I have not had time for family, other commitments, Twitter and blogging today, so these comments made by me on Twitter will have to do as reactions on Zahawi for now, in approximate time order, with the most recent at the top. There will be more tomorrow:
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Given the amount of money involved what about the professionals involved – accountants and solicitors who would have known that tax was due.
Should they have a duty to ensure it is paid?
They were employed to minimise the tax paid
The ethical duty of an accountant is to the client alone so long as the law is not Boris enough according to my profession
They are wrong, but that is what they say
The law was not broken here
Every day we hear of the NHS falling apart. Plans to treat more people at home are not going to make that much difference. We need staff and there are 133,000 vacancies.
The govt. seem determined to try to sit out the strikes.
But even if they called off all the strikes the decay will exacerbate. It has been happening for years. They should be telling us why?
The media should be asking them everyday. How can they justify their lack of action?
Nadhim Zahawi’s father is called Nadhim Zahawi. Handy, don’t you think?
Just saying…..
So many lesser sons and daughters of first generation ‘self made people’ (Christ! – is any one ‘self made’ really? It’s usually off the backs of others) find themselves in positions of power.
They see the power that money gives them, the privileges and the benefit of the doubt. They have a totally false notion of how things work and a feeling of apparent entitlement that they bring into the public sphere.
So, as a minister and party leader he is done. But why is he still an MP, as you correctly point out?
He has effectively worked against his own state, a state that tells us that tax pays for stuff and does not have enough income to pay decent wages to nurses and other public sector workers.
His position is untenable. He has to go and good riddance when he does. But he may not go, because he might be a member of or supported by one of the factions that has Sunak under their thumb.
The Zahawi scandal highlights for me one of the major short comings of our democratic system, that we don’t know enough about the people who purport to represent us. Though alternative electoral systems may help, democracy cannot work properly if we don’t know about our representatives. Often all we know is little more than a candidate’s party label. When standing for election candidates are standing for an important job, a public office. As with any job we should know their full CV. We should know where they went to school (was it a private school?), what their exam grades are (are they a member of the Oxford PPE club?), which university they may have attended (might they have the ability to do the job?). Also vital is a need for full disclosure of their financial status. Do they have multiple houses? What car, and how many do they own? How much do they have invested in ISAs? How much is in their pension pot (is it near the lifetime limit?). Do they have, or have they had, or are they entitled to, non-dom status? Do they have dual nationality or a green card? What are their assets? Do they have holdings in off-shore companies? Do they have private health insurance? Etc. etc. All these issues are directly relevant to their attitudes, their prejudices (we all have them), and how they vote on matters that are supposed to represent US. All these issues have arisen in recent months as issues that have, or may have affected the judgement of ministers or MPs. We should know about them before we vote for (or against) them. Without this democracy in the UK cannot work properly.
I have just listened to a Conservative MP on C4 News claiming that Sunak did the right thing in going through the Ethics Advisor to remove Zahawi, rather than using his unquestioned PM prerogative, and removing him at will; because the PM was following sound employment law. I fell off my chair.
This is a Political Party unmaking a Political appointment. This is Government making a political decision. It is nothing like employment law. Only a Conservative politician, whose political world is falling apart around her could possibly resort to such an inane defence. Of course the MP in question; whose name I confess I missed, but who was presumably a backbencher was unfortunately just gullible enough to come forward to be interviewed on this political sucide mssion, when the more astute Conservatives are presumably currently hiding safely from being doorstepped, under the nearest handy desk. Matt Frei quietly disassembled her arguments into their component confusions.
There is no good future for this Government; but more important nor is there a future for the British people as long as this wreck of a Party is allowed to ‘soldier on’ for then next two years. The prospect is catastrophic.
Agreed, to all of that