Spare a thought for Angela Rayner’s poor political opponents when she senses even the slightest whiff of impropriety.
Like a terrier sighting a rat, Labour’s deputy leader pursues her quarry tenaciously, and with a dollop of moralising thrown in for good measure.
When then Tory chairman Nadhim Zahawi got into bother with the Inland Revenue, she led calls for him to come clean or resign.
And when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was on the rack over failing to declare his wife’s business interests, she volubly condemned the ‘transparency black hole’.
Yet when inconvenient questions are asked over her own tangled property and financial dealings, Mrs Rayner becomes uncustomarily coy. This reticence is regrettable.
Spare a thought for Angela Rayner’s poor political opponents when she senses even the slightest whiff of impropriety
The row centres on the Stockport council house, which she bought in 2007 for £79,000 and sold eight years later for £127,500 – a gross profit of £48,500.
She contends that after marrying in 2010 she lived apart from husband Mark in her property for five years, exempting her from capital gains tax. But neighbours insist she is lying and that her brother resided there.
Ms Rayner is not just feeling the heat over her tax affairs. Police are reviewing claims she broke electoral law by being registered to vote at her house, despite allegedly living with her other half a mile away.
Surely any semi-competent detective could get to the bottom of this mystery.
After a month of trying to avoid covering this story, the BBC has got there in the end.
In a risibly chummy interview – ‘Forgive me for doing this on your birthday’ – Radio 4 presenter Nick Robinson asked Ms Rayner about the apparent tax discrepancies (but ignored the potential police probe).
She claimed to have recently acquired tax advice exonerating her. If she has done nothing wrong, why not disclose it? That would be the easiest way to draw a line under this unedifying matter.
But she refuses, instead resorting to dissembling and obfuscation. Her every statement has made her look shifty and evasive, throwing more petrol on to the fire.
When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was on the rack over failing to declare his wife’s business interests, she volubly condemned the ‘transparency black hole’
Sir Keir Starmer has declared himself satisfied by his deputy’s explanation – despite not having seen her evidence. Yet had this been a Tory, he would be obsessively questioning it. The hypocrisy is flagrant.
Predictably, Labour has accused her opponents of running a smear campaign.
That is unfortunate. Ms Rayner is on the brink of power. She may think this a storm in a teacup, but the principle is enormous.
In a democracy, those who aspire to make laws and spend the nation’s taxes must be transparent about their own affairs.
This is about public trust. If she is innocent, she has nothing to fear.
Drowning in debt
The parlous state of Thames Water, serving 16million customers in and around London, seems to crystallise everything that’s wrong with the shambolic water industry.
Groaning under an £18billion debt, the firm is struggling to survive after investors refused to throw it a lifeline. Yes, water will still flow from taps, but the firm is essentially bust.
This scandal has been years in the making. Successive owners have for decades plundered billions and piled on debt, while giving dire customer service and discharging sewage into our waterways.
Some will say the answer to such appalling mismanagement is to nationalise Thames Water, but evidence suggests this would leave an even bigger, more expensive mess.
In the first instance, the company and the regulator must try to sort out this fiasco. Under no circumstances must long-suffering consumers be hit with soaring bills.