Our Angela relaxes in Hove, proving she’s the Bet Lynch 

of the Labour party, actually

SUCKER: The Deputy PM relaxes with a vape in Hove

There is more than a hint of Coronation Street about our Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner.

I half expect her to walk into the Commons and greet the Son of a Toolmaker with: “Y’awright, chuck?”

She might even add, silently, as they take their places on the green leather front bench: “Don’t make yourself too comfortable, ye’ll not be staying, ye lummock.”

If Rayner were to land a role in Corrie, she would surely be Bet Lynch – brassy, plain-spoken (or rude, as we call it down here), with flashing eyes that could quell a rebellion.

And I can see her in leopard print.

She has Bet’s image too as a working class heroine, a tough lass who takes life’s low blows, gets up and dusts herself off. Which might just get her out of the fix she’s in. Or not.

Here’s the thing: Can you be a working class heroine with three homes, one of them a grace and favour apartment in Admiralty House, another an £800,000 flat on the seafront at Brighton (or Hove, actually, as an old Express hand who lived there used to say)?

Then there is her third home, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, which she might or might not own. She says she doesn’t any longer but her name is still on the deeds, according to the Land Registry, and she pays council tax on it.

It is her constituency home and she and her ex have put it in trust so that their three children will receive some of the equity. It has been valued at £650,000. By “remarkable coincidence”, according to a tax expert, this valuation was the threshold for inheritance tax, so Rayner avoided that.

By declaring that she has “disposed of her interest” in it, she saved £40,000 in stamp duty on the Hove flat, which is actually two flats knocked into one. She seems to have received advice from a wealth management company on this spider’s web of arrangements.

There is also confusion as to what is her primary residence for council tax purposes. Ashton-under-Lyne, she told Tameside council; while she told Brighton council the seafront property was her second home for council tax purposes.

Her living arrangements bring to mind that Churchill phrase: “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

This would all be ethically whiffy whoever was mixed up in it. But Rayner is Housing Minister.

She says she has done nothing wrong and there is no suggestion that she has broken any laws. But it’s not a good look, petal, as they might say in the Rovers.

Rayner is facing a barrage of incoming fire; from the Tories, of course, but also from Labour colleagues. They all call for transparency and an explanation.

Sir James Cleverly, former Home Secretary and Rayner’s opposite number in the Commons, said: “Labour are hitting people with more and more tax and saying everyone has to pay up.

“What Rayner has done looks like gross hypocrisy. She must be open and honest about what she has done and why.”

Cleverly might think Rayner is on the ropes and hope to move in for the kill in the Commons. He’d be foolish.

“Mr Speaker, would my Right Honourable Friend the Deputy Prime Minister explain to the House precisely where it is that she lives?”

Rayner rises to her full height and with a heave of her generous bosom channels her inner Bet. “Right,  Sir James Clever Dick. I’m not sure I like your tone. As for where I live, it’s nowt to do with you.

“And besides, there’s a court order. So, my brief says, to quote the great northern comedian Jim Bowen: ‘Tell ‘em nothing! Make ‘em buy a programme.’

“Maybe I should ask how many of you Tory lot are letting out your London pads and then claiming taxpayers’ cash to rent a place for themselves. Well? Speak up. Cat got yer tongue, ye daft ha’porth?”

Keir Starmer, Leonard Swindley to her Bet Lynch, supports her – for now.

“Angela is Deputy Prime Minister of this country, that’s an incredible achievement. Angela comes from a very humble background, battled all sorts of challenges along the way.”

There we go again, burnishing the working class credentials. The trouble is, the last vestiges of the authentic working class in this country don’t actually have jobs, let alone three homes and the opportunity to be pictured on Brighton beach sipping rosé with their mates.

I’ll give her three weeks.

*****

And another thing…

I wrote last week about how bosses at the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) chisel spectators out of the hefty sums they pay for tickets when a player comes into a match injured and then has to retire.

And that reminded me of the Great Sandwich Scam. You haven’t heard of it? Well, let me bring you up to date.

At the end of each season a tournament called the ATP finals features the eight leading players of the year who fight it out to be champion.

Until 2020, the contest was staged at the O2 in London and each year I would watch it with two old friends and fellow tennis fans, Rory Clements and Jon Zackon. We would bring our wives and go for dinner afterwards.

Then one year we turned up to find long queues at the turnstiles prompting bitter grumbling among those waiting to get in.

“What’s going on?” we asked.

“They’re searching everyone’s bags.”

Oh, no, we thought, it’s a bomb alert. But it turned out to be a butty alert.

Security guards were searching bags and frisking fans for sandwiches. Or crisps. Or anything that might resemble lunch.

It turned out that the concession stalls at the O2 were not making enough money because people like us were bringing their own lunch, foil-wrapped and accompanied by a packet of cheese and onion and a bottle of water.

So the ATP cracked down on these middle class cheapskates and confiscated all illicit sarnies and snacks in a bid to force them to pay through the nose at the O2 stalls.

That was it for us. No one messes with my cheese and pickle. We watched the afternoon’s play, had dinner and then went home… and never came back.

The tournament is now staged in Turin, Italy, where presumably the guards pat you down for paninis.

*****

I’ve just come across my new favourite joke, nestled in a book review in The Times and so good I can’t believe I haven’t found it sooner.

It is the Jewish telegram: “Start worrying. Details to follow.”

It overtakes my previous favourite: “The food here is terrible… and the portions are so small.”

RICHARD DISMORE

3 September 2025