Angela Rayner’s downfall is not simply about tax. It is about misogyny, double standards, and the continuing failure of politics to treat women fairly.
The ongoing storm surrounding Angela Rayner’s stamp duty underpayment is about far more than a tax bill. It is about entrenched misogyny in politics, and the way women in public life are judged and punished more harshly than men.
Angela Rayner admitted an error. She acted on faulty legal advice, believed she had paid the right amount, and when new information emerged, she immediately referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards. She has since moved to pay what is owed. This is what accountability should look like, openness, honesty, and reparations.
And yet, despite doing everything that should be expected of someone in her position, Rayner has faced relentless calls for resignation and an avalanche of personal criticism. The scrutiny has been disproportionate, the tone often cruel, and the sense of political bloodsport unmistakable.
Contrast this with Nadhim Zahawi. When it emerged that he had failed to pay millions in tax related to offshore arrangements, the story dragged on for weeks before action was taken. Zahawi denied wrongdoing, failed to come clean, and only eventually stepped aside under pressure. His case involved far greater sums, far more deliberate concealment, and far less transparency. Yet the intensity of outrage and the relish in his downfall were nothing like what we are seeing now with Rayner.
That difference is not accidental. It speaks to the way women in politics are treated. Rayner is being punished not just for a mistake, but for daring to be a woman in power. The criticism of her has been laced with venom and delight, as though a woman’s misstep is more entertaining, more disqualifying, and more unforgivable than a man’s.
As liberals, we must fight this culture head on. Politics should be about fairness, equality, and accountability, not selective outrage and misogynistic double standards.
We cannot pretend that this is just about rules or taxes. It is about a culture in politics that still treats women as outsiders, as easy targets, as disposable.
That culture drives talented women away and makes public life smaller, angrier, and less representative.
And in this case, it has cost us dearly.
Whatever your politics, Angela Rayner was a leading light: a voice at the top of government who inspired many with her story and her fight. To lose her in this way is a tragedy for our political culture, no matter what side of the divide you stand on. It should never have come to this.
This must end. If we want politics that is fair, accountable, and inclusive, then we must call out these double standards and reject the misogynistic treatment of women in public life. Equal accountability means equal treatment. Nothing more but certainly nothing less.
Angela Rayner deserved that fairness. So do all women who step into public life. Until we end this culture of misogyny, our politics will continue to fail them and fail us all.
* Donna Harris is Chair of Lib Dem Women, vice chair of the Campaign for Gender Balance and was Liberal Democrat group leader on Lambeth Council until she stood down in May 2026.
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30 Comments
Councillor Harris writes “She acted on faulty legal advice,…”
That statement is not correct. I recommend reading the full text of Sir Laurie Magnus’s report at the link below:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68bac57c536d629f9c82ab4b/Letter_from_the_Independent_Adviser_to_the_Prime_Minister.pdf
Angela Rayner’s lawyers recommended that she get tax advice.
She chose not to get it, and instead to decide for herself that she qualified for the lower amount of tax. Such conduct is below the standards expected of a minister.
She was right to resign, and merited sacking by the PM if she had not resigned.
I agree with Mohammed that she was right to go, but that doesn’t negate Donna’s point: the same level of outrage and hounding should be applied to the men who have done the same sort of thing – and often much worse.
Thank you for your comment Mohammed and
I totally take your point on board. I should say I’m currently abroad on holiday and haven’t been able to be across the case consistently.
However, the article was never meant as a line-by-line defence of Angela Rayner.
It is about something much bigger: how women in politics are treated compared to men. In fact, you could remove the reference to legal advice entirely and the article would still stand. The core argument is that when a woman in public life makes a mistake, the scrutiny and personal attacks are often harsher and more relentless than when a man does the same — or worse.
That culture of misogyny and double standards is what drives talented women out of politics and damages our democracy. Whatever one thinks of Angela Rayner’s decisions, the disproportionate reaction to her case compared to others is undeniable — and that is what I felt so strongly needed to be said.
I agree with Jennie. Men are far too easily let off much more serious offences. Many of Johnson’s cabinet ought to be in jail.
@Donna “That culture of misogyny and double standards is what drives talented women out of politics and damages our democracy.” Sadly, too true.
Three of the talented women on Richmond Council in my day were Sally Hamwee, Jenny Tonge and my fellow councillor Alison Cornish. For different reasons, I respected them enormously.
Later I couldn’t say the same about Boris Johnson, who is again in the news.
“This wouldn’t happen to man”……..”She acted on faulty legal advice”.
Oh, yes, it could, and oh, no, she didn’t. She could have sorted it out by getting competent legal advice fitted to her particular situation. Her lawyers are on record as having warned her they were not experts in her particular situation. She chose not to listen.
In a parallel universe. Johnson, quite rightly, is getting it in the neck this morning in the Guardian.
I agree with Jennie too. One only needs to recall the ludicrous furore over Theresa May buying some trousers, or closer to home, Jo Swinson being referred to as “inexperienced” despite having more ministerial time than Corbyn & Johnson combined to realise the existence of the double standard.
David – Good Old Boris being pilloried in the pages of the Grauniad will be water off a duck’s back. When Good Old Boris gets torn to shreds in the Mail and the Telegraph, you may have a point about a man being treated as viciously as a woman. But I shan’t hold my breath.
As I understand it, Rayner used a licensed conveyancer, rather than a solicitor, for her purchase. We don’t know what she told them, or what advice they gave. What we do know is that they will have had to do anti-money-laundering checks to satisfy themselves of the source of the funds. That ought, I’d have thought, to have alerted them to the existence of the trust.
Did they say “If this is the only property you own, you pay the lower rate”? If they said that and merely qualified it by a sort of generalised “of course we’re not tax specialists” disclaimer, I don’t think that was good enough. And while I admit to having a dog in this fight as a former solicitor, I’d have thought that any solicitor worth their salt would have said “…but we’d better check whether the trust for your son makes a difference”.
David Raw 9th Sep ’25 – 2:21pm……….In a parallel universe. Johnson, quite rightly, is getting it in the neck this morning in the Guardian……..
David, ONLY in the Guardian The story is being ignored and glossed over in the same press that has hounded ‘bike shed Raynor’ ever since she has had the temerity, as a single working class mum, to rise about her station..
Donna Harris is absolutely right about the difference between the ‘justice’ meted out to Raynor (and not just by men; Badenoch is one of the worst culprits)..
She should, after previous character assassination attempts by the media, ensured that she was ‘whiter than white’; however, the vitriol thrown at her has been completely different, not just because of he sex, but because she is definitely ‘not one of us’..
“If they said that and merely qualified it by a sort of generalised “of course we’re not tax specialists” disclaimer,”
But we do know what the conveyancer’s said because it was quoted in Sir Laurie Magnus’s letter to the PM. See Mohammed Amin’s post above for a link to the letter. They said:
“c) in those two instances, that advice was qualified by the acknowledgement that it did
not constitute expert tax advice and was accompanied by a suggestion, or in one case
a recommendation, that specific tax advice be obtained;”
So the conveyancer’s have done nothing wrong. The blame is entirely with Angela Rayner. But that is not to say that she may have been treated less favourably for some reason.
I believe that Rayner has been a victim of class discrimination rather than misogyny. She has made much of her humble beginnings but her back story, in particular her lack of formal education, may have made some wonder whether, for all her effectiveness as a campaigner, she is really up to it. Always keen to play the class card, now hoist on her own petard, as it were.
She did wrong. Full stop. I seem to remember a lot of Tories, mainly men, did wrong and they got very similar treatment…if not worse.
The furore over a procedural error is exaggerated. As usually the furore over MPs mistakes and peccadilloes is exaggerated. But as she’s precisely housing minister, she was bound to go.
Angela has always been keen to get stuck in to hapless or corrupt Tory MPs who’ve slipped up. And indeed wrote off the Tories as a whole as “scum”. So burnt through much social capital.
There is a lesson in this: I feel more generosity is in order. I can remember several male MPs being hounded by national press and opponents for slip updms of one sort or another, so not sure about the female/male angle.
I completely agree with Donna. Spot on. I know exactly what she is talking about.
@ Expats “It wouldn’t happen to a man” ?
Give it time, Expats. It’s not just the Guardian. This is a big one.
The Johnson files are now being reported on by ITV, The Times, The Independent, The National, the Evening Standard, the Mirror and the Yorkshire Post. The rest will follow after consulting their ‘learned Friends’.
I agree with Donna and what is moe she’s very obviously Northern. The news of her demise triggered memories of the snobbery my friends and I faced when applying for universities in the South.
Some years ago I met a charming young man at conference who said he experienced prejudice not so much for being gay or Muslim or having brown skin but for being Northern.
@Donna Harris
I agree with your broader point in your comment of 12:30pm yesterday. I do think that women in politics are attacked more strongly for failures than men would be for the same failure, especially by our right wing newspapers and right wing TV channels.
The same is true for ethnic minorities. A few years ago, Michael Gove confessed to having taken cocaine when he was much younger. The right wing press regarded it as trivial. I remember thinking at the time how they would have reacted if David Lammy had made the same confession.
Donna’s point is all the more pervalent given the situation with Lord Peter Mandelson at the moment.
Surely one of the main reasons people set up trusts is to avoid tax. A minute on Google would have given her the answer she didn’t want. Tax law may be complex but in this case it is straightforward.
“It couldn’t happen to a man” ????????????????????
I wonder if Peter Mandelson agrees with that …………
Unfortunately ex deputy pm rayner broke the ministerial code but some of her allies said she was criticised for being working class. Really?
@David Raw. Mandelson is a gay man, definitely not ‘one of us’. The right wing press hate him as much as ‘uppity working class women’.
As David Raw puts it but with a bit more detail.
I’m sad to say that while I agree with the virtually all of the comments made here and most of the article itself, I cannot agree with the first half of the headline “This wouldn’t happen to a man …” While the fine detail and exact form of the hounding can be argued to differ, I am sure many here will remember the following scandals that were whipped up against men in politics over the last five years or so.
1) SNP MSP Michael Matheson and his use of his Ipad – 2024
2) Conservative Minister Owen Patterson in 2021
3) Matt Hancock in 2021
In addition it has happened to figures who had been in government but had fallen out of favour with others in their party like
4) Alex Salmond targeted by the SNP leadership
and in a totally different era, when things were done very differently but just as brutally
5) King Edward VIII in 1936.
Overall we need to remember that infighting across and within parties often comes about when contentious issues are being considered. I remember Nichol Stephen and the local Lib Dems being attacked over Donald Trump’s proposals to establish his first golf course in Aberdeenshire, and tragically being split and rent asunder by the vitriol created.
@ Mick Taylor,
I can’t speak for the right wing press but Peter Mandelson has long been known on the left as the “Prince of Darkness”. It was nothing to to with his sexual orientation. It was his behind the scenes manoeuvrings during the last Parliament which were the problem.
I’ve just read that he’s been sacked as Ambassador.
Mandelson organised the campaign to secure the leadership of the Labour Party for Starmer. So sacking him is a risky move on his part. Mandelson will know where the bodies are buried!
@ Mick Taylor……….. It couldn’t happen to a man. Well it just did.
Be interesting to see where this goes,. To the best of my knowledge Farage is a man.
BBC News today :
“Reform UK leader Nigel Farage faces pressure to account for how his partner paid for a £885,000 home after a BBC investigation raised further questions about his previous explanation.
The Clacton MP has denied avoiding more than £44,000 in additional stamp duty on the purchase of the constituency home by putting it in his partner Laure Ferrari’s name, saying that she bought it with her own funds
@ David Raw. Yes, I saw that. I’m not sure what the story is. That he said he bought it when in fact his girlfriend did? Not sure that will go far.
@ Russell,
The issue is that he initially claimed that he had purchased the property, which would lead to a demand for rather more stamp duty than if his partner purchased it. And given that her finances are alleged to make purchasing such a property from her own resources unlikely, that points towards an artificial transaction designed to mislead.
However, the facts are still to be determined, so the scale of the issue is debatable.
It’s worth remembering that when the Rayner stamp duty thing first blew up, the accusation was one of hypocrisy – that she had legally engineered the situation to pay less stamp duty than she might otherwise have to. Arguably exactly the same as Farage has done.
The right-wing press probably couldn’t believe their luck when it turned out there was a fire behind the smoke and she had actually paid less than legally required.
But the press had been hounding Rayner for years in a way that I’ve never seen them do to Farage or any other male politician.
The level of press Angela Rayner has received is in part because she is a woman and in part because of her being Labour. If we compare the press coverage of this with that meted out to Conservative female minsters, we see a difference in tone etc.
Yes she made a mistake, with respect to the higher standards the ministerial code demands, namely ministers must ensure they dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
However, we should remember today everyone seems to have a stock “We are not xyz specialists, you are advised to seek specialist advice” disclaimer – including legal advice from solicitors!
So for many members of the public they will weigh the advice they have received from financial and legal advisors (who claimed to be experts in their areas and so in Angela’s instance should have known trusts complicate tax matters and that her day job required higher standards and hence should have framed their advice accordingly and provided either zero tax liability guidance or err’ed on the side of caution and suggested she was liable for the second home rate), and did what seemed logical.
I thus would not be surprised, because of the seeming lack of dots being joined up, there are many voters with property holding trusts who have also only paid the lower rate of stamp duty on their second property. It would seem from this case, there is no simple way for HMRC to identify and investigate this problem.