Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley has released a statement saying the police were forced to arrest comedian Graham Linehan for his X posts. Hitting back at the law…
He said:
“Most reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers. Such actions can and do have serious and violent real-world implications.
But when it comes to lesser cases, where there is ambiguity in terms of intent and harm, policing has been left between a rock and a hard place by successive governments who have given officers no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they’re reported. Then they are obliged to follow all lines of enquiry and take action as appropriate.”
Rowley went on to say he had offered Yvette Cooper suggestions on how to clarify law and policy on these issues, warning that officers would have to “make similar decisions in future unless the law and guidance is changed”. Pressure on Cooper now to act…
Rayner has admitted she didn’t pay enough tax on her second home and has referred herself to the independent ethics adviser over the matter. The DPM told Beth Rigby a court order around her divorce was lifted last night and gave an explanation for herself:
“In 2020, my son, had an award and a trust was set up by the court to deal with his finances as part of that award, with a legal trustee. And in 2023, when me and my husband divorced, the decision was because that home was adapted to support my son, who was lifelong disabilities as a result of that injury that occurred to him, that trust was set up and they decided that they would take on the property so that me and my husband could have a nest in arrangement where we could provide for my child in our family home, which is our family home and remains our family home. So when I’m looking after the children, I go back to the family home. And then when my ex-husband is looking after children, he does. And it was done primarily to support my son with his additional needs and to provide stability for them during the divorce. And that was the arrangement that we put in place.
I then went to purchase, took my life savings, basically out of the property, the 25% that I still owned within the property, took that money out so that I could purchase with a mortgage the place in Hove. And I took, you know, advice, on that. And I relied on that, legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.
Subsequently to that with all of the media reports that have been coming out, I took expert counsel advice on all of my affairs to ensure that everything was done proper and that expert counsel said that the advice that I received was inaccurate because of the trust. I don’t own the property. That is true. I only own one property that is mortgage like most people. But because of the nature of the trust that was set up by the court, that I would be liable to pay the additional stamp duty. As soon as I knew that that was the case, I have alerted and referred myself to the independent adviser on the ministerial code to ensure that they can look transparently at what has happened, and also contacted HMRC to say that, there is additional tax owing on this, and that I’m prepared to pay that and fully comply with the HMRC as well.”
Rayner has referred herself to the PM’s independent ethics adviser. She says she has told HMRC that she may owe additional tax. She also says she considered resigning: “I spoke to my family about it. I spoke to my ex-husband, who has been an incredibly supportive person because he knows that all I’ve done is try and support my family and help them.” In the red…
The DPM appealed to the public that she “made a mistake based upon the advice that I relied upon that I received at the time, and a leading expert has now said that advice was wrong. I think hopefully most people can see, if you take, if you rely on advice given to you by lawyers and you follow that process and then you find out that that process is wrong and that advice is wrong, I’m rectifying it at the earliest opportunity. People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.” Sympathy may not be forthcoming…
UPDATE: Starmer’s spokesman says Rayner should “pay what is due” if tax authorities find she owes additional stamp duty.
Reform’s party conference is this weekend in Birmingham. Billed as “the next step”…
MAIN SPEECHES
These are all on the main stage.
WHERE TO GET DRINKS
All evening events are on the Friday.
WHERE ARE THE WONKS
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
Good luck catching it all…
Anything to add? And remember our conference tip box is always open: team@order-order.com
Freshly minted Green Party leader Zack Polanski took the opportunity on BBC Newsnight to voice his opinions on free speech. They are as expected…
After comedic writer Graham Linehan was arrested by five armed police yesterday at Heathrow airport over gender-critical tweets, Polanski said:
“These are totally unacceptable tweets. I think it was proportionate to arrest him. I think there’s a pattern.”
Meanwhile, Londoners would be lucky if even one unarmed policeman arrested a phone thief. Even Wes Streeting is urging law change on this. A telling first act as party leader…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”