This weekend Labour hosts its party conference in power for the first time in 15 years. The great and the not-so-good of the labour movement is descending on Liverpool to eat, drink and debate the merits of mission-led government. Bottoms up chaps! Kicking off proceedings is Angela Rayner, tasked with appearing on the BBC’s flagship Laura Kuenssberg show to defend the government after a week of bad headlines.
So it was perhaps unfortunate then that the Deputy Prime Minister has found herself in her own brush with the press, on the eve of conference starting. The Sunday Times reports that she ‘appears’ to have breached parliamentary rules by failing to declare that a friend joined her on a ‘personal holiday’ funded by Lord Alli, the peer at the centre of the ‘passes for glasses’ scandal. Honestly, he’s like Macavity…
Rayner did not report to the authorities that Sam Tarry, the-then Ilford South MP, stayed with her at a $2.5 million apartment in Manhattan over the festive period. Tarry paid for his flights but benefited from Alli and Rayner’s free accommodation. The rules state that MPs must declare foreign trips which they, or anyone connected to them, undertake if a donor pays for ‘part or all’ of it as a result of their ‘parliamentary or political activities’. Rayner declared her own trip but not that Tarry was in attendance too, with her team apparently arguing that it did not need to be reported as ‘Alli did not know that he had been there with her.’ So that’s alright then eh?
The flat in question boasts a three-storey gym with a Jacuzzi, concierge service and panoramic views of Manhattan. Mr S hopes Rayner enjoyed her trip: it seems likely to be the last that any cabinet minister will enjoy at Lord Alli’s expense for the foreseeable future…
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