REVEALED: Angela’s dalliance with... the Liberal Democrats
EMBATTLED Angela Rayner dallied with the Liberal Democrats in her early career – yet later declared that the Labour movement ‘has been a family to me throughout my life’.
Labour Deputy Leader Ms Rayner, 44, who is under police investigation over revelations in The Mail on Sunday about her two-homes living arrangements, had a flirtation with the Lib Dems who were the dominant power on Stockport Council in her local area.
They nominated her for two council-appointed school governorships in 2004 and 2005.
Documents unearthed by this newspaper show the nominations were in her maiden name Angela Bowen and linked to her address at Vicarage Road – the former council house she says was her principal home until 2015, despite neighbours saying she moved out in 2009.
Ms Rayner, who says she welcomes the police probe and denies wrongdoing, rose quickly in Labour after becoming MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. In her 2021 party conference speech, she declared: ‘Our movement has been a family to me throughout my life.’
Last night Ms Rayner denied ever belonging to the Lib Dems.
Police are investigating whether she was living at her husband’s home on Lowndes Lane between 2009 and 2015 and was therefore liable for capital gains tax on the
2015 sale of the Vicarage Road house. They are also examining whether she could have committed an offence by putting an incorrect address on the electoral roll.
Last week her brother Darren Bowen refused to answer questions over the Vicarage Road home as he was pictured for the first time since our story broke.
He had ‘no comment’ to make when asked about claims that he lived in Vicarage Road from 2010 to 2015 and had referred to his sister as his ‘landlady’. Labour sources have suggested that if it is concluded that Vicarage Road was not her principal residence, and so she is liable for tax on its sale, she could offset the bill of up to £3,500 because she made improvements to the property including enlarging her kitchen, installing a new fireplace and replacing windows.
Experts calculated that Ms Rayner would need to have spent about £23,000 if she moved into her husband’s house in 2009, or £15,000 if she moved in 2010, in order to offset the tax.
A Labour source said Ms Rayner was ‘nominated by local Lib Dem councillors for council-appointed school governorships, which are not elected offices, nearly two decades ago when she was not a member of any political party’, adding that ‘there were fewer Labour councillors and they would have had fewer nominations; they may for example not have had a seat on a particular school body.
‘It is common practice for political groups on councils to nominate community figures to governing bodies rather than just themselves or their party activists.’
The source added: ‘One councillor may propose a name for a body and that is adopted by the group as their nomination.
‘Angela is not, and never has been, a Lib Dem.’