Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:50 am
So now Rishi thinks seatbelt laws don't apply to him. Shades of Jack Straw caught speeding: "Do you know who I am?".
In the grand scheme of things I find this petty bullshit quite tiresome regardless of the politician. Likely a momentary lapse. I'm sure he'll accept his £60 conditional offer to stop the hysteria and move on.
But it's not. You are treating the incident in isolation whereas it's part of an overall pattern of contempt where they believe the law does not apply to them. Who TF these days gets in car and does not put a seat belt on? Especially
- in the public eye
- on camera
- and when every modern car bongs at you like a demented Rank artist if you so much as leave your window 2mm ajar
Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:50 am
So now Rishi thinks seatbelt laws don't apply to him. Shades of Jack Straw caught speeding: "Do you know who I am?".
In the grand scheme of things I find this petty bullshit quite tiresome regardless of the politician. Likely a momentary lapse. I'm sure he'll accept his £60 conditional offer to stop the hysteria and move on.
But it's not. You are treating the incident in isolation whereas it's part of an overall pattern of contempt where they believe the law does not apply to them. Who TF these days gets in car and does not put a seat belt on? Especially
- in the public eye
- on camera
- and when every modern car bongs at you like a demented Rank artist if you so much as leave your window 2mm ajar
I would imagine the guy is photographed daily being driven in cars. I'm sure if it was a pattern of behaviour it would have been noticed before. Plus, as you point out every modern car makes it virtually impossible to drive without a seatbelt so again, hard to imagine anyone makes a habit of it. Can't really stand the prick but this is just noise.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:54 pm
by I like neeps
The village idiot at GB News has decided to equate with abortion. What a cretinous bunch they really are.
Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:50 am
So now Rishi thinks seatbelt laws don't apply to him. Shades of Jack Straw caught speeding: "Do you know who I am?".
In the grand scheme of things I find this petty bullshit quite tiresome regardless of the politician. Likely a momentary lapse. I'm sure he'll accept his £60 conditional offer to stop the hysteria and move on.
But it's not. You are treating the incident in isolation whereas it's part of an overall pattern of contempt where they believe the law does not apply to them. Who TF these days gets in car and does not put a seat belt on? Especially
- in the public eye
- on camera
- and when every modern car bongs at you like a demented Rank artist if you so much as leave your window 2mm ajar
I see drivers without seatbelts every single day. Conflating this with Tory contempt for the public is quite a reach.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:49 pm
by SaintK
SaintK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:49 pm
No wonder he's gone into hiding and Sunak deadbatted a couple of questions at PMQ's on Werdnesday
He's always come over as a truly slippery bastard but then when this story first broke it was all "smears"
The Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, agreed to pay a penalty to HMRC as part of a seven-figure settlement over his tax affairs, the Guardian has been told.
The former chancellor, who still attends the cabinet, has been subject to extensive questions in parliament and the media in recent days after it emerged he agreed to pay millions to HMRC in December after a settlement with the tax agency.
Experts estimate the tax due was about £3.7m based on the capital gains tax incurred by the sale of multiple tranches of shares in YouGov worth more than £20m, which led to transfers of money to Zahawi.
It is understood HMRC applied a 30% penalty to the £3.7m, bringing the total due to £4.8m. Combined with interest charges that HMRC also applies to taxes owed, this is believed to have taken the final settlement to more than £5m.
Quite a forensic thread on this. Zahawi must have paid his solicitors a fortune for all the threatening letters they ssent out.
Would probably have made the headlines if the government hadn't been imploding at the time.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2023 7:01 pm
by Torquemada 1420
shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:12 pm
I see drivers without seatbelts every single day. Conflating this with Tory contempt for the public is quite a reach.
I find that hard to believe. It's extremely hard to see into other cars these days even if your weren't paying attention to your own driving other than rubber necking at junctions: which is a bit creepy TBH.
SaintK wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:49 pm
No wonder he's gone into hiding and Sunak deadbatted a couple of questions at PMQ's on Werdnesday
He's always come over as a truly slippery bastard but then when this story first broke it was all "smears"
The Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, agreed to pay a penalty to HMRC as part of a seven-figure settlement over his tax affairs, the Guardian has been told.
The former chancellor, who still attends the cabinet, has been subject to extensive questions in parliament and the media in recent days after it emerged he agreed to pay millions to HMRC in December after a settlement with the tax agency.
Experts estimate the tax due was about £3.7m based on the capital gains tax incurred by the sale of multiple tranches of shares in YouGov worth more than £20m, which led to transfers of money to Zahawi.
It is understood HMRC applied a 30% penalty to the £3.7m, bringing the total due to £4.8m. Combined with interest charges that HMRC also applies to taxes owed, this is believed to have taken the final settlement to more than £5m.
Quite a forensic thread on this. Zahawi must have paid his solicitors a fortune for all the threatening letters they ssent out.
Would probably have made the headlines if the government hadn't been imploding at the time.
shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:12 pm
I see drivers without seatbelts every single day. Conflating this with Tory contempt for the public is quite a reach.
I find that hard to believe. It's extremely hard to see into other cars these days even if your weren't paying attention to your own driving other than rubber necking at junctions: which is a bit creepy TBH.
Really? I mean really? You don’t see people not wearing seatbelts? I find that utterly incomprehensible.
You see it every day, especially if you are walking or cycling when it takes nothing to observe driving standards.
Working from home today I saw out of my office window on a cul-de-sac (so a low traffic environment) I saw the following not wearing seatbelts;
- UPS van driver
- 2 x Amazon drivers
- 2 people in a van touting for driveway business (3 times)
- my nextdoor neighbour and his wife
And that is just what I noticed.
Walking the dog this afternoon I saw just the one driver not wearing a seatbelt. He was however doing approximately 40mph in a 20 and he was using his phone too. In fact I did not see a single vehicle doing below the speed limit, and that includes buses and hospital transport.
Failure to follow the highway code is so endemic in our culture that it is a shock to actually see someone driving in conformance with the Highway Code on local domestic streets.
shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 3:12 pm
I see drivers without seatbelts every single day. Conflating this with Tory contempt for the public is quite a reach.
I find that hard to believe. It's extremely hard to see into other cars these days even if your weren't paying attention to your own driving other than rubber necking at junctions: which is a bit creepy TBH.
Really? I mean really? You don’t see people not wearing seatbelts? I find that utterly incomprehensible.
You see it every day, especially if you are walking or cycling when it takes nothing to observe driving standards.
Failure to follow the highway code is so endemic in our culture that it is a shock to actually see someone driving in conformance with the Highway Code on local domestic streets.
You have a perfectly valid point. I was thinking only as a car user and not being in a city (like London), would not see inside moving cars regularly.
And on your last point, don't get me started! If there were a proper driving test, at least half of the useless c**ts currently on the roads would never be allowed near a shopping trolley, let alone a motorised vehicle.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:40 pm
by Sandstorm
You moaners should take a trip to the 3rd world - such as Egypt, India or SA - to see what bad driving really looks like!
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2023 10:51 pm
by yermum
Before-before Lagos traffic na special, eh
Before-before Lagos traffic na special, eh
Number one special all over the world, eh
Number one special all over the world, eh
You go get Ph.D. for driving for Lagos, eh
You go get M.A. for driving for Lagos, eh
You go get M.Sc. for driving for Lagos, oh
Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub JV with bp. bp have invested heavily on the role of hydrogen and are busy engaging in many countries. This allows the host country to sit back and rely on the skills and expertise of the oil major and with almost no financial risk until pre-FEED completed.
Blue or green hydrogen, because if the former then we may as well keep on going with gas, because it's a total climate scam.
Apparently Germany have made such big moves towards green hydrogen that have no chance of being supplied that they have fucked it all off and signed a massive deal with Norway for the blue stuff
So in reality the situation is a bit more complicated
What has been announced is that plans to build a pipeline between Norway and Germany to supply Europe’s largest economy with hydrogen – initially the blue variety made from fossil gas linked to carbon storage and later green H2 made using power from adjacent North Sea offshore wind farms.
The planned hydrogen pipeline should at first carry blue hydrogen from Norwegian gas fields to Germany, but also pass by the platforms of future offshore wind farms in the North Sea where green hydrogen will be produced over the next decade, using the same pipeline.
Developing a hydrogen value chain, is a huge task , not unlike the start of Oil/Gas in the North Sea in the late 70’s
What we are seeing is the UK lagging behind the initiatives in Europe.
What we do see is that Oil Major involved here – Equinor – is state owned , rather than privately owned,.
You do wonder what will happen in the UK , I can’t see much enthusiasm from Harbour Energy to push the Acorn CCS project , and willthey will put the Viking CCS project on the back burner , especially considering the downsizing of the company that has just been announced.
Blue or green hydrogen, because if the former then we may as well keep on going with gas, because it's a total climate scam.
Apparently Germany have made such big moves towards green hydrogen that have no chance of being supplied that they have fucked it all off and signed a massive deal with Norway for the blue stuff
So in reality the situation is a bit more complicated
What has been announced is that plans to build a pipeline between Norway and Germany to supply Europe’s largest economy with hydrogen – initially the blue variety made from fossil gas linked to carbon storage and later green H2 made using power from adjacent North Sea offshore wind farms.
The planned hydrogen pipeline should at first carry blue hydrogen from Norwegian gas fields to Germany, but also pass by the platforms of future offshore wind farms in the North Sea where green hydrogen will be produced over the next decade, using the same pipeline.
Developing a hydrogen value chain, is a huge task , not unlike the start of Oil/Gas in the North Sea in the late 70’s
What we are seeing is the UK lagging behind the initiatives in Europe.
What we do see is that Oil Major involved here – Equinor – is state owned , rather than privately owned,.
You do wonder what will happen in the UK , I can’t see much enthusiasm from Harbour Energy to push the Acorn CCS project , and willthey will put the Viking CCS project on the back burner , especially considering the downsizing of the company that has just been announced.
Thanks, very interested
Funnily enough I heard yesterday that Acorn are not expecting any more funding and are looking to private investment
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2023 9:42 am
by tabascoboy
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:14 am
by SaintK
You must know you're in big trouble when they send Raab out to defend you!
The deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Zahawi had been “transparent about the fact all the tax has been paid”.
“I don’t know the full details of Nadhim’s tax affairs because they are personal,” he said. “What I do know is that he’s made very clear that he’s paid all of his tax, that he’s got no outstanding tax liabilities or nothing further due, and he’s obviously engaged with HMRC to achieve that.”
Asked if Zahawi should give a statement to the Commons, Raab added: “That’s a matter for him but what I’d emphasise is he has been transparent about the fact that all the tax has been paid and he doesn’t have any tax outstanding.”
Javid's donors/mates in the insurance industry think it's a good idea, and that's all that matters for policymaking.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:23 pm
by tabascoboy
Nadhim Zahawi claims error with his taxes ‘careless not deliberate’
doesn't quite gel somehow
Remarkable how "careless" our leading politicians ( and not just Tory tbf ) can be. Even if it is "carelessness" and not purely thinking they can get away with it - if they can't manage their own personal finances and lives honestly why TF should we entrust them with the roles in senior government?
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:52 pm
by fishfoodie
The careless bullshit might fly for a guy who does his own taxes for his corner shop; but it doesn't work for a multi-millionaire who is employing someone else to do his taxes, & only ends up owing taxes if they lied to this tax advisor !
Blue or green hydrogen, because if the former then we may as well keep on going with gas, because it's a total climate scam.
Apparently Germany have made such big moves towards green hydrogen that have no chance of being supplied that they have fucked it all off and signed a massive deal with Norway for the blue stuff
So in reality the situation is a bit more complicated
What has been announced is that plans to build a pipeline between Norway and Germany to supply Europe’s largest economy with hydrogen – initially the blue variety made from fossil gas linked to carbon storage and later green H2 made using power from adjacent North Sea offshore wind farms.
The planned hydrogen pipeline should at first carry blue hydrogen from Norwegian gas fields to Germany, but also pass by the platforms of future offshore wind farms in the North Sea where green hydrogen will be produced over the next decade, using the same pipeline.
Developing a hydrogen value chain, is a huge task , not unlike the start of Oil/Gas in the North Sea in the late 70’s
What we are seeing is the UK lagging behind the initiatives in Europe.
What we do see is that Oil Major involved here – Equinor – is state owned , rather than privately owned,.
You do wonder what will happen in the UK , I can’t see much enthusiasm from Harbour Energy to push the Acorn CCS project , and willthey will put the Viking CCS project on the back burner , especially considering the downsizing of the company that has just been announced.
I am not sure the UK is lagging Europe on diversifying their energy sources, but they are relying on a less coordinated strategy through use of several companies as opposed to one main supplier, Equinor.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:39 am
by dpedin
fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:52 pm
The careless bullshit might fly for a guy who does his own taxes for his corner shop; but it doesn't work for a multi-millionaire who is employing someone else to do his taxes, & only ends up owing taxes if they lied to this tax advisor !
Especially when he employed lawyers to threaten journalists who were asking questions about his tax affairs. I believe his lawyers were chastised by their professional body for threatening the journalist to not disclose the contents of their letters when in fact they had no right to do so? Hardly a careless error when he has tax and legal experts working for him and threatening journalists with legal action, etc. He is an entitled twat who has been deliberately avoiding paying UK tax hence the 30% HMRC surcharge, and particularly when negotiating with HMRC when he was their actual boss as Chancellor. He has to go!
Now what about Boris, the £800k undisclosed loan and the appointment of the BBC Chairman who helped facilitate the loan guarantee? Smelly or what?
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:37 am
by tabascoboy
And yet, people tirelessly moan about left wing bias and lack of balance on the BBC, the fat slugs sister and 2 Tories and...that's it
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:17 pm
by Biffer
When they’re discussing conflict of interest for Boris Johnson, the journo the invite on is his sister. They’re taking the piss.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:35 pm
by tabascoboy
So, either the Conservative Party Chairman genuinely didn't know anything about it; or transparency is not a requirement of Government and it's up to the media to uncover what should be in the public domain ( a media increasingly dominated by Tory lickspittles...). Which is, or perhaps both are, true...
Just how many conflict of interest stories are we up to now with this lot? I've lost count...
and
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 1:48 pm
by Hal Jordan
One bad apple latest, Met Chief Inspector found dead on the day he was to have been charged over child porn, with two retired officers up before the beak.
fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:52 pm
The careless bullshit might fly for a guy who does his own taxes for his corner shop; but it doesn't work for a multi-millionaire who is employing someone else to do his taxes, & only ends up owing taxes if they lied to this tax advisor !
Especially when he employed lawyers to threaten journalists who were asking questions about his tax affairs. I believe his lawyers were chastised by their professional body for threatening the journalist to not disclose the contents of their letters when in fact they had no right to do so? Hardly a careless error when he has tax and legal experts working for him and threatening journalists with legal action, etc. He is an entitled twat who has been deliberately avoiding paying UK tax hence the 30% HMRC surcharge, and particularly when negotiating with HMRC when he was their actual boss as Chancellor. He has to go!
Now what about Boris, the £800k undisclosed loan and the appointment of the BBC Chairman who helped facilitate the loan guarantee? Smelly or what?
It is really quite amazing how these careless, genuine errors never seem to result in more tax being paid.
fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:52 pm
The careless bullshit might fly for a guy who does his own taxes for his corner shop; but it doesn't work for a multi-millionaire who is employing someone else to do his taxes, & only ends up owing taxes if they lied to this tax advisor !
Especially when he employed lawyers to threaten journalists who were asking questions about his tax affairs. I believe his lawyers were chastised by their professional body for threatening the journalist to not disclose the contents of their letters when in fact they had no right to do so? Hardly a careless error when he has tax and legal experts working for him and threatening journalists with legal action, etc. He is an entitled twat who has been deliberately avoiding paying UK tax hence the 30% HMRC surcharge, and particularly when negotiating with HMRC when he was their actual boss as Chancellor. He has to go!
Now what about Boris, the £800k undisclosed loan and the appointment of the BBC Chairman who helped facilitate the loan guarantee? Smelly or what?
It is really quite amazing how these careless, genuine errors never seem to result in more tax being paid.
Reminds me I need to check out my bank and building society accounts, you never know when due to an honest mistake, £27m has been "mysteriously" credited to one of your accounts
fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 2:52 pm
The careless bullshit might fly for a guy who does his own taxes for his corner shop; but it doesn't work for a multi-millionaire who is employing someone else to do his taxes, & only ends up owing taxes if they lied to this tax advisor !
Especially when he employed lawyers to threaten journalists who were asking questions about his tax affairs. I believe his lawyers were chastised by their professional body for threatening the journalist to not disclose the contents of their letters when in fact they had no right to do so? Hardly a careless error when he has tax and legal experts working for him and threatening journalists with legal action, etc. He is an entitled twat who has been deliberately avoiding paying UK tax hence the 30% HMRC surcharge, and particularly when negotiating with HMRC when he was their actual boss as Chancellor. He has to go!
Now what about Boris, the £800k undisclosed loan and the appointment of the BBC Chairman who helped facilitate the loan guarantee? Smelly or what?
It is really quite amazing how these careless, genuine errors never seem to result in more tax being paid.
Don't worry; I'm sure he'll now be sueing his tax experts for the damage they have caused to his reputation, by conveniently saving him millions of pounds in taxes, on an offshore structure they had no hand, act or part in setting up
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:15 pm
by fishfoodie
So would I be right in saying that the Bumblecunt has spent more time in Kiev, since he was completely rejected by his Party; than he has in the HoC, representing his constituents ?
Was he asking for asylum, rather than face questioning about Partygate etc ?
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:36 pm
by Rhubarb & Custard
tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:35 pm
So, either the Conservative Party Chairman genuinely didn't know anything about it; or transparency is not a requirement of Government and it's up to the media to uncover what should be in the public domain ( a media increasingly dominated by Tory lickspittles...). Which is, or perhaps both are, true...
'tis a wondrous thing, that over and over they they don't avail themselves of details so when asked they can say 'I've never seen anything to that effect' or whatever. and this repeated desire to intentionally not know about and understand a situation doesn't dissuade them from wanting to govern
tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Jan 22, 2023 12:35 pm
So, either the Conservative Party Chairman genuinely didn't know anything about it; or transparency is not a requirement of Government and it's up to the media to uncover what should be in the public domain ( a media increasingly dominated by Tory lickspittles...). Which is, or perhaps both are, true...
'tis a wondrous thing, that over and over they they don't avail themselves of details so when asked they can say 'I've never seen anything to that effect' or whatever. and this repeated desire to intentionally not know about and understand a situation doesn't dissuade them from wanting to govern
It's the Arsène Wenger school of Government, "I didn't see it"
Especially when he employed lawyers to threaten journalists who were asking questions about his tax affairs. I believe his lawyers were chastised by their professional body for threatening the journalist to not disclose the contents of their letters when in fact they had no right to do so? Hardly a careless error when he has tax and legal experts working for him and threatening journalists with legal action, etc. He is an entitled twat who has been deliberately avoiding paying UK tax hence the 30% HMRC surcharge, and particularly when negotiating with HMRC when he was their actual boss as Chancellor. He has to go!
Now what about Boris, the £800k undisclosed loan and the appointment of the BBC Chairman who helped facilitate the loan guarantee? Smelly or what?
It is really quite amazing how these careless, genuine errors never seem to result in more tax being paid.
Reminds me I need to check out my bank and building society accounts, you never know when due to an honest mistake, £27m has been "mysteriously" credited to one of your accounts
Good point, I must remember to check mine later on too.
The thing that I can never get my head around with these things is how much money is left after paying the appropriate amount of tax. Sure, 4 million pound of tax is eye watering. Ouch. But still leaves him with 23 million... 23 million. Just pay the pissing tax you greedy prick.
Especially when he employed lawyers to threaten journalists who were asking questions about his tax affairs. I believe his lawyers were chastised by their professional body for threatening the journalist to not disclose the contents of their letters when in fact they had no right to do so? Hardly a careless error when he has tax and legal experts working for him and threatening journalists with legal action, etc. He is an entitled twat who has been deliberately avoiding paying UK tax hence the 30% HMRC surcharge, and particularly when negotiating with HMRC when he was their actual boss as Chancellor. He has to go!
Now what about Boris, the £800k undisclosed loan and the appointment of the BBC Chairman who helped facilitate the loan guarantee? Smelly or what?
It is really quite amazing how these careless, genuine errors never seem to result in more tax being paid.
Don't worry; I'm sure he'll now be sueing his tax experts for the damage they have caused to his reputation, by conveniently saving him millions of pounds in taxes, on an offshore structure they had no hand, act or part in setting up
He has been through quite the ordeal, poor wee lamb. I hope those tax experts get what's coming to them after forcing him to do such things.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:16 am
by Slick
Interesting piece by the gut that first noticed all this
I never set out to investigate Nadhim Zahawi. I’d retired as the lucratively paid head of tax at a City law firm and founded a think tank, Tax Policy Associates. I’d then happily written a series of papers and reports that probably 20 people had read (but, I assured myself, the right 20 people). More importantly, I was, per the original plan, spending much more time with my family.
To the extent I thought about Zahawi at all, I thought him an impressive figure. He had arrived in the UK from Iraq as a child refugee, built a billion-dollar company from nothing and was now, aged 55, worth £100 million. He had been a highly competent vaccines minister — very possibly saving thousands of lives — and now, as of July 5 last year, he was chancellor of the exchequer. I vaguely remembered he’d written about tax avoidance in the past. In 2015, he tweeted: “Labour didn’t deal with tax avoidance for 13 years in government! We have introduced new tax avoidance laws just this month.”
But then I read an extraordinary report in The Independent newspaper that Zahawi had been the subject of an investigation by the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and HM Revenue & Customs. Zahawi denied this — but would he necessarily know if he were being investigated?
Then other newspapers reported that before Zahawi’s appointment as chancellor, the Cabinet Office had raised a “red flag” about his tax affairs. This was not denied by the Cabinet Office.
Today Zahawi finally made a public statement, claiming he had merely made a “careless and not deliberate error”. He refused to put any figures on how much he had paid back, even though reports suggest it is £5 million.
But in any event, he would never have said a word and the public would be none the wiser about his tax had I not started digging into it last July. A Guardian article from 2017 said Zahawi was linked to a Gibraltar company called Balshore Investments, which held shares in YouGov — the all-conquering international polling firm Zahawi founded in 2000 with Stephan Shakespeare, now 65, a one-time teacher and former hopeful for a Conservative seat. I spent a thoroughly entertaining few days going through company accounts and Companies House filings, and made four interesting discoveries.
First, a filing error in a Companies House entry for an unrelated company revealed that Balshore was owned by a trust controlled by Zahawi’s parents.
Second, Balshore Investments didn’t hold just any old shares in YouGov. It held the founder shares, which normally Zahawi would have received himself. Legally there is nothing necessarily different about founder shares, but founders pay little or nothing for them because they’ve put in the “sweat equity” of establishing the company. So if you founded a company, you might reasonably take, say, 80 per cent of the shares. You need cash, so you find a friend who pays £1 million to subscribe for the other 20 per cent. You have founder shares; they don’t. Shakespeare held his founder shares in the usual way, and there is no suggestion he has done anything wrong.
This seemed odd. I spoke to lawyers and entrepreneurs who had seen hundreds of startups, and nobody could explain this arrangement.
Third, a chance disclosure in YouGov’s 2005 listing documents revealed that Balshore had made a £99,000 gift to Zahawi out of its YouGov dividends — direct evidence he benefited from the trust.
Fourth, because Balshore was based in Gibraltar, about £24 million of gains on its YouGov shares, plus dividends, went completely untaxed. By an extraordinary coincidence, at about that time Zahawi’s UK property business had received £26 million of unsecured loans from an undisclosed source.
For me, there was a potential explanation: Zahawi didn’t want to be taxed on profits on the YouGov shares, so he put them in the company owned by his parents’ trust. But he still regarded them as his assets, and so cash came back to him through gifts and loans. There are half-a-dozen tax rules designed to stop this sort of thing. And, if my theory were correct, one of them would apply to tax the dividends and capital gains. I reckoned about £3.7 million in tax should have been paid — but hadn’t.
Accusing the chancellor of the exchequer of avoiding tax was a daunting step. I spoke to many tax experts: accountants, solicitors, KCs and retired HMRC inspectors. Everyone agreed the arrangements were suspicious.
I published my findings on the Tax Policy Associates website on July 10, posted a thread on Twitter . . . and Twitter exploded. Zahawi denied everything. He said he hadn’t avoided tax and he had an explanation for Balshore holding the YouGov shares — he said his father had provided start-up capital and the shares were fair reward for that.
I spent more fun time going through all the documents and accounts, and concluded it wasn’t true. Neil Copp, an investor, provided £285,000 of start-up capital (there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Copp). Balshore provided £7,000 — and that was two years later. So it wasn’t start-up capital at all.
I published these latest findings on July 13. Maybe Zahawi had made an innocent mistake — it was 22 years ago, after all — and a correction would be issued soon enough. Instead, the next day, he offered a new explanation: that he had been so inexperienced back then that he was completely dependent on his father’s “very significant contribution” to developing YouGov’s business plan, and that his father had provided ideas, business support and knowhow.
It’s hard to come by information on Nadhim Zahawi’s father, Hareth. Zahawi has mentioned Hareth “losing everything” to a failed investment when Zahawi was 18. Today, Hareth runs an Iraqi infrastructure business called Iraq Project & Business Development. He is said to live in Lebanon, and a number of journalists tried to find him in July to ask about Balshore. None was able to track him down.
Zahawi’s new explanation contradicted much of the public information about the history of YouGov, of which Zahawi was chief executive until 2010 (he now holds no role with the company). The Times approached YouGov and spoke to people who had been there at the start. Nobody recalled his father’s involvement, and YouGov issued a clear public denial of Hareth Zahawi’s involvement in the company. Nadhim Zahawi was able to find two former colleagues who said they recalled his father being kind and helpful — but that hardly justified taking all the founder shares.
I posted my view on the matter online: that Zahawi’s claim his father had provided start-up capital was wrong.
Saturday, July 16 was a particularly gorgeous summer’s day. I was watching my children swimming in a Norfolk lake when my phone buzzed. It was a Twitter direct message from a libel partner at Osborne Clarke, a law firm I’d heard was acting for Zahawi. He wanted to speak “off the record”. I told him he should put anything he had to say in writing — and that I would not accept “without prejudice” correspondence (which wouldn’t normally be permitted to be published).
So I was surprised to receive an email later that day from Osborne Clarke headed “without prejudice”. It demanded I retract my allegation of “dishonesty” that same day and said I couldn’t publish the email without “serious consequences”. It wasn’t a brilliantly constructed letter, and they either misunderstood or mis-stated what I’d said about Zahawi.
This just made me more confident I was on the right track. I did not retract. Instead, I posted another detailed explanation online of why I thought Zahawi was wrong. Osborne Clarke sent another email — again claiming to be confidential, and saying that publishing it would be improper.
I’d had enough. On July 22, I published both “confidential” emails and alerted the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to the fact that lawyers were sending secret libel letters. Saying that your libel threat is confidential and can’t be published is usually untrue — and the SRA agreed. On November 29, it sent out a general note warning solicitors to stop sending libel letters that falsely claim to be confidential. I referred Osborne Clarke to the SRA over its letters.
But all that was a diversion. I started looking back at other things Zahawi had said. On Sky News on July 11, the presenter Kay Burley asked him if he benefited from an offshore trust. “I don’t benefit from an offshore trust,” he said. “Nor does my wife. We don’t benefit at all from that.”
How could he say this, when there was evidence from YouGov itself that, on at least one occasion, he received £99,000 from the trust?
On September 12, I wrote to Zahawi’s lawyers again to ask if they now had any comment. They replied the next day: “You should not infer anything from our client’s desire not to engage with you, including to correct any misrepresentations you have made. Our client’s taxes are fully declared and paid in the UK and any allegation of tax evasion would be false and seriously defamatory.”
Despite all this, to my frustration, things began to go quiet. I’d made a series of quite technical accusations, which Zahawi had denied. His lawyers had written to newspapers. It was not an easy story for the media to cover — though The Sunday Times did run an interview with me in December. Zahawi’s strategy of saying nothing appeared to have triumphed. Until last Sunday, January 15, 2023.
The Sun on Sunday had a scoop: it reported that Zahawi had paid “several million pounds” to settle a dispute with HMRC, with the suggestion that the dispute centred on YouGov.
The newspaper carried a faintly hilarious non-denial denial from Zahawi’s spokesman stating that Zahawi had “never had to instruct any lawyers to deal with HMRC on his behalf”. This read to me like a tacit admission that the story was true but that Zahawi had instructed an accounting firm to do the work rather than lawyers. Other journalists followed up the story, pushing Zahawi’s people for comment — with no reply.
When asked about this by Labour MP Alex Sobel at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak said his “honourable friend” had already addressed the matter in full, and there was nothing more Sunak could add.
I think the most likely scenario is that Zahawi panicked after I published my first findings about YouGov last July and went to HMRC to reach a speedy settlement to make the whole thing go away. Reports suggest the settlement was more than £3.7 million of tax — the same figure I identified back in July — then interest and 30 per cent penalties. That level of penalties is consistent with him having “failed to take reasonable care” — an astonishing way for an experienced businessman and senior politician to behave after receiving, by my reckoning, £27 million.
Four key considerations remain.
Zahawi said nothing unusual went on with YouGov and no tax was avoided. That seems impossible to reconcile with the terms of the settlement being reported.
He maintained for months that all his taxes are properly declared and paid in the UK. He told Newsnight on Wednesday that his taxes “were and are fully up to date”. But nobody pays millions in tax to settle a dispute with HMRC when their taxes are “properly declared and paid”.
The timings make it possible Zahawi may have started negotiating a settlement with HMRC while he was chancellor, from July 5 to September 6 last year. If that were the case, it’s harder to imagine a worse conflict of interest.
And — most important of all — public confidence in the tax system is shredded if people have the perception that there’s one rule for ministers and another for the rest of us. Ministers shouldn’t avoid tax. They shouldn’t dodge questions about their tax affairs — and the certainly shouldn’t set lawyers on the people raising the questions.
So no more dodging questions, please, Nadhim. No more libel threats. Time to apologise
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:29 am
by JM2K6
Yeah, that's excellent. Very clear indeed.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:40 am
by I like neeps
Tax fraud should result in heavy prison sentences, only then will it stop.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:46 am
by Slick
JM2K6 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:29 am
Yeah, that's excellent. Very clear indeed.
Yes. if this is the case, it's utterly outrageous
The timings make it possible Zahawi may have started negotiating a settlement with HMRC while he was chancellor, from July 5 to September 6 last year. If that were the case, it’s harder to imagine a worse conflict of interest.
JM2K6 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:29 am
Yeah, that's excellent. Very clear indeed.
Yes. if this is the case, it's utterly outrageous
The timings make it possible Zahawi may have started negotiating a settlement with HMRC while he was chancellor, from July 5 to September 6 last year. If that were the case, it’s harder to imagine a worse conflict of interest.
Indeed - it does seem the most likely scenario.
The levels of malfeasance in office with this mob are genuinely absurd and I don't think the opposition have it in them to stop the rot, let alone excise it. Sure, they should get into power at the next election but at this point I want a Labour party that is going hell for leather on fixing the rotten heart of government and ensuring that all the codes of practice that have been run roughshod over are revisited, strengthened, and enforced - no matter who's in power. But then that'd require Starmer and co to do something other than just beat the drum that the Tories aren't enacting their own policies properly so Labour will do them better(!)
JM2K6 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 10:29 am
Yeah, that's excellent. Very clear indeed.
Yes. if this is the case, it's utterly outrageous
The timings make it possible Zahawi may have started negotiating a settlement with HMRC while he was chancellor, from July 5 to September 6 last year. If that were the case, it’s harder to imagine a worse conflict of interest.
Indeed - it does seem the most likely scenario.
The levels of malfeasance in office with this mob are genuinely absurd and I don't think the opposition have it in them to stop the rot, let alone excise it. Sure, they should get into power at the next election but at this point I want a Labour party that is going hell for leather on fixing the rotten heart of government and ensuring that all the codes of practice that have been run roughshod over are revisited, strengthened, and enforced - no matter who's in power. But then that'd require Starmer and co to do something other than just beat the drum that the Tories aren't enacting their own policies properly so Labour will do them better(!)
The baffling bit to me is how we have arrived at a position that a minister caught evading tax - I'll call it evading as it's obviously deliberate - doesn't result in his own party hanging him out to dry and distancing themselves from him ASAP.
Politics has always been an area full of chancers and the corruptable but it used to be that once you were caught, you resigned or were quickly disposed of. Where did that go?
Starmer is still fighting his own battles within his party to keep the full blown loons under control which I suspects limits him. It may be that he is this generation's Neil Kinnock - the chap who clears out the crud to leave a clear run at government for somebody else.
Re: Stop voting for fucking Tories
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:33 pm
by Paddington Bear
Hard to understand why Sunak hasn't sacked him already
