As much as Labour’s spin doctors wanted to dismiss the story yesterday’s local election campaign launch was overshadowed by Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner’s failure to satisfactorily explain herself. This morning’s newspapers are (finally) all over the issue Guido has been drumming on about for weeks;
- “How Angela Rayner could go from Labour’s trump card to their millstone“ opines the Telegraph.
- “Pressure builds on Angela Rayner over council house claims” – Times
- “Rayner denies wrongdoing over council house sale amid police review“ – Guardian
- “Angela Rayner refuses to publish tax records as police probe house sale“ – FT
- “Why won’t Rayner come clean on tax?” – Daily Mail
- “UK cannot install Angela Rayner as Deputy PM with unanswered tax-dodging allegations hanging over her” – Sun
- “Rayner on the ropes: Labour’s deputy leader flounders over housing row” – Mail
- “Angela Rayner insists she did nothing wrong over house sale“ – BBC
- “Angela Rayner will not publish ‘personal tax advice’ over council house sale“ – Sky News
The truth will out and this will not go away until she answers the questions which she obfuscates over. Why do the neighbours say she is lying about where she really lived? Wasn’t her brother really renting the house she pretends she lived at and where she kept herself on the electoral roll? Why doesn’t she publish the recent tax advice? As much as Labour keep trying to make out this is a non-story, it clearly isn’t. The press is only seeking the same kind of transparency she demanded of others…
Good Morning Britain is supposed to be impartial, though when the presenters start stating Labour’s line as fact it does make you wonder. Susanna Reid got feisty with Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride this morning when he said “Labour have absolutely no plan” to reduce immigration. Reid fought back, repeatedly saying “that’s absolutely not true…the audience needs to be aware [ministers will say this] and it’s not true”, saying their plan is to “smash the gangs” and providing no more detail. As Stride pointed out, Labour has rhetoric, which isn’t the same as a plan…
A good start for Ed this morning. He only went and kicked fellow presenter Susanna Reid in the head. What do they say about an eye for an eye?
Iceland boss and failed Tory candidate Richard Walker was quizzed in a frosty interview on Good Morning Britain today over his defection to the Labour party and Guido’s report on his letter to Rishi Sunak. Susanna Reid summed it up well: “Is this not perhaps sour grapes? The reason I ask you this is because the Guido Fawkes Website published a letter from you to the Prime minster, in their words, begging for you to be put on the Conservative candidate list”. Walker’s frigid reply:
“It is mysterious and it was a personal letter, it was private and confidential and it was hand delivered to the Prime Minister. I never received so much as an acknowledgment but I suppose at least I now know it reached its intended recipient.”
At least he’s not taken it personally…
A brutal showing for Minister-turned-showbiz star Matt Hancock this morning. It turns out the “substantial” charitable donation from his jungle fee was £10,000 – or rather, 3% of the cool £330,000 sum. Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley didn’t let him off lightly. Always difficult to say you didn’t eat testicles for the money… and then keep 97% of the money:
“The primary reason is because I have… I developed over the pandemic, over lockdown, and over my resignation, […] a very public figure. And I felt that what the public knew about me was through a particular lens, you know, through coming on this programme and Piers Morgan shouting monologues at me for over 20 minutes… it was totally ridiculous.”
“I didn’t primarily do it for the money, I primarily did it to try to show who I really am… and I gave a five-figure sum to charity…”
Of course, Hancock is free to do with his money as he pleases. Most people would gladly take the cash for chewing on a kangaroo’s anus. Although clearly definitions of “substantial” donations vary…
“‘Shows go on and so on we go”…
