Angela Rayner is not some kind of Monopoly Board empress. Don't sack her for a mistake

Plus: Ice cream scandals and a war on local press in Reform Watch, the latest news from The Lead North, and our team's recommended reads in The Lead Digest.

This is a woman attempting to manage a complicated blended family in public life Pic: UK Parliament Flickr

As a journalist who specialises in housing I have the dubious pleasure of being a member of a number of social media groups for private landlords. Like any online community, it is a mixture of the serious and the squalid. I regularly scroll past examples of the worst grifts and abuses in the private rented sector, but there are also serious, responsible small business people who work to bring homes back into use and work with local authorities to provide stable housing to vulnerable families.

It’s rare these two factions find something they agree on, but this week the right-wing press managed to achieve that through a disinformation campaign about deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s personal housing situation.

The story went something like this: ‘Rayner dodges stamp duty on new £800,000 Brighton home as she builds a property empire while the rest of us are taxed through the nose’. The headlines dropped at the same time landlords discovered Chancellor Rachel Reeves was planning to charge national insurance on rental income, setting the group alight. They were furious, claiming the deputy prime minister was on the take and building wealth through property, while removing theirs.

Rayner has now confirmed she may have underpaid stamp duty on her new home after being poorly advised over the status of her former marital home, which is now in trust to support her disabled child. She has referred herself to the ethics committee and made a statement to the public.

Yet the basis of this story is still untrue. There is no property empire. There is only a woman attempting to manage a complicated blended family in public life, and the protection of the financial future of a disabled child. But, of course, Rayner is not middle class; whatever she’s doing with money, we must assume she’s doing it all wrong.

Rayner has legal ownership of one only home: the new property she purchased in Hove, and on which she paid regular stamp duty. Her Westminster property comes with the job; she doesn’t own it, and when she loses her job she loses the home too. Meanwhile, Rayner’s stake in her former home – at which still spends time with her children at – was transferred to a trust in 2020, the year she and her husband separated. The details of the trust were subject to a court order, but she has now shared them as a result of public pressure. Because she still spends time at the home, Rayner has admitted the legal advice given around the stamp duty owed on her new home may have been incorrect and that is being investigated.

In an explainer on the story, even the Guardian couldn’t resist dipping its toe into the quagmire by claiming that “Mr and Mrs Average” do not use a trust to manage property in separation “because they can’t afford it”. But while the average UK couple might not use a trust, it isn’t exactly the preserve of the elite. If one or both partners is earning a six figure income, like Rayner, that’s exactly what they do (as advised by any family lawyer handling a complex separation). Most divorcing families don’t need a trust because they don’t have any assets to put into it to protect from absorption by future step-parents.

At the heart of this story is a working class woman who has had multiple relationships and secured more wealth and power than her difficult early life would have suggested would ever be possible. She tried to manage that privately, despite her very public job. And she has failed – because of the classism and misogyny of our political system, and because the professional advice she took was inadequate to deal with the complicated life of an ordinary woman in power.

Not that the private landlords in those Facebook groups have noticed that. It didn’t make the headlines of the news coverage and, despite their professional interest, they clearly haven't read to detail hidden devilishly at the bottom of those stories. The money speaks but the lives lived beneath it stay silent.

Rayner is hated because she refuses to play her game of politics by the rules set down by others. She goes clubbing on holiday, she vapes in a dinghy in the shallows off Brighton beach. She eschews the grey wool-mix pencil skirt for a fabulous pair of bright green wide-legged trousers and matching sunglasses on the steps of number 10.

With its usual sense of balance, the Daily Mail ran a picture of Rayner in that striking outfit next to the screaming headline ‘WHEN DID BRITAIN BECOME NORTH KOREA?’ We say we want our politicians to be relatable, but when the most ordinary of leaders among us rises to the top it threatens real change.■

About the author: Hannah Fearn is a freelance journalist specialising in social affairs. She was comment editor of The Independent for seven years, and has previously worked for The Guardian, Times Higher Education and Inside Housing. She has a special interest in inequality, poverty, housing, education and life chances.

The Lead is keeping an eye on Reform UK and their fellow travellers. Get in touch on X, Bluesky and Instagram or email ella@thelead.uk with tips and stories. We especially want to hear from readers whose local council is now run by Farage’s followers.

• Last week we focused on the Midlands and we start there again as the Reform v Nottingham Post row shows no signs of stopping and it has now reached Congress. Nigel Farage was ironically speaking in a session about freedom of speech when he was quizzed by a senator about why Nottinghamshire County Council, which is Reform controlled, had issued a ban against local journalists and was refusing to speak to them. What a zinger! There’s a good read too from David Maddox about why the Reform ban is such an important topic and their broader attitude to a free press.

• Not a welcoming party you’d like to see. Five Reform councillors joined a ‘Stop The Boats’ protest in Maidstone in late August reports the Kent Current – and appeared in pictures with a man draped in the flag of British Movement who are one of the UK’s longest standing neo-Nazi organisations.

• We've looked at what happened to the former deputy leader of Reform in Leicester before, and LeicestershireLive reported earlier this week how councillor Joseph Boam is under investigation for attempting to utilise his family-run ice cream vans to influence voters in the May elections. Stick a flake in us, we’re done!

You can support our watchful eye on Reform each week and their movements by becoming a paid supporter of The Lead, which helps fund and support our reporting.

The Lead Digest

Here at The Lead, we like to consume just as much as we create, which is why we spend a little time each week rounding up our favourite stories, books, podcasts and films to offer our readers a sample of the work that informs our world.

First, Ed recommends this shocking read from our senior editor Natalie Morris on the prejudice she experiences as a mixed-race woman with a white-presenting child. That strangers can blurt out, “Is he yours?” shows how more people are feeling emboldened into everyday racism thanks to Farage and Reform's rhetoric, and how it is rippling out into day-to-day life.

Luke encourages everyone to have a read of this, in which a judge criticised the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick over his tweets during a murder trial. Hundreds of posts on social media every day, in theory, risk contempt of court but you'd hope to see better given the profile and background of the person involved.

Ed has also recommended this fascinating read over at The Mill all about Manchester’s chief flag-raiser – a man caught smuggling migrants into the country in the back of a van.

Padraig recommends this week's episode of Radio 4’s In Our Time. Presenter Melvyn Bragg has announced his retirement from the show at the age of 85. Today's episode (from the archive) is about the mediaeval mystic Julian of Norwich, who famously wrote that “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” – reassuring words perhaps for In Our Time fans who may be worried about a change after 26 years of brilliant broadcasting.

Finally, Natalie recommends the latest post from her other newsletter – The Sun’ll Come Out, which documents her journey through grief. This month was the first guest post from our very own Ed Walker, with a poignant and relatable account of the complicated buildup ahead of significant death dates, on the fifth anniversary of the death of his lovely dad Peter Walker.

At The Lead we’re dedicated to telling stories beyond the bright lights of London and Manchester (although sometimes we still will). We have dedicated journalists and titles in Blackpool, Lancashire, Calderdale, Teesside and Southport bringing in-depth news and features twice-a-week to those communities. You can subscribe to support our vital local journalism.

• Halifax MP Kate Dearden has hit out at people exploiting concerns over immigration to ‘whip up’ racial hatred. Ms Dearden’s comments come after a man and woman were bailed following what people have described as a ‘racial assault’ on a Filipino nurse in a Halifax park. A video of the incident, which also shows the man throwing water over the nurse and the woman grabbing at her hair, was posted on Facebook.

• Valerie Kneale was killed by violent sexual assaults and her death is one of the most high profile in Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s history. Nobody has ever been charged in connection with her death. An inquest into her death is running this week, but will not change the fact that her killer has escaped justice.

• The fire which hit Southport Pier will not affect the promise for the government to fund its restoration and reopening. Earlier this year, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the creation of a Growth Mission Fund and specifically named Southport Pier as one project which would be selected for funding.

Thanks for reading today’s Thursday newsletter, it’s great to have you with us. Keep your eyes on your inbox for tomorrow’s edition of Untangles. Contributor Lauren Crosby Medlicott is back after a summer break and writing about the ‘Raise The Colours’ campaign and what really lies at the heart of it. Then, looking ahead to Saturday, Hannah Shewen Stevens takes a deep dive into the epidemic of violence against women and girls, and what it is costing us as a nation. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Lead so you don’t miss a thing.

Ed, Zoë, Natalie, Luke, Ella, Padraig, and The Lead team.