Steerpike

So. Farewell then. Nadhim Zahawi. It's been quite the six months for the onetime favourite to succeed Boris Johnson. He accepted the Chancellorship in July, before turning on Johnson 36 hours later. He crashed out of the leadership race to replace Johnson within days, before being demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster after just two months at the Treasury. He then backed Johnson to be PM again in October, moments before the latter pulled out of the leadership race. Zahawi was subsequently demoted again by Rishi Sunak to the role of party chairman two days after that. And today he has now lost that post too after less than 100 days at CCHQ.

Another week and another Sunday Times story about Boris Johnson's finances. The paper has got hold of a leaked Cabinet Office memo which it says shows that Johnson was told to stop asking Richard Sharp for 'advice' about his 'personal financial matters' days before the latter was announced as the next BBC chairman. The memo, written by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, was drawn up after Johnson and Sharp sought advice in early December on accepting a loan of up to £800,000 guaranteed by the PM's distant cousin Sam Blyth. According to the Sunday Times, the advice issued by Case stated that: given the imminent announcement of Richard Sharp as the new BBC chair, it is important that you no longer ask his advice about your personal financial matters.

The Nadhim Zahawi saga shows no sign of concluding. Every time the story looks like burning out, a new disclosure gives it legs. Tonight, it's the revelation by the Financial Times that a second senior Tory MP was being investigated by HMRC last summer around the same time as Zahawi. It's a curious tale, based on a freedom of information request by tax expert Dan Neidle – a man who ought to earn some sort of gong for services to the Labour party. In response to Neidle's request for information, HMRC admitted on 15 June that an unnamed minister was under investigation. Eight days later though, as the FT was about to publish a story on 23 June, HMRC claimed that no ministers were in fact being scrutinised, prompting the paper to pull the planned article.

A most undiplomatic row has engulfed one of Westminster’s most prestigious groups. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association boasts 180 branches around the world, with the late Queen Elizabeth among its former patrons, with former Cabinet minister Maria Miller now serving as its chair. But among those upcoming speakers due to address it in London include two controversial Hong Kong legislators in March. Whether one can call the current assembly of apparatchiks a ‘parliament’ is of course debatable. But one of the pair in question is Dominic Lee Tsz-king, who is especially objectionable, even by the standards of Hong King’s debased assembly.

If Sadiq Khan has his way, drivers of old cars will soon be stumping up £12.50 every time they get behind the wheel in London. Much to the outrage of Londoners, the Labour mayor has grand plans to expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone across the whole city in several months’ time. But for plumbers and window cleaners worried about how the daily charge will affect them, David Lammy has some advice: they should hop on the train. https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1618190134612049920 Lammy was challenged by Nick Ferrari on LBC yesterday as to how tradesmen and women could travel around London once the Ulez prices them out of using their vans. Lammy answered: ‘One thing we have got is a fantastic transport system across London.

All rise! Just over three years after quitting parliament, Jared O’Mara now finds himself in court rather than the Commons. The former Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam stands accused of making fake expense claims during his time in Westminster to fund a ‘significant cocaine habit’. On the first day of his trial at Leeds crown court, the jury heard how O’Mara is accused of trying to swindle £30,000 of taxpayers’ money to fund his ‘heavy addiction’.  According to the prosecution, O’Mara tried to pass off the claims as payments related to a fictional charity called ‘Confident About Autism South Yorkshire’.

As the Conservatives face another round of allegations of Tory sleaze, Labour is doing what it does best: having an internal row about trans rights. After Labour MP Rosie Duffield found herself heckled by her own side for speaking out on her concerns over the SNP"s Scottish gender recognition bill, she penned an article likening being in the Labour Party to an abusive relationship and criticising Keir Starmer over his 'silence' following the incident. Those claims do not appear to have landed well in the Leader's Office. Rather than entering a period of reflection, the Mail on Sunday reports that a senior aide to Keir Starmer said 'it would be nice' if Duffield 'spent a bit more time' in her constituency of Canterbury rather than 'hanging out with JK Rowling'.

Ah, the World Economic Forum: that annual jamboree for plutocratic banksters, avaricious industrialists and superannuated spongers to come together in an orgiastic eulogy to global capital. Sir Keir Starmer is among those in Davos this week as part of the party's latest enterprise initiative. For where better place for a Labour leader to demonstrate his progressive credentials? The purpose of such schmoozing is two-fold. It is intended to show Labour as a pro-business party, which has put the bad old days of Comrade Corbyn well behind them and make Starmer seem 'Prime Ministerial' by having him endure the tedium of meeting various satraps, flunkeys and apparatchiks which comprise the Davos elite. But has this initiative backfired?