Angela ‘three pads’ Rayner.
That’s the moniker being used to describe the Deputy Prime Minister after news broke this week that she reportedly bought a second home for £800,000 in Hove while also having use of a third property.
In the aftermath, Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said: ‘It is staggering hypocrisy for the Deputy Prime Minister to push punitive new taxes on family homes while apparently avoiding those same taxes herself. One rule for Rayner, another for everyone else.’
And he’s not the only one to take aim. Countless people on social media or TV pundits scrutinised, questioned, and raised suspicions about Rayner’s motives.
But where was this same energy for Boris Johnson’s extension approval on his £3.8m moated Oxford mansion? Or Nigel Farage’s £3m four-home luxury property empire?
I believe it’s due to sexism and classism.
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Rayner is a left-wing woman who built a hugely successful career on her own merit – without the leg-up of private school and after dropping out at 16 to have her first child.
The odds were truly stacked against her.
Now she’s the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government – with plenty of critics.
Granted, the Housing Minister splashing cash on the luxury of an additional home – when it’s become impossible for so many of us to even dream of making that first step on the property ladder – isn’t exactly great optics. But it’s also not a scandal, in my view.
Rayner bought a house in 2016 for £375,000 (now valued at £650,000) in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency near Manchester. She also has temporary use of a ministerial flat in Westminster called Admiralty House, but, crucially, does not own it.
Rayner has confirmed her Hove residency won’t be rented out when she’s back in her primary home in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency.
I’m not an MP, but I assume they’re in London at least on a weekly basis. Still, a house being left empty even half the week while so many can’t afford a roof over their head at all doesn’t sit entirely right with me.
Essentially, it all appears above board – even if it is perhaps distasteful.
Rayner’s critics argue that the purchase of her new home reeks of ‘hypocrisy’, given Labour’s has introduced a council tax premium on second homes. But at no point has Labour claimed to be against them.
As a Labour spokesperson put it: ‘We’re clear that rights come with responsibilities.’
The response to Rayner’s ‘third home’ – that is actually her second home, and arguably a fairly modest one, relative to those she works alongside in Parliament – stinks of hypocrisy, misogyny, and an embedded mistrust of the working-class.
Among those sharpening their pitchforks is Shadow Housing Secretary James Cleverly – who has a track record of being a landlord.
Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden has insisted he has ‘no issue with her doing well for herself at all’, but wants to make ‘sure everything is done above board’.
If he’s so concerned with MPs being ‘above board’, he could look a little closer to home at his own party, where some Tory MPs boast multiple properties often bought for profit over convenience.
Like Jeremy Hunt, who reportedly bought seven buy-to-let properties in Southampton, from Conservative donor Nicolas James Roach. Hunt later apologised, after it was revealed he took six months to declare his property interests.
The parliamentary watchdog investigated it and the Cabinet Office found that there had been no breach of the ministerial code, but a spokesperson called it an ‘honest administrative mistake’.
Of course, the Housing Secretary will have more eyes on them than most when buying property – regardless of gender. But none have been interrogated so publicly as Rayner, whose property acquisitions pale in comparison to Farage’s reported £3million portfolio.
I believe that there’s a certain circle in the UK that can’t fathom working-class success. It can’t even begin to understand how their paths have crossed, and their careers are level with someone from a working-class background.
I remember when I was at university and attended a house party, hosted by a group of boys who I quickly discovered came from families who owned actual castles. I didn’t even know that was possible at the time.
It turned out there was a thief at this party and suspicions immediately turned on my friends and I. We weren’t even working-class, but to them, we were certainly a class or 10 below.
Like I say, I could never call myself working-class – but I think there is an unshakeable distrust of those from certain backgrounds, no matter how successful and credible someone has proven to be.
In this instance, it feels as though that’s only been exacerbated further because Rayner is also – heaven forbid – a successful woman.
Rayner’s third home might not be a great look, but it all appears to be above board to me.
We should be judging the Deputy Prime Minister on her values and actions, not how many homes she has.
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