NADINE DORRIES: Angela Rayner’s hypocrisy has been uncovered

Over the years I’ve turn into accustomed to the query: ‘You come from a council estate in Liverpool, so why aren’t you a Labour MP?’

My reply is at all times the identical. I’m a Tory MP due to Margaret Thatcher. In 1980, in what turned a defining emblem of Thatcherism, she gave 5 million council home tenants in England and Wales the precise to purchase their home — at a reduction — from their native authority.

With zero effort I can determine that single coverage as being accountable for the particular person I’m immediately. It was a hand reaching out to assist haul my household and numerous others up the ladder.

To personal your individual house was to have a stable stake in society. It unleashed aspiration. From having been a toddler who’d needed to borrow footwear to attend college and who typically didn’t sleep as a result of I used to be hungry, our lives have been remodeled to somebody who was aspirational, who had shaken off the disgrace and stigma of poverty: we have been house house owners and all of a sudden, something was attainable.

Angela Rayner little question felt the identical when, in 2007, she purchased an ex-council home in Stockport, Greater Manchester, underneath the right-to-buy scheme.

Indeed, she mentioned as a lot in a social media put up this weekend when she described it as a ‘proud’ second after she ‘worked hard, saved and bought it by the book…’ And all credit score to the Deputy Labour Leader for that.

It’s what occurred subsequent that turns into a bit murky. As The Mail on Sunday has revealed, she offered the property in Vicarage Road eight years later, making a revenue of £48,500. However, it’s the place Angela was residing from 2010 — the yr of her marriage to Mark Rayner — that’s shrouded in confusion. She is registered on the electoral roll at Vicarage Road from 2005-2015 — however Mr Rayner was registered a mile away in Lowndes Lane, which is the place the births of their two kids have been registered.

Neighbours declare Angela moved out of Vicarage Road into Lowndes Lane when she married.

I feel it’s solely honest to ask what was occurring with the obvious discrepancies within the electoral roll registration at the moment.

And who, if anybody, was residing at Vicarage Road between 2010 and 2015 when she offered the property? (Under right-to-buy guidelines, any former tenant who sells inside 5 years of buying the property should repay a few of the low cost they benefited from.)

Angela Rayner’s response to those authentic questions is to cry class conflict. Well, I’ll take no lectures or sob tales from her as a result of I can see straight via the smoke display screen she’s trying to create by attacking these exposing her hypocrisy.

Only final yr, she introduced that the right-to-buy coverage needs to be reviewed so that council home tenants would now not get ‘loads of discount to purchase new homes’. A reduction, in fact, that she benefited from.

What she ought to have mentioned was that the coverage should be reviewed in order that housing affiliation tenants who aren’t capable of purchase their very own houses could have the identical advantages she loved.

Because let me clarify to you what proper to purchase appears like on a poor avenue earlier than individuals are given the possibility to turn into kings or queens of their very own castles.

Back on our property, entrance gardens have been divided by packing instances and previous tea chests. Every entrance door was painted the identical color. Litter and canine grime coated the pavements.

Once the coverage kicked in, sensible fencing changed packing instances, entrance doorways have been painted in various colors as every proprietor expressed their individuality, flowers have been planted and the streets have been infinitely cleaner.

I’ll say it once more: the possibility to personal your individual house could be a game-changer and it made each Angela Rayner and me who we’re.

She ought to stop complaining in regards to the scrutiny she’s underneath — it goes with the territory — and begin selling insurance policies that may enable extra individuals to entry what she and her household benefited from.

Have Tory MPs no understanding of the chaos that would ensue as they plot to take away the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle?

Those pondering of becoming a member of the revolt following final week’s parliamentary debacle over the Gaza vote ought to perform a little analysis into Speakers of the previous.

‘Showboat Bercow’ anybody? Michael Martin, his status for ever tarnished by his dealing with of the bills scandal?

History will present that in Speaker Hoyle, they’ve , honest and trustworthy man. A time certainly to watch out what you want for.

Depressing information that 29 pubs per week are closing to turn into supermarkets, takeaways and DIY shops. It’s greater than only a signal of the instances; post-pandemic, individuals are extra inclined to sink a number of pints or a glass of wine at house. But it additionally factors to the accelerating breakdown of neighborhood and social cohesion.

A well-run pub is way over a boozer and there’s purpose King Charles has been a supporter of the Pub Is The Hub initiative for many years.

A pub is a neighborhood point of interest, particularly in rural areas: a spot the place individuals come collectively to get pleasure from quiz nights and darts leagues, maybe the companies of a neighborhood store, a venue for a neighborhood cinema or library, kids’s play areas or the HQ of native volunteering networks. It is a bulwark in opposition to the isolation that many, significantly the aged, expertise.

If you haven’t visited your native for some time — on the town or nation — do them a favour and pop in. It’s not simply the pubs we’re shedding, it’s our distinctive tradition and lifestyle.

I’m dreading shopping for Easter eggs this yr. Not solely have they altered past all recognition from what I purchased for my kids — a decent-sized chocolate egg with a deal with inside — however the price is such that some supermarkets are security-tagging them.

As for the treats — now it’s measly sized packets wrapped in plastic on the skin. And don’t even get me began on the value of only one Cadbury Creme Egg or a packet of their Mini Eggs…

Bridget Jones is again! The fourth film charting the ups and downs of Helen Fielding’s heroine begins filming in London in May. Whether you’re a fan or not, Bridget is a nationwide treasure that each lady of a sure age will likely be rooting for (Generation Z is much less impressed together with her obsession together with her weight and love life, apparently).

Which bought me pondering as I mulled over the purple carpet footage yesterday from the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday. Margot ‘Barbie’ Robbie regarded mildly ridiculous in black Schiaparelli couture with a billowing pink cover cascading from one shoulder, whereas Jennifer Aniston in a relatively easy shift was the epitome of understated fashion. When you’ve bought it, you don’t must flaunt it.

Rumours are swirling across the diamond ring Jen was sporting on her left hand. Don’t all of us want that someday she’ll get her personal Bridget Jones glad ending with a Mark Darcy?

Last week, I flew ‘back home’, to a rural a part of County Mayo in Ireland for the funeral of a much-loved uncle who was 96. I used to be deeply moved by the stream of individuals turning as much as the home to pay their respects over the 2 days he lay within the entrance room in an open casket.

And on the evening earlier than his funeral, nearly the complete village turned out to escort his coffin the mile from his home to the church as his final want was granted — to spend an evening alone with God.

We left him surrounded by candlelight with the distant sound of the river the place he’d fished and the place I’d helped internet salmon once I was a only a lady.

My uncle labored arduous each day of his life and at all times outside. He was nonetheless bashing in fence posts and herding sheep in his 90s. Simple meals, contemporary air, trustworthy labour, religion, kindness and a boundless generosity have been the staples of his lengthy life.

The requiem mass befell the next morning. The rain was heavy and the wind fierce. Just because the priest started to talk, the clouds parted and vivid daylight flooded via the stained-glass home windows to light up the now closed coffin.

‘That’s his first-class ticket to heaven,’ mentioned the priest.

Landing again within the UK, to the crowds and grim information and the day-to-day trials and tribulations that beset us all on our personal crowded island, I discovered myself longing to return.

‘You’d be bored stiff in 5 minutes,’ mentioned my daughter. Probably, however then once more…

Today’s Literary Gem

There are three issues on this planet that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.

Frederick William Robertson, Anglican clergyman (1816-1853)