If a Tory ‘dodged capital gains tax’ Angela Rayner would be demanding evidence should be out in public domain
THE latest series of Married At First Sight Australia (compulsive viewing) featured a task where couples were asked to swap phones as a measure of their faith in each other.
One participant refused to do so, saying that her partner should trust her enough not to check her messages.
It later transpired she had been messaging an ex-boyfriend.
I am reminded of this scene every time I hear Labour deputy Angela Rayner and party boss Sir Keir Starmer talking themselves in circles over whether or not she dodged capital gains tax on a house sale.
If she is so convinced of her innocence, then why isn’t she insisting that her immediate superior takes a look at the “tax advice” she says puts her in the clear?
And as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, why isn’t legally trained Sir Keir helpfully checking the advice and reaffirming her claims of having done nothing wrong?
Instead, they’re both robotically repeating the same old party line of how he doesn’t want to look at the details because to do so might suggest that he doesn’t trust her.
What a nonsense. Particularly as we all know that, if it was a Tory being accused of dodging capital gains tax, they would both be shouting from the rooftops that all evidence should be out in the public domain.
Indeed, Ms Rayner has done so in the past.
It is now the subject of a police investigation and she says that, if found guilty, she will “do the right thing and step down”.
Which would be a terrible shame, as she’s bright, interesting (I have interviewed her) and an asset to the party.
It was years ago and, if it was a genuine mistake and she had owned up and paid up, it would be done and dusted by now.
So I hope that this digging in to protest her innocence is a genuinely held belief and not because someone in the party has told her to “deny, deny, deny” for fear of jeopardising a Labour victory in the forthcoming general election.
Sir Keir resembles a marathon runner who’s been tasked with carrying a Ming vase across the finish line and thinks one small jolt could shatter it.
But actually, casting his expert eye over the legalities of his deputy’s house sale and supporting her claim of innocence would only enhance his standing.
So why isn’t he doing it?
LABOUR’S equity chief Ashley Dalton has agreed that if someone identifies as, say, a llama, they should be taken seriously.
And presumably that “llama” is still allowed to vote?
JOYFUL SAMMY
I WAS very sorry to hear about the death of Warwick Davis’s wife Samantha.
She sat alongside me on Loose Women a couple of times and was always an absolute sweetheart.
Energetic and engaging, she had an infectious smile and took such joy from both Warwick’s success and the time they spent as a family with their children Annabelle and Harrison.
RIP Sammy. You’ll be greatly missed.
NIAMKE Doffou worked for Sainsbury’s for nearly 20 years but was sacked after taking a “bag for life” without paying.
I know he was an employee in a “position of trust”, but wouldn’t a written warning have sufficed?
Meanwhile, oiks galore are stealing in bulk from supermarkets and the police do nothing.
What a strange world we live in.
THROUP FOR IT?
BOXER David Haye is on the hunt for someone to share his interest in “positive energy” and “travelling to beautiful locations”.
What’s not to love? Oh, hang on. It seems there are three in this relationship . . . or there will be if you answer his dating ad to complete a throuple with him and girlfriend Sian.
And there’s more, er, delights to come.
“I’ve got many deep-rooted, complex demons eating me up from the inside, manifesting in disgustingly shocking acts of . . . let’s not tell you everything and spoil the surprise!”
Er, right. Form an orderly queue, ladies.
CONGRATULATIONS to Myrna and Adrian Whiteson, who started the Teenage Cancer Trust and have rightly won The Times/Sternberg Active Life award for their efforts.
The charity they founded in 1990 has supported hundreds of thousands of young people through treatment, but the couple were helped enormously by a series of fundraising concerts organised by Roger Daltrey, his band The Who and various guests.
Roger, now 80, recently announced that after nearly 25 years of working with the charity, he is to step back.
Surely a fitting time to finally award him a knighthood?
You’ve always gotta get with your friends
HAPPY 50th birthday to the self-deprecatingly funny Victoria Beckham.
She celebrated with a party and a Spice Girl “reunion” where she and her former bandmates lip-synced along to their old hit Stop.
But rumour has it that things were still a little “frosty” between Geri Horner and Mel B, after the latter cheekily suggested that the former had lied about her age.
No sweat. In the engine room of any friendship group there’s always a couple of cogs that jar with each other and the sentiment of an old Groucho Marx observation about how friends can differ in personality perhaps sums them up.
If Victoria was in jail, Geri would be trying to bail her out.
And Mel B would be in the next cell, saying: “Damn that was fun.”
CHEF Gordon Ramsay is struggling to evict squatters living in his North London gastro pub which is empty and up for sale.
He obtained a High Court writ to evict them and the battle goes on, but a few did pack their bags and leave in front of assembled photographers.
They looked young and robust and one even had the agility to clamber over some railings.
Fit enough, one might humbly suggest, to go and get a full-time job that might pay for them to live somewhere legally?
‘GRAND’ OLD AGE
MOVIE legend Michael Douglas is approaching 80 and says he’s been mistaken for the grandfather of his youngest two children, now 23 and 21.
Given that his stunning, 54-year-old wife Catherine Zeta-Jones continues to defy all signs of ageing, chances are he’ll soon be mistaken for her “Gramps” too.
THIEF’S DUN BY DAVID
REMEMBER the scene in Crocodile Dundee when a mugger pulls out a flick knife and threatens our protagonist Mick with it?
“Call that a knife?” he scoffs, pulling out the whopper he uses in the Australian bush. “That’s a knife.”
I was reminded of it this week when 94-year-old David Douglas spoke about being the victim of an attempted mugging in West London.
The 5ft 4in retired ceramics professor was accosted by a 6ft youth who “was trying to rob me” and, being a coward, clearly thought he could easily overpower a nonagenarian.
But David has a brown belt in judo and used a well practised move to throw his assailant to the ground.
Great. It’s good to know karma doesn’t just happen in the movies.
HAND IT TO ISLA
HAVING separated from husband Sacha Baron Cohen after 13 years, actress Isla Fisher has been spotted with her hands wedged in her pockets during a stroll in North London.
Was it simply to keep her mitts warm on a cold day?
Or to stop herself “doing a Nicole Kidman” on the day her divorce was made final?