Angela Rayner Resigns Over Attempted Tax Fraud in Stampgate Scandal

Angela Rayner has finally fallen on her sword, resigning as both Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary after being caught underpaying tax on a swanky £800,000 flat in Hove, East Sussex. The scandal, which she first tried to brush off with the usual politician’s playbook of excuses, has snowballed into yet another sorry episode of “one rule for them, another for the rest of us.”

After public outrage and pressure as well as significant media pressure, Angela Rayner has been forced to admit she tried to pull the wool over our eyes by fraudulently claiming her Hove property is her principal home in order to save £40 thousand in Stamp Duty Land Tax on her prestigious third property purchase despite living and working in Manchester.

Earlier this week Rayner referred herself to the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser, hoping that such a gesture of “transparency” might buy her some time. Instead, it only confirmed what the public already suspected, that she had indeed underpaid stamp duty on the property. We are told it was an innocent mistake, that she was “badly advised,” and that she “deeply” regrets the “error.” If you or I tried to play that card with HMRC, they would be dragging us through the courts before we could say “tax avoidance.”

Despite the mounting outrage, Sir Keir Starmer initially dug in his heels and resisted Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s calls to sack his deputy. He did the usual politician shuffle by pledging to “act” once the ethics report was published, all the while smiling proudly on the front bench as though his government had not just been rocked by yet another example of dishonesty in high office. The message was clear, loyalty to colleagues comes first, accountability to the public comes a very distant second.

Shockingly, Kier Starmer failed to hold his own ministers to the same standard in which he holds Conservative ministers. One fondly remembers the rightful calls for Boris Johnson to resign should he be found to have broken ministerial code over Party gate. It makes the public genuinely concerned as to what wrongdoing Kier Starmer is complicit in as he fails, despite being former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, to villainise his deputy prime minister for attempted to defraud the tax payer.

Rayner, like Rachel Reeves, has been caught in an impossible lie. She quietly skulks off questioning how she is going to afford the nice big house she hoped us tax payer would fund through her salary alongside her fraudulent attempt to evade tax.

And so, the people of Britain sit as we watch the circus roll on, one scandal after another, while the same tired excuses are trotted out. Rayner’s resignation does not feel like justice, it feels like damage control, forced only because the public refused to swallow the lies any longer.

The public are fed up of the duplicitous party who claims to be the party for the people, whose values, beliefs and policies focus on creating a fairer society, strengthening public services like the NHS, promoting economic growth and job creation, building a clean energy future, and reducing inequality and crime. The party emphasises social democracy, workers’ rights, and community well-being unless their own ministers are concerned of course, above all else, the most important policy for Labour is to quietly line their own pockets at our expense.

Angela Rayner should have been immediately suspended when the scandal broke. That is the only way in which the integrity of the party could be maintained, but by failing to act, Kier Starmer has demonstrated his loyalties do not lie with the British public, instead they lie firmly with the crooks in his cabinet.

Rayner may have taken the hit this week, but let’s not pretend this is uncommon in our government; her boss, Prime Minister Kier Starmer, does not comes out of this smelling of roses. Unfortunately for Sir Keir Starmer, the British public doesn’t have as short a memory as he hopes because the self-styled Mr Clean of British politics, has spent the past year wading through scandals of his own making.

Back in September 2024, reports surfaced that he had failed to declare several thousands of pounds worth of designer clothes gifted to his wife, Victoria Starmer, by Labour donor Waheed Alli, Baron Alli. Starmer brushed it off with the classic “clerical error” defence – perhaps he took advise from the same imaginary lawyers and advisors as Angela Rayner in flagrant disregard for the country’s leading experts working within government office specifically so politicians can toe the line correctly, but the fact remains that Reuters revealed he had accepted more freebies than any other MP since 2019. So much for transparency!

And the gift-grabbing did not stop there. By October, Starmer’s government found itself entangled in an even uglier mess, this time involving none other than Taylor Swift. It was reported that the Metropolitan Police’s Special Escort Group had been deployed to provide the pop superstar with top-tier security during her London Eras Tour shows in August, fresh off the back of the Vienna terrorism plot. On its own, that might not have raised eyebrows, but it soon emerged that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had allegedly pressured the police into granting the service, conveniently after she, Starmer and several senior cabinet members pocketed more than £20,000 worth of free tickets from Swift’s team; the police protection was there for the cabinet members and their pals, not the general public who our government wil claim it was for; if Yvette Cooper and friends didn’t want free tickets, Taylor Swift would’ve had to fork out for her own security. It’s amazing what a little bit of bribery can achieve!

Of course, Starmer and his allies denied any link, claiming this was simply a “policing decision” and that the tickets were innocent hospitality. The problem is, the British public are not daft. It looks, smells and sounds like a grubby trade-off: mega-star gets elite protection, politicians get front-row seats to Shake It Off. Critics from all sides, including Starmer’s own benches, accused him of rank hypocrisy. Here is a government telling the country to tighten belts, slashing welfare and warning of “difficult choices,” while treating themselves to luxury gifts and concert tickets. Labour MP Rosie Duffield even resigned in disgust, saying enough was enough.

Starmer, ever the lawyer, tried to argue that “all MPs accept gifts” and that he only attended the shows “for security reasons.” as the British public, we must ask how a single person with no lawful authority to act in a security capacity would contribute in any way to the safety of attendees. Nobody believes that Starmer was sitting in the VIP box at Wembley taking notes for the Home Office, in fact the only way this is true is if it is because the police protection wouldn’t have been present had it not been to protect the prime minister from hordes of fans who detest the scoundrel. Once again, it is one rule for them, another for us. Ordinary people are scraping to afford heating bills while the Prime Minister and his friends are lapping up designer clothes and Taylor Swift tickets, third homes.

Readers might think “how can it get any worse?” well, I’m not here to disappoint. Let’s look at what other scandals have marred the party of the people recently including the rent hikes forced on the tenants of properties owned by the Homelessness Minister, Rushanara Ali, who deliberately contributed to making rents even more unaffordable in the private rented sector.

If Angela Rayner’s tax scandal was bad, then the saga of Rushanara Ali is downright insulting. This was the Homelessness Minister, the woman supposedly championing the rights of renters and tackling Britain’s housing crisis, who was exposed for behaving like the worst kind of landlord. In 2024 it emerged she had evicted tenants from her property in order to sell it, then when the sale fell through, she hiked the rent by a staggering £700 a month.

Ordinary landlords get demonised for far less, yet here was a senior Labour figure gouging tenants while sitting in Cabinet. Her treatment of tenants is sheer hypocrisy of the values she was meant to uphold. Of course, this scandal was largely brushed under the carpet whilst she touted how broken the private elrented sector is and that something must be done to curb unrestricted rents.

The hypocrisy is enough to make anyone choke. Imagine being a tenant struggling with the cost of living, juggling bills, food shops and sky-high energy costs, only to find your rent has suddenly ballooned because your landlord fancies lining their pockets a little more. Now imagine finding out that same landlord is the minister tasked with fixing Britain’s broken rental market. Ali was supposed to be drafting policies to protect people from predatory landlords while behaving like one herself.

When the story broke, Labour tried to downplay it, insisting that Ali had followed the rules and had every right to charge what she wanted. Whilst technically true, is that not exactly the point? Politicians are not elected to hide behind technicalities, they are elected to set an example and raise standards. Instead, Ali epitomised the grim reality of modern politics: say one thing in front of the cameras, do the complete opposite when nobody is watching, just like the prime minister, just like the deputy prime minister, just like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, who lied on her CV in order to con her way into a top government position yet remains in post showing the public that trust, truth and integrity are not a priority of this government.

The scandal forced the homeless minister’s resignation, but the damage was already done. It shredded whatever credibility Labour had on housing, a topic they had spent years hammering the Conservatives over. Every speech about rogue landlords, every promise to give tenants “a fair deal” now rings hollow. Why should renters believe a word of it when one of the government’s own ministers was happy to squeeze her tenants for every penny?

And here is the bitter truth. Ali’s fall was not an isolated blunder, it was part of a pattern. The Labour Party that promised integrity, transparency and compassion is riddled with the same entitlement and double standards as the Tories they replaced. Ministers lecture the public on decency while cashing in behind the scenes. The rent-hike scandal laid it bare: they are not here to help tenants, they are here to help themselves.

As if dodgy tax bills and rent hikes weren’t enough, Labour then managed to drag itself into the gutter with the WhatsApp scandal. Screenshots leaked from a group chat involving councillors and MPs that showed messages so vile you’d think they came from an anonymous troll or a far-right, racist knucklehead, but you’ll probably be surprised in fact that these messages came directly from elected representatives sitting on the front benches of our Labour government. The posts included antisemitic slurs, misogynistic jokes, and even one message from Andrew Gwynne, a frontbencher, essentially wishing death on a constituent. This is the same Gwynne who parades around as a man of the people, a caring representative. Turns out his “care” doesn’t stretch very far when he thinks nobody’s watching.

The hypocrisy is almost laughable. Here is a party that lectures the nation on decency, inclusivity, and zero tolerance for hate, yet behind closed doors its own people are indulging in the very behaviour they publicly condemn. It is the political equivalent of the dodgy landlord who campaigns against rent hikes while quietly gouging their own tenants which, as we have already seen, is not hypothetical for Labour. The WhatsApp scandal showed us that the rot is not confined to one or two bad apples, but runs deep in the barrel.

The fallout was messy. Gwynne was investigated and promptly dropped from the front bench. Councillors implicated in the group chat were suspended, yet others remained clinging to their posts with the backing of local party bosses. Once again, Labour’s leadership tried to downplay the issue, framing it as the actions of a few individuals rather than a cultural problem. But when more than a dozen councillors are caught in the same toxic digital cesspit, you can’t really call it an accident. That is a culture perpetuated by a political system that enshrines the motto “do as I say, not what I do”.

The worst part is how it shatters public trust. People vote Labour believing the party will stand up for minorities, champion women’s rights, and call out hatred wherever it appears. More fool us. Instead, we discover that behind the curtain, their representatives mock the very people they are supposed to defend. It is not just hypocrisy, it is betrayal, and voters are not so naïve as to brush it off.

Labour promised a “clean slate” after the chaos of the Conservative years, yet the WhatsApp scandal, rent hike scandal, Frockgate and Stampgate proved that politics is still business as usual. MPs and councillors say one thing on the podium and another in the group chat, and the leadership only acts when caught red-handed and even then, the action is wishy washy at best. Just like the rent hike scandal, just like Rayner’s tax mess, it is the same pattern: deny, deflect, delay, then hope the public forgets. Unfortunately for Labour, people are starting to remember.

When you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, it all begins to look painfully familiar. Angela Rayner underpaid her stamp duty and only “owned up” when the press cornered her. Rushanara Ali hiked rents on her own tenants while drawing up housing policy. Andrew Gwynne and his pals spewed bile in WhatsApp groups while preaching decency from the despatch box. Keir Starmer himself has been wading through freebies, designer outfits and Taylor Swift tickets while insisting he’s the grown-up in the room. Each story is different, but the script is always the same. They say one thing for public consumption, and do another when they think the spotlight isn’t on them.

And yet we are told to accept it. We are told it is just politics. We are told that nobody is perfect and that “mistakes were made.” Try telling that to an ordinary worker who misses a tax bill, or a tenant slapped with a rent hike, or someone fired from their job for dishonesty. There are no second chances for the public, only for politicians. They get to fail upwards, to shrug off accountability, to sneer at the rules the rest of us live by. That is not leadership, that is self-preservation.

The truth is simple. Politics in Britain is being played at our expense. They grow wealthier, we grow poorer. They make excuses, we face consequences. They lie to win elections, and we are expected to forget by the time the next one rolls around. That cycle has to end. If it does not, then nothing changes. The parties may swap places, the faces may change, but the corruption, the entitlement and the hypocrisy remain.

So what is the answer? It starts with us. The people must have the power to hold their politicians to account not once every five years, but every day they sit in office. We should be able to remove MPs, ministers and even prime ministers who betray their duties, without waiting for party leaders to decide if the scandal is inconvenient enough to warrant action. Accountability cannot be a favour granted from the top, it must be a right demanded from below.

The Labour Party promised integrity and delivered betrayal. The Conservatives before them promised stability and delivered chaos. Both sides have failed us because they are playing the same game, with the same rules, at our expense. It is time we changed those rules. It is time we made clear that this country belongs to the people, not to career politicians fattening themselves on privilege. If we want better, we have to demand better. And that starts with standing up, speaking out, and refusing to let them forget their lies.

We’ve had enough of politics played at our expense. If they lie, cheat and betray, they should be out the door, not promoted to the front bench and showered with privileges us common people can only dream of. This country doesn’t belong to Labour or the Tories or any single party, it belongs to us and it’s about time we took it back.