Angela Rayner’s departure from cabinet marks an abrupt end for a politician who had fought doggedly to reach Labour’s top table. It also represents an old-fashioned scalp for the press, elements of which have been poring over her finances and living arrangements for more than a year.
The frustration among Rayner’s friends is that she had already survived waves of stories aimed at derailing her political career. However, they say her admission that she did not pay the correct stamp duty on the purchase of a Hove flat, which some see as a maddening own goal, gave her opponents a clear opening.
