In the end, says Annabel Denham in The Daily Telegraph, Angela Rayner had to go. The now-former deputy prime minister has spent years pillorying tax avoiders and calling for higher levies on those with the “broadest shoulders”. For her to be caught dodging taxes herself, falsely claiming she had been wrongly advised on the need to pay a stamp duty surcharge, is unforgivable. Ordinary Britons are forever being “ruthlessly penalised” for minor infractions: a £160 fine for accidentally entering a bus lane; a £180 charge for missing the 24-hour Congestion Charge window. “There is no leeway, no room for error, no mercy.” The same should obviously apply to the elite’s own “dodgy dealings”.

How bad is this for Keir Starmer? asks Andrew Marr in The New Statesman. “Very bad.” Rayner’s departure opens the prospect of a “full-on political war” inside the Labour Party between the soft left and the Blairites. The former believe the party should be more generous on welfare, introduce higher taxes on the rich and take a more aggressive stance on Israel. The latter – who remain “closely in touch” with Tony himself – want to focus on curbing migration and think the workers’ rights agenda will hold back employment and growth. Until now, the debate between these two factions has largely rumbled away underground, “sotto voce”, away from the public glare. Starmer’s nightmare now is that the deputy leadership race brings all this out into the open, creating a “multi-episode drama of ‘what Keir’s got wrong’”.

⚖️🥊 The other question is how Rayner acts on the backbenches, says John Oxley in UnHerd. She remains popular with the party’s base and could well become a “focal point” for opposition to the PM, particularly on issues like benefits cuts and public spending. For Starmer, she played the role of a “useful counterweight”. Resetting the balance will not be easy.

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