Angela Rayner has paid “the correct duty owed” and is “in line with all relevant requirements”. That is the message the Government wants us to keep in mind . And it is an important one, though not for the reasons Labour thinks: when the stoutest defence made of a minister under scrutiny is that he or she has not done anything which breaks a rule or law, things are not going well .

Health minister Stephen Kinnock presumably thought he was helping when, during an interview on LBC , he came tentatively to Rayner’s defence: “My understanding in the statement from the Prime Minister’s office is that she’s done nothing wrong.”

Let us take a step back. The Deputy Prime Minister, who is also Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary, found herself in the headlines when it was re

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