Angela Rayner’s Hypocrisy
The Elephant in the Room with the Latest News
Opinion
Today’s Daily Rant: Angela Rayner and the Labour Party
By Dr. Emma Astra, Lived Experience Specialist, 3rd September 2025
So many headlines splashed across UK news today: Angela Rayner didn’t pay enough stamp duty on her property.
Further details emerged: she divorced her husband in 2023 and placed her disabled son’s property in a trust. It’s not officially hers, but she spends a lot of time there.
OMG. The media seems to think the hypocrisy lies in property wealth — that she can afford homes most people can’t.
But no. The real elephant in the room is two-fold. And it’s about disabled people — the part no one is talking about.
Remember David Cameron? The former Prime Minister who pushed through cuts to Personal Independence Payments and Disability Living Allowance — vital, non-means-tested support for disabled people.
Yet Cameron himself claimed Disability Living Allowance for his son. People called it hypocrisy, and they were right. Red flag then. Red flag now.
But it’s more than that. The red flag has crashed. One of the reasons we are living through what can only be described as a civil war, without formal recognition.
This culture of double standards has fuelled what many disabled rights groups describe as targeted hate against disabled people — and, disturbingly, the Labour Party has been part of that. Making Cameron’s previous PIP and DLA clampdowns look like child's play.
So today’s news about Angela Rayner doesn’t just raise property questions for me. My reaction was: “I didn’t know Angela Rayner’s son was disabled.”
I wonder: is she claiming Disability Living Allowance? What other forms of support is she claiming for him?
Because here’s the truth: if ordinary people like you or me put a disabled child’s home into a trust and kept living there, we would be accused of benefit fraud. We would have BBC cameras chasing us down for another episode of Claimed and Shamed.
Hypocrisy doesn’t even cover it.
At least with the Conservatives, people expected cruelty. But Labour — the party that once stood up for disabled people — has left many feeling betrayed.
This is exactly what I talked about in Music Memories: women being placed up front, who look as though they’ve “been there, done it” — yet act against every moral fibre of what they’ve championed, and against their own experiences and the beliefs of others.
Angela Rayner belongs to a Labour Party that has treated disabled people appallingly over the past year. Will she, too, push the “make work pay” narrative and send her own disabled son down the pits at 16? Will she repeat the tired, damaging trope that disabled people are spongers, when my research clearly shows they are not?
And now another question: the news reported she had disabled adaptations fitted in her home for her son. With most families waiting years for adaptations — myself included — how did she get them so quickly? Did she pay privately, or did she access a Disabled Facilities Grant, which so many across the country cannot?
She keeps repeating the need for “more homes” in the UK. Yet she says nothing about accessible homes. Britain has one of the lowest rates of accessible housing in Europe. Building them from the start would save an average of £30,000 per property later on.
Yet the irony is that she has a disabled son. And still — silence.
So my question remains: why is Angela Rayner not using her platform and lived experience to speak out on the crisis disabled people face? And above all, is she claiming or claimed any form of disability support for her son (and other children) from the government?
About the Author
Dr. Emma Astra is a Lived Experience Specialist, voluntary writer, and disability rights advocate. Drawing on her own journey with chronic illness and disability, she uses digital media and journalism to challenge stigma, expose hypocrisy, and amplify disabled voices. Her doctoral thesis, The Diary of a Disabled PhD Student, explores how storytelling can shift public understanding of disability. More at www.linktr.ee/emmaastra
Originally published in Medium, 3rd September 2025.
References
BBC News: Families waiting years for home adaptations
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2kq5zk3zn8oBBC Programme: Claimed and Shamed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bkj8nCentre for Ageing Better: Accessible home opportunity
https://ageing-better.org.uk/news/people-deprived-accessible-home-opportunityChannel 4 News: Disabled home adaptations problems
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=928654145918156David Cameron claiming DLA for son
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/how_much_dla_did_david_cameron_rDisability News Service: John Pring’s reporting
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-activists-and-unions-come-together-to-fight-threatened-cuts-to-benefits-in-labours-first-budget/Doctoral Thesis: The Diary of a Disabled PhD Student: Sharing Lived Experience of Chronic Illness and Disability Using Digital Media and Journalism
https://doi.org/10.25392/leicester.data.28730849Guardian: ‘PIP cuts will ruin disabled people’s lives. This is Labour’s poll tax moment’
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/21/pip-cuts-will-ruin-disabled-peoples-lives-this-is-labours-poll-tax-momentMedium article: Keeping it Real Music Memories (New Literary Society)
https://medium.com/new-literary-society/keeping-it-real-music-memories-143ebea82096Sky News: Angela Rayner admits she should have paid more stamp duty
https://news.sky.com/video/angela-rayner-admits-she-should-have-paid-more-stamp-duty-on-flat-purchase-and-considered-resigning-13424209
