Allegations over Angela Rayner’s living arrangements are just a “smear” being pushed by the Conservatives, the Labour leader has claimed.
Sir Keir Starmer’s deputy has come under the spotlight in recent weeks over the sale of an ex-council house she owned in Stockport, having been accused of avoiding capital gains tax on the property and falsely registering to vote there – claims she has denied.
The allegations centre around whether the property was Ms Rayner’s primary residence, as she has claimed. If it wasn’t, and she was living at her then husband’s address nearby, as alleged in the Mail on Sunday, she would have been liable for capital gains after the sale and could have broken electoral rules.
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Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden has now written to Sir Keir, accusing the pair of failing to “uphold standards in public life” by not answering questions about the allegations, and asking why he had not examined the legal advice Ms Rayner had been given over her actions.
But the Labour leader attacked the Tories for not being “laser focused” on issues impacting voters instead, such as hospital waiting times.
Speaking to broadcasters from Kings Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire, Sir Keir said: “Angela Rayner has been asked no end of questions about this. She’s answered them all. She said she’s very happy to answer any further questions from the police or from any of the authorities.”
He added: “I don’t need to see the legal advice. My team has seen it.
“But I will say this, that on the day that the A&E figures [show] people are waiting more than 24 hours in A&E – we now know that they are 10 times as high as they were five years ago – the idea that the Tories want to be focusing on Angela Rayner, how much time she spent with her ex-husband 10 years ago, I can tell you, here at this hospital, nobody but nobody is interested in that.
“They’re very, very…
