A bad day for Rayner and Badenoch shows why politics feels broken, writes Andrew Marr

We are talking obviously about the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who has admitted failing to pay enough stamp duty on her £800,000 flat in Hove.

Now, politics, as I keep saying, is also theatre. MPs love nothing more than a public hanging, and there was an air of excited anticipation in the comments at the beginning of Prime Minister‘s questions. Keir Starmer leaned over and patted his deputy on the shoulder, but that didn’t mean she was necessarily safe even in the short term. That happened only after the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch completely failed to nail her, bringing scattergun questions instead of a sniper rifle. To change the metaphor, she had an open goal and missed it again and again. Soon, the Prime Minister was so relaxed he was joking about Badenoch’s alleged place at Stanford University, and the hole she says she’s trying to dig the Tories out of.

It was a terrible outcome for the Conservative leader and it was her future, more than Rayner’s, that people were talking about afterwards.

But I haven’t answered my question about Angela Rayner: should she survive? A lot depends on the independent advisor on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus, to whom she has referred herself. She says she was given bad legal advice and made a mistake about which house was her main residence. Hmph. She is, after all, the cabinet minister in charge of housing.

To be fair, her personal circumstances have been difficult. Her story involves a divorce, a disabled child, and a new loving relationship that she values. In short, all the messiness of real life. She is asking not to be judged too harshly. I can sympathise – she’s a great British success story, with a tough background, storming into politics at the highest level, full of colour, vim, and chutzpah.

Trouble is, for so long Angela Rayner led attacks on the conservatives for sleaze and breaking the rules that there’s now a massive charge of hypocrisy. Think of millions of voters looking at this and turning away with a shudder of disgust. That’s what matters. It was a bad day for Kemi Badenoch. It was a bad day for Angela Rayner. But it’s been a terrible day for British politics.