We might be in the middle of the summer period that journalists call silly season, but even so, the stories this August seem to be getting more and more absurd.
The latest news that has the right-wing commentariat crowing with glee is the revelation that Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, has bought a house. Or a flat, to be precise. And this is both newsworthy and scandalous, apparently, because Rayner already owns a property elsewhere.
You might well be wondering why the Deputy PM owning two homes is so controversial. It is a good question, to which the answer is not entirely clear. There are merely vague, unsubstantiated accusations of hypocrisy. Dame Priti Patel, the shadow Foreign Secretary, commented: “One rule for this condescending hypocritical Labour minister, and a totally different set of rules for the hard-pressed taxpaying silent majority.” Of what actual hypocrisy Rayner was guilty, she did not say.
One newspaper columnist at least tried to provide some evidence, comically claiming that Rayner is a hypocrite for buying a seaside home while tightening regulations for private landlords, as if there is any link whatsoever between the two. Others have smugly pointed out that some local councils are hiking council tax on second homes, which they are – under powers given to them by the Conservatives, not Labour. And there, it seems, the evidence for such supposedly shameless hypocrisy ends.
Short of any actual reason to object to Rayner buying a flat, the commentary has entered the ridiculous. One newspaper report breathlessly described how the Housing Secretary was building “a burgeoning property empire”. This empire consisted, until the latest purchase, of one property: a family-sized home in her constituency. Since “burgeoning” with the purchase of a seaside flat in Hove, it now includes a grand total of two. Yes, Rayner also uses a government-provided flat in London, but this is a perk that will stop as soon as she ceases to be in government – she has no ownership of it. As property empires go, she is hardly Donald Trump.
So what is this confected outrage really about? It is nothing but snobbery – not for the first time when it comes to stories about Rayner. The coverage of this most working-class of politicians, who grew up on a Stockport council estate, left school at 16 and became a teenage mother, consistently reeks of class prejudice. A second home, would you believe it?! Her, buying a second home! Has she forgotten where she comes from?
square YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN Something about Angela Rayner turns men into jumpy teenage boys
Read More
This sneering was also in full force when Rayner was mocked for enjoying herself at the Glyndebourne opera festival back in 2022. This, critics suggested, was another act of shameless hypocrisy: there she was, claiming to care about the poor, while drinking champagne!
Champagne! What an outrage. The suggestion, it seems, is that anyone who believes in more equality should forego any of life’s pleasures and subsist merely on gruel and ale, in solidarity with those less well off.
Either way, the undertone of the criticism was as obvious as it was invidious: you don’t belong here, Angela. Like the snootiness directed at Rayner simply for enjoying classical music, the latest confected row is based on a very clear suggestion that she is getting above her station. This type of thing isn’t for your sort, the headlines might as well say. Opera and second homes, ask her Tory critics and right-wing newspaper hacks? Who does she think she is: one of us?
Rayner riles Britain’s snobs because she refuses to abide by the confines of long-standing class hierarchies. She has torn down boundaries, smashed through glass ceilings, and refuses to accept that a Stockport lass who has done well for herself has any less right to be quaffing champagne while listening to Puccini or splashing out on a nice holiday flat for herself than anybody else. Good for her.
For more evidence of the shameless double standards, compare the outrage over Rayner buying a second property with the fact that barely a word is ever uttered about the actual property empires owned by various senior Conservatives.
Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, for example, reportedly owns seven buy-to-let properties in the same Southampton development, as well as a plush pad in Pimlico, a family home in Surrey and a property in Italy. The same rent-a-gob commentators now criticising Rayner had nothing to say about that. Hunt wasn’t accused of hypocrisy every time he talked about the housing crisis, despite presumably profiting handsomely from it.
This isn’t even especially unusual among Tory MPs. Hunt’s predecessor, Nadhim Zahawi, was reported a few years ago to have over £25m worth of property. Kevin Hollinrake, the current Conservative Party chairman, receives rental income from five properties that he part-owns in York. The list goes on. None of this attracts significant attention, though, because well-to-do Tory politicians are allowed to own as many homes as they like. In fact it’s expected of them. Working-class Labour ones? Not so much.
There is a valid question over whether a Parliament in which more than one in eight MPs are also landlords can truly be objective when it comes fixing the broken housing market. But that is nothing to do with Rayner – there is no suggestion that she has bought the £700,000 Hove flat as a business venture rather than simply a seaside bolthole.
And even if she had, she would merely be joining 83 of her parliamentary colleagues in receiving rental income. That, not Rayner’s housing choices, is the real issue. But that doesn’t fit the lazy, classist narrative of a hypocritical champagne socialist living the high life and so now we must endure more mockery of one of Britain’s most successful working-class politicians. It being silly season doesn’t make that any less predictable, or any less depressing.
Hence then, the article about the confected outrage over angela rayner s new property is nothing but snobbery was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The confected outrage over Angela Rayner’s new property is nothing but snobbery )
Also on site :
- The Supreme Court Cast Its Lot With Trumpism. It Should Be Very Worried.
- My Wife Doesn’t Know I Watched Her Cheat On Me. My Reaction Might Shock Us Both.
- Eight fire crews tackling blaze at West Midlands Wetherspoon pub