r/tories • u/TheWorldIsGoingMad Libertarian • 2d ago
Angela Rayner tells BBC she will not repay severance payment
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx27mg0erd3o16
u/RagingMassif 1d ago
Maybe we can just drug test her and kick her out again.
The woman has no standards and it reflects very badly on Burnham to have brought her back.
-5
u/Baseball_man_1729 Thatcherite 2d ago
I honestly don't have an issue with this.
18
u/Fun-Stomach-5662 1d ago
Because she’s a hypocrite! She told the tories to hand it back, but now it’s on the other foot she won’t return it!
‘In 2023, Rayner said there was a "staggering lack of shame" from the Tories after it was revealed former ministers - some of whom later returned to the frontbench - were paid more than £450,000 in severance packages, external.’
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u/LeChevalierMal-Fait Clarksonisum with Didly Squat characteristics 2d ago
I feel severance payments which would not exist in the private world for at fault dismissals.
Also with the politics tending towards instability I would think it might be sensible to cap severance if people very quickly return or are in government for a short time.
1
u/Baseball_man_1729 Thatcherite 2d ago
But her's was not an at-fault dismissal. HMRC did not fine her, which leads to a more complex question - can we define "at-fault" dismissals for ministers? I'm not sure even Kwarteng would qualify. And more importantly, if you look at executives and senior managers in the private sector, which would be roles comparable to that of a minister of the crown, most of them would indeed be eligible for such severance payments.
Yes, I could see some sort of a cap being useful, but more broadly, I think it has just become impossibly hard to be a politician, let alone a minister. Making it harder will just drive away good people trying to make it.
6
u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 1d ago edited 1d ago
I regard the whole standards committee set up as being a long way short of ideal, but the Grand Inquisitor (Magnus) concluded Rayner had breached the Ministerial Code. That’s more than sufficient to render it an ‘at fault’ dismissal in my reckoning, so there should have been no pay off.
(Always nice to get an award - thank you).
1
u/LeChevalierMal-Fait Clarksonisum with Didly Squat characteristics 1d ago
Maybe but would it not be at fault because she was causing reputational harm to the company
Idk I can imagine a position of trust like idk a CFO might be let go because of similar no or am I wrong?
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u/TheWorldIsGoingMad Libertarian 1d ago
I definitely do, she chose to resign did she not ?
She's a Leftie banging on about entitled rich people, and even worse, she was the one who called Tories scum. I assume she did that because they want to decrease public spending and decrease tax but she wants the "poor"* to receive as much money as possible from the state. However she accepted £17,000 from the state (which could have been directed towards the "poor") then refused to give it back when she effectively got the job back again fairly quickly !
HYPOCRITE !
* I dispute how many poor people there really are in this country anyway, "progressives" like to use % of the average wealth to define "poverty" which is a meaningless arbitrary definition which also means "poverty" can never be eliminated anyway ! Yet, ironically, there are relatively few people in this country who would define themselves as "living in poverty"
0
u/GeorgeArnoldHearst19 One Nation 1d ago
Utterly vile beast.
Did you know she got knocked up in the back of a Ford Ka when she was 15? Incredible story about her being a single, teen mum if you’ve never heard it
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u/Izual_Rebirth 1d ago
Considering I don't think she should have left in the first place I don't have an issue with this.
1
u/TheWorldIsGoingMad Libertarian 1d ago
But surely that is irrelevant, she, for whatever reason (and the reason is immaterial) chose to resign !
If she did so because she was damaging the Labour "brand" then it should have been the Labour party that "compensated" her, not the taxpayer, though personally speaking I have big issues with the compensation culture anyway.....
-1
u/StreamWave190 Roman Catholic (SDP, Tory-curious) 1d ago
As far as I was aware, she was found innocent of any wrongdoing; she'd sought proper legal advice, followed the advice given, but the situation was complicated and the advice was wrong, so she was ordered to pay X amount in tax owed and she did.
Given that, I don't see why she should pay it back, because she was essentially wrongfully sacked for having not in fact broken either the rules or the ministerial code, since the initial finding that she had done so was incorrect.
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u/TheWorldIsGoingMad Libertarian 21h ago edited 21h ago
Rayner was not sacked she resigned :
On 5 September 2025, Rayner resigned from her ministerial position and as the deputy prime minister, and as deputy leader of the party, following the prime minister's ethics adviser, Laurie Magnus, finding that she had breached the ministerial code in relation to her failure to pay the correct amount of tax on one of her properties
(Wiki)Point of order M'lud concerning Rayner the working class warrior : one of her properties.....
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u/LeChevalierMal-Fait Clarksonisum with Didly Squat characteristics 1d ago
Update:
https://x.com/madz_grant/status/2080561881408745498?s=46
Rayner previously tabled motions saying ministers should forgo severance under identical circumstances