If the tax not paid was in the thousands, a degree of carelessness could be believable, but omitting to declare a few million stinks of intention.

if being correctly reported as 30% then that is definitely at the heavier end of Careless behaviour

Mrs Sandwich has said he got off lightly as there is an extra tariff for using off-shore as part of the fiddle either that or someone at HMRC has his back.

Sunak will be under huge pressure assuming the local elections go as badly as it looks.

A cunning plan is afoot.

The Coronation of Charlie Windsor will occur on Saturday 6th May followed by two days of joyous national celebrations.

No doubt for several days before the actual day of the Coronation all the preparations for it will be major news items.

The local elections in England will be held on Thursday 4th May when all the focus will be on the impending Coronation two days later. The full results of the local elections will likely not be known until the Saturday – the day of the Coronation.

I am sure that the Prime Minister will be far too busy celebrating with the Nation this great historical and happy event to respond to the local election results with much more than describing them as “disappointing” before quickly reminding everyone of the momentous national occasion to be treasured by everyone.

If you are expecting front pages declaring Tory local election meltdown you might be disappointed. Charlie Windsor will totally dominate the front pages.

I also expect the next election to be in August 2024 when everyone is a typically a bit happier, on holiday etc,. and not so likely to go and vote. Combined with beating the years very bad NHS crisis news that would hit them if they held election at latest possible time in Jan 2025.

Be interesting to see what the media come up with in the time before that to try and get more votes for the Tories.

By August 2024 no one will have any money to go on holiday.

I agree that next summer is the most likely time the general election will be held, because of the long sunny days feel good factor.

Especially as it will be daylight throughout the time the polling stations are open.

Leaving it until the cold dark days of January 25 also smacks of desperation, lacking confidence, and attempting to put off the inevitable. Not a great image.

I thought the tories rarely went for elections during school holidays as it was worse for them.  Am I misremembering?

Shortly after the Coronation is my guess, if they go early, for the flag shagging bounce.

Or if they think they can squeeze a bit more profit out the nation, they’ll leave it till winter and hope poor turnout reduces the size of the defeat or can be used as a stick to beat Labour with (assuming a Labour victory)

Shortly after the Coronation is my guess, if they go early, for the flag shagging bounce.

An election this September, no way will they do that. They will wait until 2024 when inflation has calmed down and they can claim they “got inflation done”

It appears the human shield Cleverly” has been sent out to defend  Zahawi and Johnson but he knows nothing about any of it.  Farcical

James Cleverly has said he does not know whether Nadhim Zahawi was investigated over his taxes when chancellor, or when Rishi Sunak knew about the issue, as the government attempted to defend the embattled Tory party chair.

In an interview with Sky News, Cleverly, the foreign secretary, also said he had no idea whether Richard Sharp, the BBC chair, helped Boris Johnson arrange a guarantee on a loan of up to £800,000, weeks before the then PM recommended Sharp for the BBC role.

How many more hits can he take?

Standing by my Sept /Oct 24 prediction
And they’ll max out the cronyism & funneling £ offshore, in the meantime

Rolling scandals & own goals atm: leveling up fund lottery, seatbelt silliness, Johnson once again popping up scrounging cash in exchange for dodgy favours, missing child asylum seekers, zahawi still thinks he can bluff it out, still got the rohipnol MP investigation to finish, who knows what new revelations will come out this week.
A lot of this is a legacy of johnson/truss etc but sunak is desperately showing his inexperience and there’s a feeling of top of the iceberg about all these scandals.

They should have asked Cleveley about his Hamster

I would agree with your guess about the timing.

I find the use of Cleverly as a human shield very funny.  Has the man no self respect?

Standing by my Sept /Oct 24 prediction

I agree. With a tax cut in the spring to “help the hard working majority” and a challenge to Labour to cancel the tax cut. Pair with a challenge to Labour on restoring our asylum rules/laws to the minimum international standards. And something about Labour loving foreigners more than our own. Oh, and strike laws.

It’s pretty apparent that the team of advisors supporting Rishi and this government aren’t doing a good job – the fact that you have Boris and Truss still hanging around like a bad smell just to make things worse. I expect they’ll hang on for an election as long as possible, in the vain expectation that the economy will have recovered, inflation pressures will have subsided and that they continue to plunder public finances for the benefits of their mates and sponsors.

I think Sunak has very little freedom of movement and its hard to see what other course he can take due to the influence of the brexiteer ultras in the party.

He has a really weak hand to play – yes he is playing it badly but he cannot change the cards he has

Election timing is very much dependent on who the leader is. If Boris somehow makes a return I reckon it’ll be this autumn. That’s unlikely to happen though as the Sunak camp will ensure he’s too damaged from the partygate enquiries so it’ll be May/June 24. Whatever happens I fully expect the civil war between the Sunak and Johnson factions will finally finish the tories off. As long as Starmer doesn’t do something stupid (like start talking about brexit) the tories could be looking at a Canadian scenario.

May and June appear to be popular months for general elections, but May/June ’24 might be a little too early for Sunak.

September 24 at the latest then. There’s no way they’ll have an election in the school holidays. Think they’ll prefer may/june though just so tory MPs can have a long, leisurely summer off after their losing their jobs. 😀

If Boris somehow makes a return I reckon it’ll be this autumn.

I agree with that as well.

I find the use of Cleverly as a human shield very funny. Has the man no self respect?

He’s not very good at it is he? Failing to do even basic research on the ex-chancellor before being dissected by the interviewers.

I think Sunak has very little freedom of movement

The fact of the matter is that the Tory party is now an ungovernable rabble of Brexiteer extremists (both MP’s and the membership), who can never, ever be pacified. They’re high on the power they’ve wielded through years of the tail wagging the dog, post-referendum. All ‘reasonable’ (everything’s relative) or moderate voices have been silenced or driven out of the party altogether

Any Tory leader must genuflect before these absolute headbangers. Remember it was only a matter of months ago that they all voted for Liz Truss and cheered her to the rafters as she set about an economic policy that was the utterly unhinged fever-dream of far-right, ultra-libertarian thinktanks.

Those MPs and members are still calling the shots. Sunak is just their latest hostage

I think the main infighting right now is between Team Sunak and Team Johnson. The Zahawi stuff is briefed/corroborated to hurt Sunak, who then allows the Sharp/BBC stuff to come out.

Boris has the problem that there is no way that he will get a safe seat while Sunak runs the show, and I can’t see the tories holding Uxbridge any time soon. So he needs to get back in well before the election so he can arrange himself something safer.

I’m enjoying the blue on blue action though, because it hopefully distracts them from their central aim of selling everything to the highest bidder and putting a scythe through our laws and protections.

Thats why its funny Sandwhich.  You know its indefensible when Cleverly is the only person they can find to defend whatever the scandal of the day is

I think Johnson has already been locked in to Uxbridge now.

Okay, “locked in” is overstating it, sorry…

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-uxbridge-constituency-stand-mp-next-general-election-rishi-sunak-b1052832.html

…asked if he could offer Mr Johnson a new, safer Tory seat, Mr Sunak told broadcasters: “I think the former Prime Minister has declared his intention to stand in his current seat, in Uxbridge.”

Probably plenty of wiggle room there. Who thinks what? Who said what? Intentions can change if there’s a new PM. Etc.

If he somehow became PM again, some Bufton-Tufton MP would be retired and Johnson parachuted into his seat in time for any election. He won’t get a sniff of one while Sunak is PM.

In other news, statesman Boris is back in Ukraine:

Despite claims it would undermine Rishi Sunak’s authority, Boris Johnson has made a surprise visit to Ukraine.

He’s been seen in Borodianka and Bucha in the Kyiv region. pic.twitter.com/7MY7bAOBes

— James Waterhouse (@JamWaterhouse) January 22, 2023

It’s just too funny to watch the infighting (Except Zelensky must know that the suffering of his people in Bucha is being exploited for political grandstanding, and is unable to say so because he desperately needs our help, in case Johnson rises to the top again. Which is **** up.)

From Zelensky‘s position, Johnson can possibly influence both Sunak and Starmer’s policy on Ukraine, even without ever becoming PM again.

Failing to do even basic research on the ex-chancellor before being dissected by the interviewers.

Given how bad the facts look to be he probably concluded not knowing was his best option.
Probably third best option after resigning rather than defend the indefensible or phoning in sick.

Say what you like about Cleverly, when most of his colleagues are interviewed you know they’re lying, but when he says “I don’t know anything” it’s definitely true.

🙂

I think Labour should stop calling for resignations when all these abuses come to light. A simple shrug of the shoulders and a “well what else do you expect from this bunch of crooks?” would be more effective.

And back to the seatbelt thing, wasn’t there a bit of a hoo-hah a few years back when the King’s first wife wasn’t wearing her belt in the back of the car?

Zahawi still clinging on, Sunak now launched an investigation to hide behind…. now its ‘no comment while investigation underway’

BBC chairman has launched an investigation into himself, Johnson has release a tupically nonsensical statement….

I dont see how zahawi can last much longer as party chair (Im not even sure what that role is, hosting fundraisers? – i suppose he seems well suited to hooking up donors with jobs)

anyway gone by the weekend?

‘Chair’ is a bit like ‘Minister without Portfolio’.
Get paid some extra slush for doing very little other than be seen at events and functions.

The pressure is ratcheting up..

i suspect labour have more info than is public right now given the way they are going after Zahawi.    Damn fine work on this

Sunak is expending political capital he does not have on this and its only going to end one way

BBC chairman has launched an investigation into himself, Johnson has release a typically nonsensical statement….

I heard the BBC bods statement too. You know when the police say that you can tell someone is lying because they include lots of unnecessary and superfluous detail in their statement?

Well… that

As for Zahawi, doesn’t it suit Labour to have figures like 5 million quid in unpaid tax being bandied around while the multimillionaire PM defends that? Just hammers it home how rarified the air is that these people breath.

A lot of people are presently grudgingly doing their tax returns and the idea that you could be sort of ‘careless’ with 5 million quids worth of tax is absolutely ridiculous

You can tell by the carefully coached language being used that Zahawi’s story is total bollocks anyway, so we’ll just wait for the truth to inevitably tumble out

Raynor does make a good attack dog.  I’m beginning to warm to her.  she obviously relishes the task of sticking the boot in

I know a GE is a long way off & a lot can change, middle of winter & cossie livs etc, etc

But blimey

Local elections will be interesting in a few months time

I could see Sunak out swiftly afterwards, another summer spent with tories autofelating themselves in a leadership contest, followed by the return of the World King…. and all the scandals he brings with him seeing him booted out again by February , we get Raab in as caretaker until September GE

Raynor does make a good attack dog. I’m beginning to warm to her.

So now would be a good time to start spelling her name correctly?