for Ms Rayner insisted: ‘The Deputy Prime Minister paid the correct duty owed on the purchase, entirely properly and in line with all relevant requirements.
‘Any suggestion otherwise is entirely without basis.’
She is also Secretary of State for Housing (pictured leaving a weekly Cabinet meeting in March). In that role, she is an enthusiastic advocate of allowing town halls to double council tax on second properties in affluent areas such as Hove
She must be used to such scrutiny, having faced questions over the properties she owns numerous times.
The latest episode follows a row in 2024 that centred on her living arrangements more than a decade ago when she also faced claims of dodging capital gains tax and council tax in relation to the sale of her former council house under the Right to Buy scheme in Stockport.
She was investigated by both the police and HM Revenue and Customs but neither took action against her, finding she owed nothing to the state.
The intriguing sub-plot to all this is her on-off relationship – currently very much ‘on’ – with Sam Tarry, 43, who has family links to Brighton and Hove.
His former wife, a consultant paediatrician and mother of his two children, lives in the city.
She and Ms Rayner knew each other. They met for the first time on the General Election campaign in 2019 when Tarry was elected to the Ilford South seat.
Both their marriages (Tarry’s and Rayner’s) ended in 2020.
One morning two years later, Sam Tarry, who was sacked as a shadow transport minister for giving an unauthorised TV interview from a picket line during a rail strike, was pictured leaving Ms Rayner’s rented pied-a-terre in London with untied shoelaces and what appeared to be a toothbrush in his top pocket.
It has added to the charge of hypocrisy because further measures making life miserable for homeowners could well be unveiled in the autumn Budget. Pictured: Ms Rayner arrives for a weekly Cabinet meeting in July last year
Tarry, now a public affairs consultant who advises the Night Time Industry Association, is believed to live near his former wife in Brighton and ‘co-parents’ his two sons.
Hence the reason, presumably, that Ms Rayner has now arrived, in town – a more credible explanation, you would think, than the one offered from her side that she needed to buy somewhere close to London for work; Hove is more than 50 miles from the capital where she already has the use of Admiralty House, once the home of Winston Churchill.
Either way, it means that both Ms Rayner and her boyfriend’s ex-wife will be living in the same city much of the time. It could make a TV script.
Ms Rayner is said to have held a house-warming party with her partner who has been seen, apparently, moving items into the apartment.
Someone who has been living in the block for 20 years and knew the previous owner said: ‘She sold the flat to Angela earlier this year.
‘I have been in there many times. It is a very nice place.
‘Angela living here hasn’t caused us any problems. She’s like any other resident. She’s very nice, always says hello and is very down to earth.
‘You’d never think she is a high-profile politician.’
Ms Rayner (pictured at a reception for the England women’s football team last month) is said to have held a house-warming party with her partner who has been seen, apparently, moving items into the apartment
Her flat, neighbours said, is made up of two apartments converted into one.
‘It was a very costly project that was carried out to a very high standard,’ added another resident.
‘It is one of the best in the whole area and is perfectly located close to the beach and shops.’
One such place is Marrocco’s, the locally famous Italian restaurant and ice cream parlour on the seafront behind the mansion block which has been open since 1969.
Ms Rayner and her entourage, including family members and officers from the Met’s Royalty and Specialist Protection Command which provide security for senior politicians, had an evening meal there last week.
‘They sat round the corner on one of the big tables,’ said a diner.
Two, and sometimes even three, close protection officers have been accompanying Ms Rayner, who has been spotted eating in The Sussex pub round the corner from her apartment as well as in nearby Chippy Chips (cod and chips from £12.90 and jumbo battered sausage, £3) and even the local Co-op.
Also on her itinerary was the Beach Box, a spa and sauna in Brighton which has wood-fired stoves and a plunge pool yards from the nudist beach.
No one we spoke to in Hove had a bad word to the say about the Deputy Prime Minister (pictured in April). But it was a different story back in her constituency in Ashton-under-Lyne
With her that day was Left-wing former Brighton Kemptown MP and Corbynista Lloyd Russell-Moyle.
No stranger to controversy, he was the MP who heckled and jeered at Labour MP Rosie Duffield, and Conservative Miriam Cates during a heated Commons debate on transgender law reform.
‘I was surprised to see two redheads together,’ said someone who saw them.
‘The pair were engrossed in their own conversation.’
No one we spoke to in Hove had a bad word to the say about the Deputy Prime Minister. But it was a different story back in her constituency in Ashton-under-Lyne.
‘How can she represent her constituents if she is never here, is the only way I can put it,’ said one local who summed up the feelings of many.
So rarefied was the atmosphere on the moral high ground Labour occupied while in Opposition, you could have been forgiven for thinking that their tribe wore oxygen masks.
Not any more. Free holidays. Free suits. Free glasses. Free concert tickets. Now ‘three homes’.
Additional reporting by Tim Stewart and Barry Keevins
