Zahawi, Johnson & The "Idiots": The problem Rishi Sunak has in both dealing with - and not dealing with - political scandals

The tax affairs of Nadhim Zahawi have greeted Rishi Sunak with a scandal going into the New Year, which - as noted in my previous piece - leaves the otherwise scrutiny-evading Rishi Sunak out of his comfort zone. 

Under previous administrations, such scandal would have been handled with characteristic flippancy and brio. 

Sunak, however, possesses neither of these characteristics and so while previous administrations may have dazzled us and attempted to blind-side us with trivialities, Sunak cannot. Many of us, according to the polls, notice. We see. This time. 

Sunak is self-aware, however. At least sort of. Obviously not self-aware enough to know that you shouldn’t be posting a lo-fi, ‘Rory’s Walks’ style video of yourself not wearing a seatbelt in a moving vehicle on Instagram - lest you receive a fixed penalty notice and risk becoming a complete liability in the process.

But - he knows that we can see this time, and this is why back in October whenever he became Prime Minister, he made ““integrity, professionalism and accountability” a central tenet to his administration. 

The problem for Sunak is that when we read more on Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs, we see that emphasis on Rishi Sunak’s pledge to deliver “integrity, professionalism and accountability” diminish “at every level”.