{"id":12357,"date":"2023-01-29T11:14:51","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T11:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=12357"},"modified":"2023-01-31T12:03:48","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T12:03:48","slug":"farewell-nadhim-zahawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=12357","title":{"rendered":"Farewell Nadhim Zahawi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2023\/01\/Nadhim_Zahawi.jpg\" alt=\"Nadhim Zahawi disgraced MP for Stratford-on-Avon\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-12368\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-64444265\">News broke this morning<\/a> that the alleged prime minister minister, one Rishi Sunak, had finally shown some of the &#8220;<em>integrity, professionalism and accountability<\/em>&#8221; promised when he was inexplicably made Conservative Party leader by its ageing right-wing membership.\r\n\r\n<\/p><p>Yes, he&#8217;s finally sacked Nadhim &#8220;<a>Stable Genius<\/a>&#8221; Zahawi as Party Chair for what is described as a &#8220;<em>serious breach of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/ministerial-code\/ministerial-code\">ministerial code<\/a><\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>And the nature of that serious breach? While he was in office briefly as <s>Chancellor<\/s> Chancer of the Exchequer under disgraced former alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Zahawi by failing to declare he was investigation by <abbr title=\"Her\/His Majesty's Revenue and Customs\">HMRC<\/abbr> into his tax affairs. It subsequently transpired that he has had to pay the taxman \u00a35 mn. in back taxes and a penalty for tax avoidance. Despite his ministerial media appearances involving prominent &#8211; possibly patriotic &#8211; display of the Union flag (<em>which some call the Bloody Butcher&#8217;s Apron. Ed.<\/em>), environmental campaigner and philanthropist Julia Davies subsequently wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jan\/25\/nadhim-zahawi-british-millionaires-pay-taxes-nhs\">Guardian opinion piece<\/a> entitled &#8220;<em>Dear Nadhim Zahawi: here\u2019s what patriotic British millionaires do \u2013 we pay our proper taxes<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Your &#8216;umble scribe cannot remember any time in his six decades of life when the minister allegedly in overall charge of collecting the country&#8217;s tax revenues has been investigated and penalised by the people he&#8217;s supposedly administering for not paying what he owed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Even before the Zahawi incident, Sunak, who so far has only been PM since the end of October, had already lost one cabinet minister within two weeks of assuming office: over-promoted fireplace salesman &#8220;<em>Sir<\/em>&#8221; Gavin Williamson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-63563263\">resigned as a result of alleged bullying<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>However, looking around what passes for the current alleged government of the English Empire (<em>which some still call the <s>United<\/s> Untied Kingdom. Ed.<\/em>), it seems that despite Zahawi&#8217;s sacking, other members of Sunak&#8217;s administration seem to regard compliance with the ministerial code as an optional extra during their terms of office.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2023\/01\/Raab.jpg\" alt=\"Dominic Rennie Raab supposedly Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12373\" \/>Take for example one the case Dominic Rennie Raab, supposedly the Secretary of State for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Dominic is not a boy who took any notice of his mother&#8217;s admonitions to &#8220;<em>play nicely<\/em>&#8220;. He is currently under investigation for allegations of bullying. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2022\/dec\/14\/dominic-raab-facing-five-more-complaints-of-bullying-no-10-confirms\">The Guardian reported in December<\/a> that eight separate incidents of bullying by Raab during a previous term of office at the Justice Ministry during Johnson&#8217;s premiership.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Johnson himself faces a Commons privileges committee inquiry into whether he <s>lied to<\/s> misled parliament over the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Partygate\">Partygate<\/a><\/em> scandal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Handy tip for anyone who believes there is any integrity in Johnson: never trust a middle-aged man with a toddler haircut who combs his locks with a balloon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t look as if there&#8217;s much of Sunak&#8217;s &#8220;<em>integrity, professionalism and accountability<\/em>&#8221; on either the front or back benches of what passes for the political party he is supposed to be leading.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Before the announcement of Zahawi&#8217;s sacking, there did not appear to be much local support in Stratford-on-Avon for their tax-avoiding dishonourable member. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2023\/jan\/25\/stratford-upon-avon-constituents-nadhim-zahawi-tax-scandal\">Given the opinions expressed to The Guardian four days ago<\/a>, our Stable Genius would be well advised not to seek the Conservative Party candidacy for the next general election.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p><strong><em>Update 31\/01\/23:<\/em><\/strong> In today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/bristolcouncil.powerappsportals.com\/Waste\/reportflytipping-024\/\">letters in The Guardian<\/a>, Keith Flett of the Beard Liberation Front remarks that Nadhim Zahawi &#8220;<em>has now managed to bring the hirsute into disrepute<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News broke this morning that the alleged prime minister minister, one Rishi Sunak, had finally shown some of the &#8220;integrity, professionalism and accountability&#8221; promised when he was inexplicably made Conservative Party leader by its ageing right-wing membership. Yes, he&#8217;s finally sacked Nadhim &#8220;Stable Genius&#8221; Zahawi as Party Chair for what is described as a &#8220;serious [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,32,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux-and-os-matters","category-media","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12357"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12392,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12357\/revisions\/12392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}