Stay out of the police inquiry, Angela’s mate Burnham told
SENIOR Labour politician Andy Burnham was warned last night to ensure he does nothing to jeopardise the police inquiry into his friend Angela Rayner.
Tory MPs told Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham, who is also Police Commissioner, to refrain from public pronouncements about his party’s deputy leader while the force, over whom he has political oversight, carries out its investigation into her affairs.
Chris Clarkson, MP for Heywood and Middleton, said it is important he ‘does not take any public position on this or appear with her until the inquiry is concluded’.
He added: ‘It’s not just about justice being done but also about justice being seen to be done.’
Though Mr Burnham will have no involvement in officers’ investigation into Ms Rayner’s alleged wrong declaration of her permanent address, the closeness of the two Labour stalwarts has been pointed out on social media.
They famously belted out karaoke classics together at the party conference in Brighton in 2021.
They sang a rendition of the Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (with the lyrics ‘I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you’) while she also performed Oasis’s Don’t Look Back In Anger.
At that conference she made a late-night rant at the Tories, saying she was ‘sick of shouting from the sidelines’ at ‘a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile of... banana republic... Etonian... pieces of scum’.
Ex-Cabinet Minister Mr Burnham – formerly a Labour MP in Leigh, in the same Greater Manchester region as Ms Rayner’s Ashton-under-Lyne seat – has twice run for the Labour leadership. Now he has political oversight of Greater Manchester Police, with responsibility for the force’s governance and budgets.
He has said his job is to ‘hold Greater Manchester Police to account,’ adding ‘I’ve got two big levers. One is to fund them and the other is to change the leadership if things are not going right’.
When Ms Rayner stood to be deputy leader, she proudly boasted she had Mr Burnham’s support, saying: ‘Great news that Andy Burnham announced today that he is backing me. The support is very much appreciated.’
They have attended many functions together, last summer playing head tennis with a football while at an Inner City World Cup women’s event in Manchester.
Critics of Ms Rayner’s refusal to publish details of her tax advice point to a major speech on integrity in public office, made in 2023 to the Institute for Government.
It was billed as a keynote address on ‘how to restore trust in politics by strengthening standards in public life’ and followed Labour’s proposal to set up a new, independent Ethics and Integrity Commission to ‘stamp out corruption in government, strengthen the rules and ensure they are enforced’.
Attacking the Tories, Ms Rayner said ‘the theory of “good chaps” has been tested to destruction’.
She spoke of the Conservatives ‘breeding a culture of rule-breaking at the heart of Downing Street during a global pandemic... then lying about it’.
Her comments chimed with those of Sir Keir Starmer, who, as Director of Public Prosecutions, spoke about the need for transparency and accountability.
Talking of those who abuse the welfare system, he said: ‘It is a myth that “getting one over on the system” is a victimless crime: the truth is we all pay the price.
‘It is vital we take a tough stand on this type of fraud and I am determined to see a clampdown.’
Mr Burnham could not be reached for comment. He has previously said: ‘The police service was ‘operationally independent from politicians’.
Last night his spokesman said: ‘Greater Manchester Police’s investigation is an operational policing matter and as it is a live investigation, it would not be appropriate to comment now.’