Angela’s taxes

Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, is targeting tax dodgers in pursuit of revenues to pay for her party’s spending plans should it form the next government. “At a time when working people in Britain are being asked to pay more in tax because of the Conservatives’ economic failures, it is wrong that a minority continue to avoid paying what they owe,” she said.

It is hard to believe she did so with a straight face when her colleague Angela Rayner is accused of failing to pay capital gains tax (CGT) due on a property she sold. Ms Rayner is adamant she has done nothing wrong and has advice from an independent consultant to prove it. But we have not seen this advice, which would in any case be reliant on what Ms Rayner had said about her property arrangements.

In a nutshell, she owned a former council house, which she sold making a £48,500 profit. She says she was not liable to pay CGT because it was her main address and registered as such on the electoral roll. It is alleged, however, that her principal residence was one shared with her now estranged husband and their children, and a charge was therefore due.

Labour leaders would zealously pursue such a story were it a Tory MP but are strangely reticent here. Ms Reeves had “full faith and trust” in Ms Rayner, who was a “good friend”. Sir Keir Starmer called the pursuit of his deputy a “smear” and said no one is interested in her living arrangements from 10 years ago. But this is obfuscation. There is a principle here that Labour applies to others but not to itself. This is about honesty and transparency. We need to know the truth.