Rayner had devil of a job to stay

WELL that was all pretty unedifying, not to say messy. Thank God for a free press. It took weeks of steadily mounting front-page disclosures over Angela Rayner’s property dealings before her fingernails were finally prised from three desks - deputy Labour leader, Deputy Prime Minister, and Housing Secretary.

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In the end it took a snappily-delivered report into the whole business by Sir Laurie Magnus, Sir Keir Starmer's independent adviser on ministers’ interests, to do the prising. Rayner had breached the ministerial code, he ruled yesterday. She hadn’t asked enough questions of the right experts about how much stamp duty was owing on her newly-purchased £800,000 flat in Hove. Hence the £40,000 shortfall. Hence, as of yesterday, the job shortfall.

Of course it’s one third of that job that’s the specific problem: Housing Secretary. Of all the balls Rayner could have dropped, failing to pay her due whack of stamp duty is politically the equivalent of allowing a cannonball to land on her foot.