Accounts And Accountability

Just when you think the Conservative government couldn’t go any lower, you find they’ve reached a new Nadim. Sorry, a new nadir.

For those who haven’t being paying attention for the last week or two – which seems to include everyone in the Cabinet, judging by their media interviews recently – this is the news that Nadim Zahawi, the former chancellor, has been penalised by HMRC for not declaring his income correctly.

And this wasn’t your typical £100 for sending in a late self-assessment; this was a 30% penalty, plus interest, on what should have been £3.7m tax on £27m income from selling shares in YouGov. He has had to pay around £5m in total, all while denying to journalists that there was any investigation and threatening legal action against anyone reporting anything about it. Not only that, but he also settled with HMRC while he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and therefore in charge of HMRC at the time.

As tax lawyer Dan Neidle has said, “The phrase ‘conflict of interest’ seems insufficient.”

I’m just impressed that anyone in government has managed to negotiate a financial settlement. It’s not as if they can manage it with the nurses, teachers, firefighters or anyone else. What’s even more impressive is that Zahawi managed to do it while he was chancellor, since he was only in the job for a few days. Everyone has been so convinced that Zahawi would shortly have to resign or be sacked that the Daily Star can’t even be bothered to pay for a lettuce to measure Zahawi’s shelf life. And yet, as I write this at least, Zahawi is still clinging on. We shouldn’t be too surprised. The only reason ministers now resign is so they can earn more money somewhere else.

Zahawi’s defence is that HMRC decided he had been “careless”. He is presenting this as just an accidental, innocent error on his part, as though forgetting you’d received £27 million is perfectly normal. Perhaps the money was just resting in his account.

I mean, we’ve all done it, haven’t we? We’ve all accidentally assigned over £20m of shares to a relative, eh? And then accidentally set up an offshore trust Gibraltar for our share dividends. And then accidentally transferred the money back to ourselves in the UK at a later date. And then accidentally sent threatening letters from our lawyers to anyone who asked any questions about anything to do with it. It’s all just an innocent mistake that any one of us could have made.

As questions became more persistent last weekend, the minister sent out to endure Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning interview was nominative determinism’s James Cleverly. Cleverly proceeded to tell Kuenssberg that he knew nothing about anything, that he had only been back in the country for two days and so couldn’t possibly have asked anyone else in the government what was happening, and furthermore that he had been “having a bit of a rest and doing some shopping”. Well, thanks for taking the matter seriously, James. Maybe have a lie-in next time, eh?

With an enquiry being announced, next up for self-abasement was the policing minister, Chris Philp, who bravely advanced the theory that Zahawi should be presumed innocent. “We do have a principle, don’t we in this country, innocent until proven guilty,” he ventured. Indeed, indeed. Except I’m pretty sure HMRC have already investigated and found that he’s not innocent: that’s why he’s been fined over a million pounds. As the head of HMRC has said, there are “no penalties for innocent errors”.

Zahawi himself could clear up a lot of the questions surrounding the case simply by turning up and being interviewed instead of Cleverly or Philp, but he has been laying so low the police could be investigating him as a missing person (a careless misper?). But no. Having refused to discuss it previously, he has now put out a statement that “it would be inappropriate to discuss this issue any further”.

Rishi Sunak took a similar line to Chris Philp’s at prime minister’s questions, saying that we shouldn’t pre-judge Zahawi and that “everyone deserves due process”.

Except asylum-seekers, he might have added, who will be immediately shipped off to Rwanda. Or anyone the police think might potentially cause a disturbance at some point in the future. No due process for them.

Sunak also lamely suggested that the business with Zahawi was “before my time”, like a contestant on PopMaster being asked questions about Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.

Still, he might think that six months ago is ‘before his time’, but I’m sure Sunak is not too young to remember his own speech from just three months ago. In it, he said, “The government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Trust is earned. And I will earn yours.” Hmm. How’s that working out for you? Because from here, it looks like the only trust the Tories understand is an offshore one, and accountability means blaming one’s accountant.

Sunak also told us that he was ready to “build a government that represents the very best traditions of my party”. Well, if he means the traditions of law-breaking, venality and obfuscation, that’s true. No one could say that he’s not building on the example set under Boris Johnson.

Indeed, Sunak himself has now been fined twice by the police for law-breaking, making him a persistent offender. One might say he’s a Rishidivist.

And in an unhappy coincidence, this same week has seen detail emerging from government that they are going to raise the state pension age again, this time to 68. The reason for this is, of course, that they don’t have enough money. If only the government could get people to pay their taxes, eh?

So when you’re working those extra years that you were expecting to have as a well-earned rest in retirement, just remember: you paid your taxes all your life so that people with more money than you didn’t have to.