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Hello, this is Mark Austin sitting in on this Sky News Daily. On this episode, Angela Reina, the woman who could be Deputy Prime Minister by the end of the year, and those questions about her tax affairs. We'll explain what's being claimed, at least, about her apparently failing to pay capital gains tax on a house sale almost a decade ago. She insists she's taken expert advice, which shows that she's done nothing wrong. But also, we'll ask if this is something that's really in the public interest, or is it more of a smear, as her labor colleague, David Lammey, has claimed. We'll also look at how important Angela Reina is to labor as election ambitions with polling expert, Scarlett Maguire. But let's start with Sky News political correspondent, Rob Powell. Rob, help us out here. It's quite complicated. What What is she meant to have done? How much money is at stake? What's involved?

The detail is complicated, but actually the broad premise of the story is a classic of the genre over honesty and whether Angela Reina has been telling the truth about her living arrangements a decade ago. The revelations, the allegations were first made in a book, an unauthorized biography of Angela Reina, published by the former conservative donor anyway, Lord Ashcroft, a couple of months ago. What he is alleging is that she had property in Greater Manchester that she bought under Right to Buy. It was an ex-council house, and then she sold it and made some money from that sale. Now, that's perfectly legitimate, but if it's not your main residence, then you have to pay capital gains tax because it's seen as an investment. This is where the complicating factor basically comes in because in the years running up to that sale, her husband had lived in the broader area as well with her The allegation essentially that is being made is that while she was saying that this property that she owned was her main residence, actually her main residence was her husband's home a short distance away, and she had been living there, but had essentially told the taxman that the other property was her main residence.

Now, this may be irrelevant because, and this is where we get deep into the weeds of tax law, which I don't really want to do. If you're in a couple, you can declare that one of your homes is your primary residence. It's irrelevant whether you're actually living there or not. As long as you're not renting it out, you are able to do this. The difficulty is Angela Reina's response is saying, Look, this is my main residence. I live there. I sold it. It's lots of people do. This is all a smear. The Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday have been doing a lot of digging through social media posts, essentially trying to prove that statement from Angela Reina wrong.

Her answer to what you have just been outlining is nothing to see here. Well, in fact, it's more than nothing to see here. It's nothing to see here. And by the way, I took tax advice and the tax advisor said, nothing to see here.

Yeah, it is that I've consulted with a tax advisor, a tax lawyer. I've got a piece of paper that says that this is all completely legit, but I'm not going to publish that because, as she says, she doesn't think that politicians should have to publish personal tax advice like this. She says her team have seen it, that Sakeer Starmer's team have seen it, even though Sakeer Starmer hasn't, that this is all completely legitimate and essentially this is a smear campaign being drummed up by the right wing press.

How much pressure... I mean, the Daily Mail of Now, as you said, have been digging through, what is it, 10 years or so of socials and social media and have found this, I've just got home to the dogs and happy to be home. That home doesn't seem to be the home that she originally bought.

Yeah, they've been picking out cushions on the sofa and matching it up with other photos from that house to try and show that at this point that she wasn't living in this home that she had bought individually. She was living with her husband and her children. There's also been some work looking at property advertisements posted online and the appearances of rooms and the garden being overgrown, essentially trying to reach a conclusion about whether this place looked like it had been her main residence in the run up to her selling it. What's causing, I think, political harm for Angela Reina on this is not necessarily the nuts and bolts of the story. It's difficult to know how much capital gains tax might be paid if these stories are correct, but it's not big numbers. You're talking about the £1,500, maybe up to £3,000, but it's so complicated if she'd done lots of renovations to the place, then it might be nothing. It's not really about that. It is about what she has said and whether she's telling the truth. I think what doesn't help Angela Reina in this is that she is someone that goes on the offensive against conservative politicians over misdemeanors.

She got into a lot of trouble for calling Tori scum once, something she apologized for. I think what goes through a lot of people's heads when they think about this story is, if this was a conservative minister that had legitimate questions hanging over the honesty and the transparency of comments they've been making. Would Angela Reina be out there for labor, demanding maximum transparency and that they clear all this stuff up?

On investigations into this, so where What are we on all that?

Greater Manchester police decided not to investigate, but then they said that they were reviewing that decision after senior conservative figures, I think it was the Deputy Chairman of the Party, essentially appealed for them to reinvestigate it. To complicate it further, what the police What they're looking in for is slightly it would be looking into, and they're not investigating this, but what they would be looking into and what Tories are urging them to look into is slightly different. It's about whether Angela Reina has broken electoral law, about whether she had registered on the electoral register at her primary address, because if she had registered at the address in Stockport that she bought and she wasn't living there, that wasn't a primary address, then the allegation from the conservative side is that she may have broken electoral law. That is what Tories want the police to look into, which is, again, a little bit separate.

Thanks, Rob. We'll hear more from you later in the podcast. I'm joined now by Scarlett Maguire, Director of Polster's JL Partners. Scarlett, first of all, how do you think it cuts It's cut through. The Daily Mail are driving it, it seems to me, more than anybody else.

Just in terms of focus groups and things coming up relatively organically, when you ask people about their views of individual politicians, this has not really cut through yet. That might be because it's not getting wider pickup elsewhere. It might be because it's not a particularly catchy scandal. It's quite hard, if it is a scandal, it's quite hard to explain. I think, though, there might be a slight caveat in that this was the case with that beergate, Kirstalma in Durham during the pandemic. Actually, that didn't cut through right up until the point that it did. Despite the fact that it was cleared by police, we still have people bringing up in focus groups years later, actually, as an example of how all politicians are just the same and just as bad as each other.

If it does start to cut through, Scarlett, how difficult would it be for Labor? How important is she to Keir Starmer?

Angela Reina is an interesting figure, I think, within the Labor Party. She's better known than a lot of the shadow cabinets, so that's a pretty low That's to be expected. Normally, opposition politicians, especially when they've been out of government for so long, you wouldn't expect them to have particularly high name recognition. But she's up there. I mean, some polls have her as better known even than Rachel Reeves. But regardless, she is Keir Starmer, Ed Miller Band. Rachel Reeves and Angela Reina tend to be the figures that people have actually heard of and know a little bit about. She's also actually quite a divisive figure. We find that she's better liked by people, but also more disliked. Especially, actually, if you think about what the labor strategy has been or what it seems to have been from the outside over the last 18 months, which is less appealing to its core vote, thinking they'll swing behind it anyway to get the government out, more in trying to win over or at least not scare people who voted conservative in 2019. She's actually very unpopular with those voters from polling data anyway. She's been quite out of the spotlight.

She's not been doing many media appearances over the last few months, even before this came into the headlines. That maybe potentially explains why, because she's not appealing to the voters that Labor are particularly interested in targeting at the moment.

It said she fulfills a similar role to John Presket for Tony Blair. Is that right?

Yeah, I think there is something to be said for that. People tend to have some of the similar criticisms about Keir Starmer, or rather, their criticisms are very similar. It tends to be that he doesn't know what he stands for. He's just like another politician not really saying anything triangulating too much to try and work out what voters think rather than just saying it as it is. Angela Reina is not viewed like that. A lot of people do say, and actually in focus groups, some people will say, I just wish Keir Starmer was a lot more like Angela Reina and just said what he thought, and then we'd know where he stand. I think we should see more of Angela Reina. But for every person that says that, there's normally someone else in the focus group that rolls their eyes and say, Oh, no, can't stand her. Please get her off the radio. You can see why they're treading cautiously. But I do think someone like Angela Reina can act as a good foil from some of Keir Starmer's blandness, or at least his perception of blandness, anyway.

You spoke about Beergate and how that eventually did start to register with the voters. What would it take, do you think, for this to be a story that the voters start to notice?

I think that's a difficult question, partly because voters, despite the fact that it's an election year, are actually pretty tuned out. More and more people that we speak to say they actually have just stopped engaging with news. They find it too depressing, especially with politics, actually. But there's quite a lot of apathy. Actually, it's harder, I think, to register things with voters. That applies to the conservative Party. We've seen that hurt them. There's nothing that Richie Sunak can really say which seems to land with voters. But it also, I think, applies for something like this. I think a lot of the time it's met with a eye roll. People have quite low expectations of politicians anyway. Trust in them is a historic low, at least in terms of recent history. They just add this to thinking, Oh, well, they're all pretty bad. They're all in it for themselves. Move on next, please.

When it comes to these seats that they lost in 2019, is she quite key in getting them back, do you think?

No, I actually don't think she is necessarily. Again, when we talk about her appeal, it's interesting because she is, say, more popular actually with certain demographics than quite a lot of other labor front ventures. Problem is she's also quite significantly more unpopular. It looks like she might be, with those voters, potentially more of a liability than an asset. That must change how they're thinking about her. Again, she's not actually, despite the fact as you quite rightly say, they're standing by her at the moment, they've not been putting her front and center very much, especially for someone like a deputy prime minister you think might be out and about on the airwaves a bit more.

What is her value then, do you think?

I think her value is that she comes from the trade union movement I think she's seen to be standing up for worker's rights. I think she is seen to be speaking for a group of people that potentially are otherwise unrepresented. Again, I think there is a value in having someone that is more obviously from a working class background Something that is something that criticism, again, that Kierstammer gets quite a lot in focus groups anyway, is that he's posh. Part of that is because of the title. But other part of that is also because he presents quite a lot of other politicians in suits and people assume certain things about his background and his education, which they just don't assume about Angela Reina's.

What's your sense about how it will play out? I mean, the Daily Mail, they're not giving up, are they? That's for certain. I mean, they've got this stuff about the social media posts and I'm getting to the dogs and I've just got home and so forth. I mean, they're not letting up, are they?

Yeah, it does look like they won't let Labor to get this one or move past this one. But again, if nothing comes out that more concretely proves that there is something saying fraudulent going on there or whatever it may be. I think it's quite hard to see how this properly sticks, but let's see what we get into. We've also seen, I think, a labor operation which is not particularly agile, which is quite prone to making mistakes. So potentially, if they're They're put under enough pressure, they might have an own goal and mess it up on their own terms. But let's see what happens.

How will that look in an election year? As we get closer to the election, do you think that voters will see it in a different light to how they're seeing it now.

I mean, they could potentially, as they start paying more attention to the news cycle and the election cycle. We do find that people tend to tune in as soon as a campaign goes off, then people can actually start paying more attention. Partly that's because you have manifestos, you have actual things on the table. It may be that it changes them. But I think as things stand, I'd be slightly skeptical. But again, anything could happen.

Absolutely, Scarlett. Thank you very much. Okay, let's pause there. We'll be back after the break with more analysis on how Angela Reina might ride this out. Let's just talk about the politics of all this then and have a listen to what Keir Starmer is saying.

Angela Reina has been asked no end of questions about about this. She's answered them all. She said she's very happy to answer any further questions from the police or from any of the authorities. I don't need to see the legal advice. My team has seen it. But I will say this, that on the day that the ANE figures, people waiting more than 24 hours in ANE, we now know that they are 10 times as high as they were five years ago. The idea that the Tories want to be focusing on more Andrea Reina, how much time she spent with her ex-husband 10 years ago, I can tell you here at this hospital, nobody but nobody is interested in that. They're very, very interested in what are you going to do about the ANA problem caused by this government.

Okay, Rob Powell. That's what Keir Starmer is saying about it. How do you think this will play out? We've had David Lammy on the political programs basically saying, well, defending Angela Reina and saying that he's confident that she's done nothing wrong. He's not saying, well, it's up to Angela, these are her affairs. This is a pretty stout defense.

But the thing is, the defense from Labor hasn't really changed over the last two months since this story first broke. It's right from the beginning being she took tax advice, she did nothing wrong, she's confident about that, but we're not publishing it because we don't think we need to. That hasn't been enough so far to shut this story down. I think we will highly likely see more stories of the type we've had this weekend, especially, I think, in newspapers. They're like a dog with a bone when they get stories like and they feel that there's more and more and more. I think they will keep pushing unless there is something that really can shut it down. More and more, you're finding that journalists, reporters are treating labor like they're a government in waiting now in terms of ramping up the scrutiny on them. I think as we get When we get close to the general election, there's inevitably going to be more stories of this nature, or the scrutiny of policy is going to ramp up as well. What really matters is how the labor machine handles that, whether it can shut this stuff down before before it starts to spiral and take political chunks out of them.

So far for this story, they haven't been able to do that. Right.

How they handle it going forward will depend on whether there's anything else coming out in the papers and whether, presumably, the police do decide to investigate.

I think if the police launched an investigation, then that's a real headache for labor. I think you can point at other examples, the scandal over the Rochdale candidate, Azar Ali, when comments around the war in Gaza were reported after the nominations had closed. Labor initially stood by him when it seemed pretty clear to a lot of people that actually eventually they would have to disown their candidate. It took Labor quite a long time to get to that point of disowning him. In that intervening period, a lot of political damage was done, which is why I think all of this put together leads to bigger systemic questions over strategic decision making in labor, how to close something down before it can really take chunks of you. This might not matter so much now because the eyes of the electorate maybe aren't paying close attention to every nuance and twist and turn of stories like this. But when we get into a general election and people are paying attention, stories like this can escalate in a spiral. If you haven't got an effective machine at Labor HQ that's able to shut it down before it really turns into a bay of moss that eats the whole party, that's when it can get really difficult.

But sometimes a political figure comes along who is so important to a lead that the leader decides, I really do not want to lose this person. Do you think that could ever reach that stage with Angela Reina and Kierstam?

I think, yeah. I mean, Sir Kirstama, I think we'll want to do everything possible not to lose Angela Reina because I think she fills in a lot of the gaps politically that he has. There are those Blair Prescott parallels. You've got Sakeer Starmer, who is the more loyally formal politician, and then you've got the more outspoken deputy there. The other part of this is how it plays out within the party as well. A few years ago now, Sakeer Starmer attempted a reshuffle in which he initially tried to demote Angela Reina. It didn't quite happen. She pushed back. There was a degree of outrage within the party towards it, and she ended up essentially getting a better job. If he was to cut Angela Reina loose or force her out at this point, which I don't think he bluntly will want to do everything he possibly can to avoid that, then it potentially stores up more problems further down the line, because I think when you're looking at rivals for the throne within labor, Angela Reina is probably one of them with her own support base within the party. I think he will want to try and keep her as close as possible.

That's all for today. My thanks to Scarlett and to Rob. Neil Patterson will be back tomorrow.