With Sunak busy bolstering the UK-Germany defence partnership in Berlin, it was up to his deputy, Oliver Dowden, to take on “the right honourable landlady” at PMQs today.
Angela Rayner’s new nickname, acquired during a bruising battle of the deputies at the dispatch box, shows Dowden wasn’t about to miss an opportunity to attack Labour’s deputy leader over her living arrangements.
For those who have not been following, the 44 year-old is facing scrutiny over whether she should have paid capital gains tax on the sale of her former council house in Stockport, Greater Manchester in 2015. Rayner listed the property as her main residence, making it exempt from the tax, but media reports suggest she may have resided elsewhere. She maintains that she’s done nothing wrong, police are investigating.
Rayner entered the dispatch box today knowing full well that her tax affairs would be a ripe Tory line of attack. And she acted pre-emptively. Before Dowden even had a chance to bring it up, she acknowledged the awkward question of her council house sale: “I know this party opposite is desperate to talk about my living arrangements, but the public want to know what this government is going to do about theirs.”
Foregrounding the topic of housing allowed her to draw attention to a Tory weak spot – and to attack the government’s watered down Renters Reform Bill. While the Conservatives continue to “obsess” over her living arrangements, renters are none the wiser as to when no-fault evictions will be banned, said Rayner, demanding Dowden name a date. Doing so is overdue: ministers first promised to end no-fault evictions in 2019.
At this point, Dowden took the liberty to use a joke he clearly had stored up his sleeve. This is the fifth PMQs with Rayner in just 12 months, he observed. “Any more of these and she’ll be claiming [parliament] as her principal residence.”
As for no-fault evictions, Dowden declared he was confident that, with the Renters’ Reform Bill having just returned to the Commons, his party would deliver on the commitment to ban no-fault evictions today.
This proving an unfruitful line of attack, Rayner turned her attention to the government’s plan to end leaseholds. What is the point of a ban on new leaseholds if it doesn’t apply to flats, she asked. This exemption she added, means the leasehold ban “won’t apply to the majority of people… it’s like banning non-doms, but exempting Tory Prime Ministers”.
Here, Dowden’s response was weaker. He refused to answer the question directly, instead simply claiming that his party has delivered many more affordable homes than Labour did during its time in office over a decade ago.
Then back to his central jibe: Dowden mocked Rayner for her determination to repeal every single Conservative reform except for one: the Thatcherite right to buy your council house.
Council housing turned to a more general discussion of the dire financial state of Britain’s councils. But neither leader was about to accept any responsibility for the mess.
Rayner blamed government austerity politics for the black hole in council funding across the country while Dowden pointed to Labour’s botched handling of the local authorities they run. Labour-controlled Birmingham, he reminded her, has “hiked up council tax by 20 per cent” and “virtually bankrupted the council”. The public, he added, should vote Conservative if they want lower council taxes and more bins.
The session ended with a final punch from Rayner that will have endeared her to some of those sitting on Tory benches.
“Does he realise, when he stabbed Boris [Johnson] in the back to get his mate in No. 10 that he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?” Rayner asked.
Dowden is one of the 5ft7 PM’s most loyal allies. By resigning as Tory chair in June 2022, he helped to destabilise Johnson’s government, eventually paving the way for a Rishi premiership. So the accusation wasn’t unfounded.
But the “pint-sized loser” insult was a fitting reminder of why Rayner’s approach to politics draws criticism. Fortunately for the Labour deputy, height is yet to be branded a protected characteristic (don’t give the SNP any ideas). Nonetheless, poking fun at the PM for being short felt childish and petty.
When it came to inventive nicknames, Dowden was the clear winner. That said, during what could have been a pretty bruising half hour for Rayner, the right honourable landlady did a robust job of rebuffing attacks on her tax affairs.
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