Barely a week goes by without the deputy PM being targeted for some alleged new ‘crime.’
Between Ed Miliband, Rachel Reeves, and Angela Rayner, it’s a tight race for the Labour figure most smeared by the Tories and their press.
I think Angela Rayner might just snatch the title, as barely a week goes by without the deputy PM being targeted for some alleged new ‘crime.’
This week’s gem? The complaint that Rayner allegedly asked civil servants to help her move house.
Tory MP and shadow minister Paul Holmes has reportedly filed a formal complaint, accusing Rayner of instructing her private office staff to ‘transport furniture’ into her new Whitehall residence. The complaint has been forwarded to both the director of propriety and ethics at the Cabinet Office and the permanent secretary at Rayner’s department, as the Express keenly reports in a piece headlined: “Angela Rayner bombshell as Tories claim she ‘asked civil servants to help her move house.’”
The MP for Hamble Valley insists that if civil servants did assist with the move, Rayner should foot the bill for their time, calculated at private-sector rates. He argues that, if true, it would be a “clear breach” of the ministerial code.
“The ministerial code states that ministers are appointed to serve the public and must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise,” said Holmes.
The complaint follows the news in December that Rayner was to be given a flat in Admiralty House. Naturally, the right-wing press gleefully jumped on the story.
The Telegraph was quick to remind readers that it’s the same flat where John Prescott had his affair with his diary secretary, while the Daily Mail trumpeted the flat’s illustrious history as Winston Churchill’s old Westminster residence.
Whether it’s furniture moving or an affair from decades ago, it seems the Tories and their press will stop at nothing to smear Labour. The furniture story still has a bit to run, so we shall see how it pans out. What is really interesting though is that yet again Angela Rayner has been targeted. Would the fact that she is a woman, northern, working class and above all, a successful left-wing politician, have anything to do with it?
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