“Ultimately, she’s done nothing wrong, has she? This is an absolute row about nothing. Do you think she’s guilty of any wrongdoing?”
The Tories’ latest attack on Labour’s Angela Rayner has spectacularly backfired, with one of its senior MPs making a complete fool of himself live on air.
Richard Holden appeared on LBC radio, where he accused the Deputy Prime Minister of ‘hypocrisy’ over buying a second home, with a number of Conservatives criticising her after it emerged she paid more than £700,000 for the property near Brighton.
However, they can’t quite explain what Rayner is supposed to have done wrong and seem oblivious to their own hypocrisy.
LBC presenter Ben Kentish said: “A lot of your colleagues are very critical of Angela Rayner after it emerged that she, working class, had done well for herself and has bought a nice seafront home down in Brighton. What is it that you think she’s done wrong?”
Holden said: “I’ve got no issue with her doing well for herself at all. I think there are questions around hypocrisy at the moment, when she’s changing some of the tax measures around second home ownership and questions as to where she is delineating as her primary residence.”
Kentish then asked him: “Why is it hypocritical to say second home owners should pay more tax, I am now one and I will pay more tax?”
Holden deflected and raised an altogether separate point about ‘some questions over what has been designated her primary residence’, to which he was reminded that “that’s completely separate from this story”.
The LBC presenter replied: “Ultimately, she’s done nothing wrong, has she? This is an absolute row about nothing. Do you think she’s guilty of any wrongdoing?”
Holden went on to once more talk about having multiple properties and what counted as a primary residence, before he was asked: “Did you ask the same questions about Jeremy Hunt and his reported nine properties?”
Looks as though Holden’s interview didn’t quite go as he’d planned!
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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