The questions around Rayner and her tax issues have been slowly simmering away for a few months. The allegations were initially made in an unauthorised biography by former Conservative deputy chair Lord Ashcroft and then serialised by the Mail on Sunday in February. At that point, there were minor implications that Rayner could have breached electoral law. The police said there was no evidence of any offence being committed. The story only started to pick up steam when Tory MP James Daly informed Greater Manchester police that relevant witnesses or documents had not been considered and urged them to look back at the case. After reviewing the information, the police decided to reopen the case last week – but it’s not clear what the police are actually investigating. When it comes to the tax issues, there is a six-year time limit on prosecution (which in this case ended in 2021). If it’s about electoral law, that would had to be done within 12 months of an offence. “Police sources have said they are investigating other tax issues,” says Aletha, “like whether she claimed a single person’s council tax discount on her property, which seems to be based on evidence from neighbours that told the press, while allowing her brother to live at her council house property.” The length of this investigation is going to be significant because local elections are coming up and Rayner, as one of Labour’s most popular and recognisable politicians, needs to be campaigning without a tax scandal hanging over her. “It’s clear that if the Conservatives lose big at the local elections, which polls suggest they will, those politicians who will be trying to defend their records will use every single opportunity to highlight this alleged breach of trust by Rayner to distract from their losses,” Aletha adds. A media scandal The Conservatives and right-leaning media outlets have been unrelenting in their criticism of Rayner’s alleged missteps. The defence secretary, Grant Shapps, accused her of “double standards’’ – as someone who has repeatedly called out indiscretions by Tories, Rayner is open to accusations of hypocrisy. Jim, the Guardian’s media editor, says that the whole palaver shows that “the police will act based on news stories if they are under pressure” and “Rayner threatening to resign in turn puts pressure on the police to come to a conclusion fast”. The unclear nature of the allegations and the fact that they have dripped through slowly over the course of two months has meant that it has not quite landed with the public. “With news audiences declining, the real power for reaching the mass public is whether the BBC picks this up and runs with it or whether they just leave it as something the Mail is pushing,” Jim adds. Are people paying attention? “This apparent scandal, on its face, has been very hard to digest for the average person because it’s all quite murky and the story itself is about 14 years old,” Aletha says. Rayner is popular, a large part of which is because her path to politics has been different to many of her peers in Westminster: the former carer left school at 16 pregnant with no qualifications, and her straightforward style of speaking and clarity has been described as “refreshing” by voters. “The amount of support she has is incredible. She has her own mandate and huge networks in places Keir Starmer doesn’t,” Aletha adds. So the attacks, so far, have been viewed by some as unfair: “People are seemingly responding to the story by saying ‘So what... and?’,” Aletha says. A “tax protest” led by “activists” according to some supportive papers turned out to be local Conservative councillors, according to the Byline Times, casting further doubt on the degree to which this is cutting through to the public. What’s next? The police will continue its investigation, which could conclude relatively swiftly as they have reportedly thrown at least a dozen officers on the case. The Labour party continues to be confident that they will not find anything incriminating, with Starmer accusing “a billionaire prime minister and a billionaire peer, both of whose families have used schemes to avoid millions of pounds of tax” of “smearing a working-class woman” – though it should be noted that he has refused to look at Rayner’s tax advice himself. What’s sure is that the speculation will rumble on, with many more Daily Mail front pages still to come. |