Angela Rayner demanded my tax returns, now refuses to publish her own: ‘Nasty hypocrite!'

Angela Rayner has been blasted as a “nasty truth twister” and a “hypocrite” this morning, after further evidence emerged of her holding Tories to higher standards than herself.

Amid never-ending allegations she dodged Capital Gains Tax on her home, yet another example emerged of Ms Rayner demanding intimate tax details of Tory MPs, while refusing to publish her own.

In April 2020, Ms Rayner demanded that the then-Tory candidate for Hartlepool, Jill Mortimer, publish “in full her tax returns… in the interests of transparency”.

In a letter to the then-Tory chairman Amanda Milling, Ms Rayner wrote: “In the interests of transparency, will you now publish a full account of Jill Mortimer’s time in the Cayman Islands?

“Will you also order Jill Mortimer to publish in full her tax returns covering that period?”

Ms Rayner’s letter demanding tax details from Ms Mortimer

Ms Mortimer is now the fourth Tory Ms Rayner’s demanded to see the intimate tax details of, despite still refusing to publish her own.

This morning Ms Mortimer slammed Labour’s deputy leader as “a nasty aggressive twister of truths and a hypocrite!”

She said: “She is well suited to her position in Labour. All they ever do is try to mislead the public, take credit for others’ efforts and hide their own grubby secrets.”

The eventual Hartlepool by-election victor added that she had “nothing to hide” about her own taxes despite Ms Rayner’s 2020 insinuations.

Ms Mortimer’s husband was a financial regulator and moved to the Cayman Islands for work, rather than tax advantages.

Hartlepool By-election Count And Declaration

This fact was something Sir Keir Starmer was aware of at the time, given Ms Mortimer’s husband and the Labour leader went to university together.

Ms Mortimer said that Ms Rayner’s baseless allegations “caused my children and myself great distress for which I have never received an apology”, something she argues now compounds the hypocrisy of Mr Rayner’s current personal tax row.

Reacting to the renewed allegations of hypocrisy, fellow MP Jonathan Gullis highlighted shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s words this month, who said ms Rayner should not be “treated differently” to other colleagues regarding publishing her tax returns.

Ms Rayner has also previously called for intimate tax details from both Rishi Sunak, and Lord Cameron despite the Foreign Secretary not being a member of parliament at the time.

When Tory minister Nadhim Zahawi was embroiled in a tax row last year, Ms Rayner said: “If he’s lied and misled the public about his tax, his position is untenable.”

Confronted with this quote by the Express a fortnight ago, Sir Keir Starmer refused to say whether Ms Rayner’s position would be similarly untenable were it to emerge she had broken tax rules around the sale of her home.

Mr Zahawi’s former special advisor said: “This is the kind of classic hypocrisy from politicians that voters absolutely hate”.

James Price added: “Ms Rayner was happy to throw accusations around about my old boss, but it turns out that she has many questions to answer of her own.

“The big difference is that Zahawi led the world-leading vaccine rollout that saved lives, and then organised the Queen’s funeral; Ms Rayner’s main achievement seems to have been shouting ‘scum’ at her Tory opponents across the House of Commons.”

On Sunday shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy argued that his party’s deputy leader should be held to a different standard from the Prime Minister as “we’re not yet in Government”.

Angela Rayner was contacted via the Labour Party for comment.