Der Tory-Abgeordnete, der gegen Angela Rayner eine Polizeibeschwerde eingereicht hat, wird mit unangenehmen Fragen konfrontiert

The way Daly and Greg Hands were dealt with in interviews today and the complete mess they made of it, is making me think that this is about to fall apart from them.

Daly was asked a basic question about what he has actually alleged to the Police and what is it that he has asked them to investigate and he simply wouldn’t say. Whilst the details of the Police investigation itself should be kept confidential for obvious reasons, he wrote to them in his position as a representative of the UK Public, so it is entirely appropriate for him to say what it is he is complaining about.

I suspect, he is refusing to say for a number of reasons. Either the allegations are spurious, potentially actionable by Rayner or more likely, it is just that as they are weak and will disappear as soon as they touch the light of day, so is just trying to hide behind “oooh, the Police are involved woooohhhoooo.” Obviously, this is massively hypocritical give the Tories are howling that Rayner release info, but are now refusing to even say what they are upset about.

With Starmer’s comments about Rich men beating up on a working class woman seeming to land quite heavily with a lot of the press (given the questioning after PMQ’s on a variety of channels) then I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to turn negative for the Tories relatively rapidly.

*Having served for nine years as an MP I know how low politicians can stoop when their backs are against the wall. But the Conservative attack on Angela Rayner is one of the most grotesque spectacles of hypocrisy I’ve witnessed. On one side is a billionaire Tory peer, Lord Ashcroft, and a multi-millionaire Tory prime minister, Rishi Sunak, whose families have all avoided paying millions of pounds in UK tax as beneficiaries on Non-Dom status and who live in luxury. On the other is a woman who grew up in poverty, caring for her illiterate mother, who is now mother to a child who is registered blind, and through her own guts and character has risen to become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Even Rayners accusers accept that although she might have benefitted from the error that they allege, which she denies, is less than £3,000. I suppose that her attackers cannot bear the idea that they are about to lose to a woman who pulled herself up by her bootstraps and who is going to wipe the floor with them.*

– Nick Boles, **former Tory MP**, writing into The Times.