17 April 2024 , 17:55
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“The hounding of Angela Rayner is outrageous: brutal, snobbish and completely out of proportion...”
“Her attackers cannot bear the idea they are about to lose to a woman who pulled herself up by her bootstraps.”
Not my words. The words of two former Conservative MPs. The politician-turned-commentator Matthew Parris, and former Tory minister Nick Boles. At least a DOZEN police officers are now looking into the sale of the Deputy Labour Leader’s council house. Most people in Stockport would be grateful to see even one after an actual burglary.
The rancid smell of right-wing hypocrisy wafts through the air like an out-of-date tin of caviar. Inquiries into Tory minister Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs saw him having to pay back £5m to HMRC. Lord Ashcroft whose book ‘Red Queen’ led with the allegations, has been accused of owing the Treasury millions as a ‘non dom’ (a status coincidentally Labour intends to abolish).
And let’s not even mention the Prime Minister’s ‘non dom’ wife, or, God forbid, Michelle Mone. In a case of Have Yachts and Have Nots, Rayner was not a multi-millionaire with an expensive tax lawyer. She was a home help rightly proud of buying her own home – spending months in hospital with her premature baby son.
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Even her stalker-like accusers must admit the sum they’re arguing about – around three grand – would barely heat Zahawi’s stables. It’s easy to see why the Red Queen winds the Tories up so much. Misogyny, classism, and boys pushing girls they fancy over in the playground.
Remember when a sneering Dominic Raab tried to embarrass Rayner for getting above her station and going to Glyndebourne? Or when she was falsely accused of uncrossing her legs in Parliament to distract poor Tory MPs? An accusation, incidentally, with more wishful thinking than the smell of Lynx Africa.
What Rayner’s Tory tormentors seem to have missed is that a woman tough enough to drag herself from home help to Deputy Prime Minister is more than a match for them. Sadly, the collateral damage to her family, is an entirely more painful – and shameful – thing.