Rayner defies deep-rooted Tory party class prejudice

Now that Angela Rayner has been given the police all-clear over claims that she dodged tax on selling her council house, perhaps attention can be focused on evidence of a different form of misconduct in this matter - such as whether Tory MPs who led the witchhunt against her should be investigated for wasting police time?

- JOHN RENTOUL

Rayner stood her ground and won. She insisted she had done no wrong when she sold her former council house, or when she registered to vote before she became an MP – and now Greater Manchester Police has investigated and said they will take no further action.

HMRC has let it be known that it, too, will not take matters further.

The deputy Labour leader has been completely vindicated – including in her tough refusal to publish her private tax and legal advice confirming that she paid the tax that she should, and that she was properly registered to vote.

I wrote last month that she was the victim of class prejudice. She is loud and strong, and her Conservative opponents seem to think that she has got above herself. Her Tory tormentors were sure that they were onto something. They thought it was suspicious that Keir Starmer said that he hadn’t read her advice – that he was keeping his distance from her because her defences were weak.

But it seems that the leader and his deputy, despite their well-advertised differences in the past, were totally united on this issue. Just as they were when Conservative MPs made similar politically motivated complaints to Durham police about the alleged breach of coronavirus regulations during lockdown – the so-called “beer gate” affair.

On that occasion, Starmer pledged to resign if he was found to have broken the law, and Rayner, who was at the same campaign event, backed him up by promising to do the same.