Rishi Sunak is stuck in a rut. Government announcements are being overshadowed by continued questions over Nadhim Zahawi’s run-in with HMRC and there is mounting incredulity that the Conservative party chair has not already been dismissed.
The move to launch an inquiry into Zahawi’s tax affairs – after it emerged he paid a penalty to HMRC over previously unpaid tax while he was chancellor – was designed to relieve some of the pressure. But No 10 knows that the prime minister, rather than the ethics adviser he has asked to establish the facts, will have to make the final call. For, regardless of the “due process” that Sunak has stressed he wants to follow, the decision about whether to dismiss Zahawi will be a political one.
