Does anyone believe Nadhim Zahawi?

More questions for Zahawi

Neidle

This is exactly what I suspect. We will never know most of what has gone on.

More a question as who is wealthy with known off shore businesses.

Whitewavemark2

Dan Neidle says that he is looking at other MPs tax affairs.

I reckon Mogg is one, and possibly Johnson.

I wonder if he will look at Labour politicians?

Name an honest politician.

Dan Neidle says that he is looking at other MPs tax affairs.

I reckon Mogg is one, and possibly Johnson.

Probably in the long grass for a few weeks!

LOL Caleo!

I'm not a Tory voter (far from it) but I can't see Sunak ignoring a negative conclusion by the ethics advisors regarding Zahawi's behaviour; Johnson got so much bad press when he chose to do nothing when the advisors found that Pritti Patel had broken the ministerial code (regarding the bullying of her staff). I think Sunak is more bothered about his reputation than Johnson ever was.

There may be a tax specialist here on Gransnet that knows this better than I do?
I only just heard the person who had been asking the initial questions about him talking about it on the radio. I hadn't understood that carelessness had a special meaning. It was very interesting.

I don't believe in Nadhim Zahawi. Nadhim Zahawi is a figment of imagination invented by socialists to make the Tories look even worse.

"careless" has a specific meaning in tax law.
It is not "careless" in the ordinary meaning. In fact it can be completely deliberate.
It apparently includes not giving the full financial information to your accountant, ignoring your financial advisor and a number of other potentially deliberate things.

I suspect you are correct, Ramblingrose22. The report will not see the light of day for a considerable time, or not at all.

I think any decision to sack Zahawi will be delayed now that Sunak has asked the ethics adviser to look into whether any code was breached.

But as the conclusions of the ethics adviser can be totally ignored by the PM I doubt if the investigation will serve any useful purpose.

I hope I'm wrong though.

Well, foxie48, the headlines so far suggest that he is determined to hang on. I'm waiting for the ones saying that Rishi Sunak has full confidence in him, as that usually means that he's on his way out.

It seems pretty clear, doesn't it? It doesn't matter where we stand on the political spectrum, we all think he should resign. I wonder how representative we are of British voters, I suspect pretty close. This scandal is not going away, anyone want to bet on how much longer he lasts?

James O'Brien

One major legacy of Boris Johnson's premiership is that 'styling out' a scandal, no matter how egregious, in the hope that it will go away is now the default position for Tory government. The fact that Zahawi threatened to sue people for correct reporting should be career-ending.

I think that this hits the nail on the head. Look at Johnson just this weekend. Scandal about £800k loan etc. what does he do? Fly to ukraine and get the headlines - for what? There is nothing he can possibly do. It was all about dead cats.

Of course he's lying.

He's a government minister of the most sleazy government in modern history - when their lips move, they are lying.

How daft do they think we are?🙄

MaizieD I don’t believe they are out to extract the maximum amount of money before they go. I think it’s more a way of life with some of them. In or out of government they will be up to tricks. I’m not sure Labour will be that much better. I despair of all politics.

MerylStreep

I don’t know why the tories don’t just hold their hands up and say, ok, it’s a fair cop, you’ve found us out, here’s the keys to No 10 😄. Why prolong the pain.

Because they're determined to leave Labour with as huge a mess as possible to clear up, in order to make political capital from their inevitably slow progress. They're looking to win the next GE but one (2029?)

And they might as well extract the maximum possible amount of money from the UK's coffers for themselves and their mates before they go.

Of course I don't believe him: he's a Tory. As Rachel Johnson said surely with all his money he has a white hot accountant so he doesn't make careless mistakes.

I don’t know why the tories don’t just hold their hands up and say, ok, it’s a fair cop, you’ve found us out, here’s the keys to No 10 😄. Why prolong the pain.

But wasn’t one of the reasons why the ERG were determined that we should leave the EU because the EU were going to change tax avoidance loopholes?

It is just one scandal after another. It doesn't even seem that surprising anymore. Boris Johnson and BBC Chairman the next one coming up. I expect he'll wriggle out of that as well. These people are lucky they are not Labour prime ministers/ministers - they'd be hung out to dry.

And no, I don't believe Zahawi. It was hilarious watching James Cleverly this morning trying to dredge up some sort of defence for Zahawi. It started with several Fawlty Towers' Manuel's "I know nothing", followed by what a great, hardworking businessman Zahawi is, how he handled the pandemic so well, etc, etc. He used a similar ploy when responding to the new Johnson/Sharp scandal - Zahawi had met Sharp - seemed eminently qualified to be BBC Chairman, sensible person, etc, etc. - ignored the question re a possible conflict of interest re Johnson and the loan guarantee.

As several commentators pointed out - if Cleverly had no idea about the background to the Zahawi issue, or the Johnson/Sharp issue, why did he not speak to them and get more information before appearing on the programme? Why? Because he was sent on to waffle, not to throw any light on the matter.

You are basically accusing HMRC of being corrupt because they fined him as opposed to prosecution. Unless you are an expert on U.K. tax law and can prove otherwise I shall respect HMRC’s decision.

No I'm not, GG13. If HMRC decided that he was 'guilty' of tax avoidance, then he won't be prosecuted (as you are wanting him to be) because tax avoidance isn't illegal in the UK. He would only be taken to court if HMRC judged he was possibly guilty of tax evasion, which is illegal. I'm not questioning their decision, or even, as you were, thinking that he should have been prosecuted.

What he did was immoral and hypocritical and he compounded it by lying about it and trying to use libel law to intimidate the tax lawyer who was investigating him.

This is not something to turn a blind eye to just because he won't appear in a court of law.