The backgrounds of Angela Rayner and Sir Laurie Magnus – the sleaze watchdog who holds her destiny in his fingers – could not be extra totally different.
Labour’s “Red Queen” is a working-class council home woman who bought pregnant at 16. He is an previous Etonian “quango king”, a Metropolis grandee and a pillar of the institution.
He is so posh he wasn’t awarded his knighthood within the standard manner by the Monarch after being nominated by 10 Downing Road. He is a baronet whose title is hereditary.
However although Sir Laurie’s a correct toff, he is no pushover and he would not waste time. In 2023 his investigation into former Tory minister Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs took simply six days.
Sir Laurie concluded that Mr Zahawi’s conduct had fallen under what was anticipated from a minister. So the then PM Rishi Sunak sacked him for a “serious breach of the ministerial code”.
This yr, Labour minister Tulip Siddiq give up after Sir Laurie stated she ought to have been extra alert to “potential reputational risks” of ties to her aunt in an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh.
That inquiry took eight days, so would possibly Sir Laurie’s Angela Rayner probe take a few week? Maybe, although it has been steered he is on account of go on vacation on Saturday. So might his report come earlier than then?
Sir Laurie was appointed by Mr Sunak greater than eight weeks after he turned PM. On the time, there have been claims that he was struggling to discover a candidate.
That was as a result of the 2 earlier holders of the publish, veteran mandarin Sir Alex Allan and former Royal courtier Sir Christopher Geidt, each give up after disagreements with Boris Johnson.
Sir Alex give up in 2020 after discovering former residence secretary Priti Patel responsible of bullying. However then Mr Johnson declared that she had not breached the ministerial code.
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7:19
Angela Rayner admitted to Beth Rigby that she did not pay sufficient tax on a property she purchased in Hove.
Sir Christopher, a former personal secretary to the Queen, give up in June 2022 after concluding Mr Johnson might have damaged ministerial guidelines over party-gate.
So Mr Sunak turned to Sir Laurie, a former service provider banker who served on half a dozen quangos and whose lengthy enterprise profession concerned hyperlinks with disgraced retail tycoon Sir Philip Inexperienced and the late tycoon Robert Maxwell.
There was instantly controversy as a result of Mr Sunak refused to offer Sir Laurie the facility to launch his personal investigations into allegations or ministerial wrong-doing. That modified when Sir Keir Starmer turned PM final yr.
However earlier than then, Sir Laurie could not launch his personal inquiry into the conduct of Dominic Raab over bullying allegations or Suella Braverman over claims of leaking and ignoring authorized recommendation over asylum.
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2:26
Sky’s Paul Kelso breaks down the info behind Angela Rayner’s stamp obligation controversy.
The function of unbiased adviser on ministerial requirements, to offer Sir Laurie his official title, was created by Tony Blair in 2006. Ministers can refer themselves for investigation, as Tulip Siddiq and Angela Rayner each did.
Sir Laurence Henry Philip Magnus, third Baronet is the third in a baronetcy that dates again to 1917, when it was awarded to an ancestor who represented London College within the Home of Commons.
His quango CV consists of the chairmanship of Historic England, a former trustee of the conservation charity the Landmark Belief, ex-chair of the Nationwide Belief, membership of the Tradition Restoration Fund, a trustee of English Heritage Belief and deputy chair of the All Church buildings Belief.
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2:32
Has Rayner tax points thrown uncertainty over the Starmer venture?
As Historic England boss, Sir Laurie entered the row over the tearing down of the statue of slave dealer Edward Colston in Bristol, claiming such statues shouldn’t be eliminated however have “counter-memorials” positioned alongside them.
In addition to his quango roles, Sir Laurie stays a significant determine within the Metropolis, as a senior adviser at funding banking group Evercore and chairing two FTSE 250 listed funding trusts.
Which implies that the category divide between the previous Etonian Metropolis grandee and the previous store steward and champion of employees’ rights whose destiny is in his fingers could not be larger.
