The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Taxing times for the Tories, tanks for Ukraine and a giant Antarctic iceberg

issue 28 January 2023

Home

Nadhim Zahawi, minister without portfolio and chairman of the Conservative party, was asked to explain how a penalty formed part of a £5 million tax payment he had made. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, asked Sir Laurie Magnus, his newly appointed ethics adviser, to examine whether Mr Zahawi had broken the code of conduct on ministerial behaviour. The appointment of Richard Sharp as chairman of the BBC was under review by William Shawcross, the Commissioner of Public Appointments, after it became known that in 2020, before his appointment, he had contacted Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, about an offer of a loan of £800,000 by Sam Blyth, an old friend of Mr Sharp’s, to Boris Johnson, then PM.

The government borrowed £27.4 billion last month, the highest sum for December since 1993. Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, an Afghan asylum seeker convicted this week of murdering a man in the street in Bournemouth, turned out to have entered Britain giving his age as 14 when he was 18, having been convicted of drug-dealing in Italy and having shot dead two people in Serbia.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in