Good morning. Keir Starmer does not want to lose Angela Rayner, and his defence of her in the Commons yesterday was a lot more robust than usual for a PM commenting on a minister who has self-referred to the ethics adviser, but Starmer does not have total control over what is going to happen. Quite a lot of the facts are not in the public domain and may not be known to Starmer himself (mainly - what exactly was the tax advice Rayner had that led her to think she did not need to pay a higher rate of stamp duty, and how much had Rayner disclosed to these advisers?), and although in theory Starmer can ignore a recommendation from Sir Laurie Magnus, the ethics adviser investigating Rayner, there is a chance Magnus could come up with conclusions that make resignation inevitable.
Here is our overnight story about Rayner's plight.
Magnus is expected to report soonish - within days, rather than weeks - but until he does the government will be in limbo.
There are various new developments in the story this morning, but none that dramatically alter Rayner's survival prospects. Here are the key points.
My understanding is that whilst Angela Rayner had received some advice on Monday, it was definitively given to her on Wednesday that she had made a mistake in terms of the amount of stamp duty that she had paid on the purchase. So that was on Wednesday, but there were limitations in what she could discuss and disclose, including with others and including in public, until that court order [a court order saying she could not discuss details of the trust set up for her disabled son, which affected her stamp duty liability] had been lifted on Tuesday.
In another interview, on Sky News, Phillipson said that Rayner received the "original version" of this legal advice on Monday, but that it "wasn't later clarified until the Wednesday".
Phillipson has not said when Starmer was first told Rayner may have underpaid her stamp duty, but Jason Groves from the Daily Mail thinks the PM would have been alerted to this on Monday. Commenting on the Phillipson inteviews, Groves said:
Given this timeline, it seems very likely that Starmer knew Rayner had failed to pay her taxes in full when he defended her in public on Monday afternoon and said her critics were making 'a mistake'
It is understood the deputy prime minister consulted one individual experienced in conveyancing and two experts on the law around trusts before the purchase.
However, it is unclear if any of those people were experts in complex tax law and it is not known if they knew about the full details of the trust which was set up to help fund care for her son.
Why did [Rayner], or her representatives, not take the necessary steps to check with HMRC on whether second homes stamp duty was actually payable. This was 'careless' at best, and did not meet her requirement to act responsibly."
There are legitimate questions on whether Ms Rayner could have afforded the property if she had been liable for the additional £40,000 in second homes stamp duty, on top of the £30,0000 standard stamp duty and the £150,000 downpayment towards the Hove flat.
This then raises the question whether the tax evasion was deliberate, to try to get away with minimising her upfront costs so she could afford her £650,000 Natwest mortgage (which is likely to cost in the region £4,000 a month to service).
Hollinrake also says it should have been obvious to Rayner that she did have to pay the higher rate.
There will be more on this as the day goes on. But it won't just be Rayner. Here is the agenda for the day.
- 9am: John Swinney, Scotland's first minister, gives a speech on Scottish independence.
- Morning: Keir Starmer participates virtually in a meeting of the "Coalition of the Willing", the European countries offering to guarantee Ukraine's security in the event of a ceasefire.
- Morning: Starmer visits a shipyard in Glasgow to promote the benefits to Scotland of the government's deal with Norway to build warships.
- 11am: Peter Kyle, the science secretary, speaks at the Universities UK conference.
- 11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
- Late morning: Members of the Stormont executive hold a press conference to give their response to the racist attacks that have taken place in Northern Ireland over the summer.
- Afternoon: John Healey, the defence secretary, holds a press conference in Norway with his Norwegian counterpart after the signing of the warships deal.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can't read all the messages BTL, but if you put "Andrew" in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there; I still have my account; and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow , I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can't promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can either BTL or sometimes in the blog.