Saturday, 6 September 2025

Angela Rayner quits

 Angela Rayner quits

So here we are literally weeks away from the party political conference season and those very public figures we place our implicit trust in behave like naughty miscreant kids who keep pinching apples from their neighbours garden. They hope they won't get caught and then protest their innocence because they didn't do it because it wasn't their fault. 

And yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom accidentally put her foot in it and had to meekly apologise for her misdemeanours. She didn't mean to do what she did but she can explain everything. She can and she will but not before she was pushed over the edge and forced to quit. Some politicians are so naive and gullible that you just wonder how they reach such honourable, dizzy heights in their profession. 

But that's what happened to Angela Rayner yesterday. There was she was just casually doing the right and proper thing before she went toppling into the muddiest ditch and fell on her sword. You can  choose any cliche of your own choice but the unmistakable truth is that Rayner just happened to take the wrong kind of advice and suffered the consequences of her own actions. She was drawn into this trap, this embarrassing imbroglio, this spot of bother that got her into terrible trouble and there was no way back. 

We all know about Rayner now. She's hard working, conscientious, dedicated to her job but she does like to party, drinking and vaping in moderate doses of course but she does take her job seriously. She does, you know. Last year she was spotted on holiday raving the night away and spinning records with a local DJ, throwing shapes so the popular vernacular goes. And yet of course she's entitled to have a good time. We would never begrudge her this golden moment in the sun. So she boogied the night away and everybody was happy. 

She's a single parent caring admirably for her disabled son Charlie. Then she decided to buy a holiday home in a bracing seaside South Coast home in Hove. Nothing wrong there you would have thought but then all of the incriminating evidence came out in the wash. She hadn't paid enough tax on this idyllic seaside retreat and that's where she came unstuck. That was the cardinal sin. When the tax people come knocking on your door, you try to defend the indefensible. Angela Rayner had failed to pay the stamp duty on the tax for the flat. The wrath of the great British public fell around her ears like the most horrible noise. 

Rayner's shamefaced admission cost her the most highly prestigious job in Britain. Whether she liked it or not, tax dodgers or those who deliberately avoid paying the requisite amount, inevitably get their just desserts. Of course she was badly advised and that much became patently obvious. But surely she should have known better, this well respected government minister at the very zenith of her political career. 

But dear Angela Rayner has brought disrepute and shame on her country and office. Now that our fine, upstanding politicians are back from their summer holidays you'd have thought they'd just want to walk back into their classrooms and listen attentively to their teachers. Rayner, of course had no alternative but to hand in her P45, departing Downing Street with a brave if, quite possibly, heartbroken face. 

At the moment one Nigel Farage, that Guinness drinking anarchist who leads that brand new political party Reform UK, is on the campaigning trail. But maybe you do him a disservice by referring to him by that description. Farage is clearly a dissenting voice, a rabid and patriotic believer in everything British and English, patriotic to the core and standing up for the United Kingdom with a broad back and showering the country with fulsome praise. 

Then we gather that Farage is wallowing in the Labour party's latest setback and horrendous blunder. In face he's getting a sadistic thrill out of this whole dreadful fiasco. So he tells his country to prepare for a General Election in two years time when, in fact, it's maybe four years away. Farage is probably airing his grievances now because he believes, rightly or wrongly, that his England is about to stolen away from us and the rest of the world thinks we're the laughing stock. 

Now the truth is that both Farage and Rayner are typical examples of Westminster's often farcical conduct within the corridors of the House of Commons. Of course politicians work their fingers to the bone and they never shirk their onerous responsibilities. They're always available at their surgeries at every opportunity and they'll hear you out. Undoubtedly so. But some  look for loopholes in the payment of their taxes. 

When was the last time though, that they were there to sort out the rubbish bins that haven't been emptied for ages, the recycling products that should have been dumped ages ago? When are they going to address noise pollution in your neighbourhood, the builders who have been making that unbearable racket at two o'clock in the morning? So come on government minister where were you when we wanted you?

Party political conferences are both serious, business like spectacles while also being funny, frivolous comedy halls where a thousand voices can be heard simultaneously at times and you couldn't make this one up. Both Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister and Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Shadow leader of her party, face unenviable tasks. Shortly, they'll be fulfilling that yearly obligation on behalf of their parties.  They'll stand up proudly at their lecturn before delivering their impassioned rants, their fury, their righteous indignation and telling us how they both detest each other.  Not personally of course but they're not exactly amiable buddies. 

The Prime Minister maintains vehemently that there's nothing wrong with the UK, that patience is a virtue and of course the Labour party are on the right road to redemption and complete prosperity. We'll leave behind talk of cost of living crises, chronic unemployment, a permanently struggling and underpaid NHS and an education system for our children that leaves a rank, bad smell wherever you are. So if we hang on for a while and just take a deep breath because all will be perfect and well. 

But the political battlefield that is the party conference season is the one chance of the year where our dear, reliable politicians can always let it go for a week, shouting, bawling, lecturing, reasoning and then persuading their camp followers in the audience that the country is going to hell in a handcart. They'll point their fingers in a whole variety of directions, bang their hands forcefully on the desk in front of them and reel off a bewildering sequence of figures, percentages and statistics. 

Yesterday my lovely wife Bev and yours truly were listening to our car radio and expressed disgust at the latest announcement from Westminster. David Lammy had become the new if temporary Deputy Prime Minister at which point my wife could hardly contain her anger. David Lammy is so useless and incompetent that how he achieved such an elevated position seemed completely beyond us. You agreed and then questioned the whole political system. Why on earth do we elect these sham and fraudulent characters into the highest echelons of power? Or maybe they're just decent and honest, law abiding individuals and perhaps Lammy is terribly misunderstood. 

Shortly, both Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem parties will be gathering in their huge droves, settling themselves down in their comfortable seats and exchanging age old cliches and platitudes. We've heard them all a million times but the jokes are as old as Methuselah and probably even worse than the last time we heard them told. 

Behind the scenes, there will be those softly spoken focus groups, private rooms where lively discussions about wars and the economy will take their place. Occasionally, there will be whispers of agreement before somebody says something debatable and contentious. Suddenly, there's uproar and it's on the TV evening news or the papers the following day. In some very quiet corner of the world, Angela Rayner will be wishing that she could just be left to her own devices. Oh to be a politician.   

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