Sunak and Starmer's tit for tat on tax is a minefield

Chris Blackhurst says such matters just aren’t that simple as Labour and the Tories scrap over their leaders’ tax returns are measured. So we read that someone earns five times what the prime minister makes, which is another way of saying they're greedy and they're paid far too much.

- Chris Blackhurst

It's an imperfect comparison, of course, because there are not market forces determining pay levels for prime ministers as there are with even many civil service as well as commercial jobs. It's also irrelevant. Boris Johnson has picked up more than £5m in speaking fees in the six months since he ceased occupying No 10. Sure, it might have been a struggle for him and his family financially when he was running the country, but presumably not any more.

Stand back, though, for a new moral benchmark, which is the amount our senior politicians pay in tax. Rishi Sunak chose to slip out details of his tax return on the day his predecessor was occupying Westminster's attention by appearing before the Commons Privileges Committee, accused of misleading parliament.

They showed he'd made nearly £5m over the past three years, thanks mostly to gains from his US investment fund. From that, Sunak paid just over £1m in UK tax, giving him an effective tax rate of 22 per cent.

Next, it was the turn of Starmer to declare how much he paid.

The Labour leader earned £211,620 in the last financial year, on which he paid tax of £67,033, making his effective tax rate nearly 10 percentage points higher, at 31.67 per cent.

So, a gold star to Starmer. But hang on, Sunak paid for much more of the public service than Starmer did. His rate was lower but he paid considerably more.