The police investigation into Rayner MUST not be in Manchester
When Angela Rayner last week said she’d do the ‘right thing’ and resign if a police investigation into her former living arrangements found that she had broken the law, i was instantly suspicious.
if Labour’s deputy leader is so confident about the outcome of the probe by Greater Manchester Police (GMP), then why not tell us what we need to know now. Where was she living between 2010 and 2015, and why won’t she publish the tax advice she says she was given when she sold her house?
Put an end to all the speculation. the negative publicity is a distraction for her party and surely can’t be pleasant for her family and friends?
the deeper you dig into this story — first revealed by the Mail on Sunday — the murkier, potentially, it becomes. indeed, i think there is every reason for GMP to hand the Rayner investigation over to another force.
Let’s remind ourselves of the facts: GMP announced last Friday that it was re-examining a complaint — initially dismissed by them — made by the dogged Conservative MP James Daly.
he claims Rayner may have broken electoral law over information she gave about where she lived before she became an MP.
She says that for the first five years of her marriage, from 2010, she remained living at the former council house she had bought in 2007 in Vicarage Road, Stockport (where she was registered to vote). her husband and children lived at his house in nearby Lowndes Lane.
But a string of neighbours and now her ex-chief adviser dispute this. they are adamant her principal residence was Lowndes
Lane, and her own social media posts from that period appear to confirm this. this also raises the issue of whether Rayner was liable for capital gains tax when she sold her property in 2015 for a profit of £48,500.
the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has let it be known that neither he nor his deputy, Kate Green, will be involved in the investigation into Rayner. the Mayor’s role incorporates that of Police and Crime Commissioner, a responsibility Burnham has delegated to Green.
GiVen his and Green’s political and personal allegiances that’s not surprising. Burnham, a former Cabinet minister, is a friend of Rayner’s who backed her for the deputy leadership. they bash out a great karaoke number together — most famously at the 2021 Labour Party Conference.
Kate Green, former Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, a neighbouring seat to Rayner’s, is another good friend.
Burnham’s spokesman has said the probe is ‘purely an operational matter for GMP’. Of course it is, because that is what is written in the statute books.
But to pretend this avoids any perceived conflict of interests is disingenuous to say the least. One of the powers a regional Mayor like Burnham has (or whoever he delegates the Police Commissioner role to — in this case Green) is the ability to hire and fire a chief constable and rule on police budgets.
how can that fact not be an influence on GMP? Burnham and Green don’t have to do or say anything for their influence to be felt. it puts Chief Constable Stephen Watson, one of the most experienced officers in the country, in an impossible position.
Questions are already being asked about why Daly’s initial complaint about Rayner was dismissed. Why did it take investigations by this newspaper before GMP reconsidered its position?
Any inquiry into Rayner’s affairs in which her friends are a presence is unacceptable — which is why GMP should hand this over to another force immediately.