That scratchy old
record was being played again last week by supporters of the deputy PM, Angela
Rayner, over her purchase of an apartment in Hove. And they’re right, of course.
As far as anyone can see, no
laws were broken, no rules contravened, no tax avoided.
Some might find it strange that she would buy a home – the only home she owns –
in Hove, around 250 miles from her constituency, but there has never been a
requirement for MPs to live in the constituency they represent, and there’s
plenty of history of MPs who don’t. The Tory attempts
to make some great scandal out of it are little more than a pathetic bit of
mud-slinging, but about par for a party which no longer pretends to have any
positive policies about anything.
And yet… It’s also
another example of the way in which politicians in their little bubbles are
happy to outsource any question about what is right and what is wrong to
whoever makes ‘the rules’, as though slavish responsibility to the rules is the
only criteria on which they should be judged. The criticism is unfair, pathetic,
reminiscent of kindergarten politics … and totally predictable. Did she, and
those around her, really not stop to think, just for a moment, about how it might
be perceived, particularly by anyone wanting to make mischief? It is, of
course, wholly unfair to hold politicians to a higher standard than the rest of
us, but it comes with the territory. She has done nothing ‘wrong’, but the
inability to anticipate the likely response is staggering.
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