Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Boris Johnson, who once claimed he 'needed lots of women on the go because he was bursting with spunk', & "forgot" being warned about Pincher when he appointed him, has now appointed Zahawi, who was embroiled in the Presidents Club sex scandal!

theguardian.com/society/2018/j…

In 2018 Zahawi was given a “dressing down” by the Tory chief whip after attending The Presidents Club charity, which was forced to close after widespread outrage at the way some guests were said to have groped & sexually propositioned women employed at an event at the Dorchester.

The joint chair of the club David Meller was forced to stand down as a board member of the Dept for Education as a result of his involvement.

Zahawi, then minister for children & families, was given a “dressing down” by Julian Smith, after he admitted having attended the event.

A lunch with Boris Johnson was to be auctioned at the Presidents Club event, initially donated as a prize for another charity, set up by the former England cricketer & thanks to Boris Johnson - since 2020 'Lord' Ian Botham - but that it was passed on 'without Johnson knowing'. 😉

What is less known is that the Iraqi-born then Children's Minister Nadhim Zahawi was involved in a Kurdish oil firm called Gulf Keystone Petroleum, from which Zahawi stepped down as 'Chief Strategy Officer' early in 2018.

middleeastmonitor.com/20180129-presi…

Hired in 2015, Zahawi's strategy at Gulf Keystone appears to have been facilitating one of the most apocalyptic share price plunges in oil industry history. The investor website Motley Fool has called Keystone "one of the great oil disaster stories for investors of recent years."

At one stage, the Serious Fraud Office was contemplating an investigation into the stricken Iraqi firm as its performance plunged. Naturally, all principals within the company denied any wrongdoing.

To put the commercial misfortunes in perspective, Zahawi – while a serving MP — joined the firm in July 2015, when the share price was hovering at £35.30p per share. Upon his departure, it was worth just £1.29.

I'm not convinced this bodes well for Britain's economic fortunes.

Tens of thousands of investors, many "individuals of modest means", according to one consumer finance website, lost £millions. The enormous salaries paid to Zahawi & other executives contrasted with how, since 2012, the firm had lost 99% of its value, while ratcheting-up debt.

Zahawi was appointed because of his political connections both in Britain & in his native Iraq. The board was attracted initially by what Intelligence Online called Zahawi's role as the "go-to consultant for access to the Barzani clan" (which controlled Iraqi Kurdistan).

The reasons he was appointed to this Middle Eastern firm go right to the heart of the complicated businessman-cum-diplomat-cum-politician role that Zahawi carved for himself, & given numerous various Tory lobbying & other scandals, should concern every voter in Britain.

Zahawi is just one of several examples where the business interests of Conservative politicians in the Middle East have often overlapped with diplomacy, muddying the waters between where an individual's commercial interests end & national interests begin.

opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…

From a Kurdish point of view, Zahawi was hired to navigate Kurdish politics, but he sat on the influential Foreign Affairs Select Committee, & enticed then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, to visit Kurdistan, not least for a photo-op.

Sound familiar?

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

What Zahawi was paid was staggering. At the time it was understood that Zahawi's employment lasted between 15 July 2015 & 12 December 2017, when he was employed by Gulf Keystone Petroleum, required to work between 8 & 21 hours/week for which he was paid up to £29,600/month.

In 2017, Zahawi received a bonus payment of £253,200, & later he received an additional payoff of £155,936.

In November 2021 it was reported he had earned £1.3MILLION from the role, but had used a parliamentary loophole to keep his earnings secret.

mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/t…

Zahawi went on to be a public advocate for the rights of other Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq, although he has almost always voting for stronger enforcement of immigration rules & recently floundered when asked about the Govt's barbaric #Rwanda Plan.

But there's more!

In 1991, he was involved in a highly controversial project by Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer to raise money for Kurdish refugees through a music concert called (from today's perspective, somewhat ironically) 'Simple Truth'. 😬

theguardian.com/world/2001/aug…

Archer - who nicknamed Zahawi "Lemon Kurd" - claimed that £57million was raised through the project, but refugee groups claimed they saw very little of the money. Archer would later be jailed for perjury & perverting the course of justice in 2001.

By now most people know that like the previous Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, Zahawi is grotesquely wealthy, & although he stood down from his family business Zahawi & Zahawi Ltd when he became a minister, his wife & two sons are all directors.

The firm has a property empire in Surrey, London, East Sussex & Buckinghamshire, plus 31 acres of land &, infamously, a stables in Warwickshire.

Last September, as the #CostOfLivingCrisis loomed, the firm bought a £6.3million plot which includes a giant Co-op & car park.

The horse riding stables are the site of perhaps the most infamous Zahawi story.

In 2013 the Sunday Mirror revealed the multi-millionaire claimed for electricity at the stables, as part of a wider bill, other parts of which were allowed under the rules.

mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/m…

Zahawi at first defended his claims - including £6,000 in just one year for energy bills - but later admitted he made a “mistake”. No wonder Boris Johnson likes him!

“I have made a mistake with the electricity. I will be paying back any money wrongly claimed immediately.”

Finally, let's not forget his, er, controversial remarks in 2020, that some parents “prefer” having to pay for school meals - despite Covid economic woes at the time.

Footballer Marcus Rashford was ramping up pressure at the time on ministers to feed hungry kids in the holidays.

And now this: a “flag” was raised by officials over the financial affairs of new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, before he was promoted - his offshore family trust held shares worth £20million in polling firm YouGov, which he co-founded.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/j…

Civil servants in the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team are said to have alerted Boris Johnson to a HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) “flag” over Zahawi before his appointment. The PM appointed him despite the possible concerns over his tax affairs. Of course he did.