The saga over Angela Rayner’s finances took a new twist today, when it was alleged that she failed to declare the income from a series of TV ads she made in the 1990s.
The ads, for a popular brand of teabags, featured Rayner and a small puppet called “monkeh” living together in a house in the north of England.
Rayner issued a statement today saying that the house was wholly owned by monkeh, who advised her that living there rent-free didn’t constitute a benefit-in-kind she needed to declare.
Asked whether she should really have taken financial advice from a monkey puppet, Rayner replied that the only alternative was Diane Abbott, “so it seemed the lesser of two evils, really”.
Small, hairy and with the ability to recognise a few simple words, Angela Rayner is Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.