It’s an ignominious end to Angela Rayner’s career as Keir Starmer’s Deputy Prime Minister — and his Housing Secretary. The politician resigned from her posts on Friday 5 September over her failure to pay the correct amount of stamp duty on a flat by the sea. She spent her summer holiday there in Hove, but as autumn arrived it became a political albatross around her neck. Her political career is in tatters over a £40,000 “inadvertently” dodged tax payment.
“I accept that I did not meet the highest standards in relation to my recent property purchase,” she wrote in her resignation letter to the Prime Minister. “I deeply regret my decision to not seek additional specialist tax advice given my position as both Housing Secretary and my complex family arrangements.” Starmer responded with a handwritten note — an interestingly intimate gesture given the pair’s sometimes fraught political relationship.
