Terms of Reference

You read it all about Nadhim Zahawi in the second paragraph of this, a good 24 hours before the huddle let you know in any detail. Since HMRC has already investigated Zahawi, what is Sir Laurie Magnus supposed to be investigating? I mean, it could not possibly be that, oh, I don't know, the 30 per cent penalty, the one for mere carelessness, was a lot less than should have been imposed? The Chairman of the governing party, Zahawi's tax affairs led to his being blocked for a knighthood in the New Year's Honours List. Get out of that one.

If Sam Blyth gave Boris Johnson a loan, then what was the repayment plan? This was not a loan. This was a bribe. On the combined salaries of a Member of Parliament and of the Prime Minister, a total of £248,224, Johnson needed another £800,000 to get by. He needed it so badly that he was prepared to sell the Chair of the BBC for the arrangement of it. Ministers advised potential candidates other than Richard Sharp not to bother applying. This was well-organised. Johnson's chaotic persona has always been largely an act.

Was this even Johnson's only such arrangement? What else did he sell? And what did he spend it on? Remember this when the poor, most of whom are in full-time work, are told to budget properly, in which they are in fact the experts, literally counting every penny. Nurses would indeed not be using foodbanks if they had interest free overdrafts, never to be called in, of up to £800,000. Nor if they only had to pay as much tax as they felt like paying, and only when they felt like paying it.

As for more than half of households getting more from the State than they paid in tax, if you contrive a society of extreme economic inequality, then that is what is bound to happen. What did you expect? In "you", I include Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and that Yvette Cooper, the Wicked Witch of the Work Capability Assessment, whose familiar, Ed Balls, has today taken to the airwaves to defend Zahawi.

But Starmer's dishonesty is becoming a story. He lied to his party members to get their votes, so he would lie to anyone else to get their votes. We are heading for a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.