Nasty business of politics is put ahead of being Mr Nice

Rishi Sunak looks a little less weak without Nadhim Zahawi kicking around (Future Publishing/Getty)

- SEAN O'GRADY

The hard truth about Nadhim Zahawi is that he should have gone last summer. It was perfectly apparent that he had serious questions to answer in July last year, when The Independent broke the story that the then chancellor of the Exchequer was being investigated for his tax affairs. It is not something that has

sprung into the open in the last few days or weeks, as the prime minister seems to suggest.

Something like the apparently expedited inquiry by the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, could have been commissioned and reported last summer (allowing for the fact that neither Boris Johnson nor Liz Truss had an independent adviser at the time). That losing yet another chancellor would have been extremely embarrassing during the chaotic dying days of Johnson's administration is obvious, but Zahawi was as unfit for office then as he is now.

How obvious was it that Zahawi was unsuitable to be a cabinet minister, let alone chancellor and thus in charge of HMRC? It was all too apparent from the Independent story, quoted here at appropriate length: "Inland Revenue experts are investigating the tax affairs of new chancellor and Tory leadership hopeful Nadhim Zahawi, The Independent can reveal.