'Mega-rich Tory Nadhim Zahawi just has lofty tax ideals - don't ask questions'

21 January 2023 , 18:31

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Nadhim Zahawi in Downing Street (Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)

Nadhim Zahawi was the chancellor of this country, in charge of all our money. And now he’s proved why he was given the job.

­Because he is so careful with money that he’s had to pay an undisclosed sum of “millions of pounds” in tax after a review by the Inland Revenue.

It’s like the Minister of Defence being caught stealing Hampshire and handing it to Russia.

Maybe he thought that as he was chancellor, his job was to take all the country’s money personally and keep it in his loft.

The Prime Minister said there were no questions to answer as Zahawi has now “addressed the matter in full”.

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This is an exciting new liberal approach to the law – that it’s alright to try and swipe millions of pounds as long as you hand it back if you’re caught.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (James Maloney/Lancs Live)

I’ll try the same thing. I’ll wander into an art gallery and crowbar a Van Gogh painting off the wall. If I’m caught, I’ll hand it back and say there are no ­questions to answer.

Zahawi was the ideal person to be chancellor as he was amazing at raising money. He once claimed £5,822, as MP’s expenses, towards the cost of heating the stables at his house.

This seems fair, as we can all agree that, in the current climate, if there is any spare money around the best way to spend it is on keeping a multi-millionaire’s horses warm.

Maybe Zahawi suffers from a condition that makes him think he doesn’t have to pay for anything. Next week we’ll find out he has been fined by Southern Trains. He won’t just have travelled without a ticket, he’ll have climbed in the front and driven the train to Eastbourne, then taken all the cushions out of first class to keep his horses warm.

This government says it’s determined to clamp down on tax fraud, so Nadhim Zahawi will announce soon: “We need a strong Conservative government, led by people like me, so that we can finally deal firmly and decisively with scum like me.”

But the tax issue is easily explained. It seems it was owed on the profits from Zahawi’s YouGov company, from when it was “worth £20million, held and sold by a Gibraltar-based firm, eventually owned by his parents”.

These tax-avoidance stories always seem to go like this.

So you hear a report that says: “Lord Pixelby’s firm was valued at £75m but registered as a trust in the name of Pixelby’s hamster, called Fluffynuts. Then it was leased to a holding company based on one of Jupiter’s moons.

“It then paid dividends to the value of £150m to a rubber plant, believed to be owned by Lady Pixelby, who was named as an arms dealer selling flame throwers to Saudi Arabia, although she was certified as having been turned into a frog by a wizard in 1354.

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“And the Prime Minister said there were no questions to answer.”

Mark Steel