By David Osland

When the Rolling Stones wanted to dodge taxes, they spent six months in the south of France recording Exile on Main Street. Nadhim Zahawi hasn’t even given us a double album.

We do not know the extent of his musical ability, and it may be that he has little inclination to casually knock out classic rock riffs on a five-string Telecaster in open G tuning. So this may even be a good thing.

What we do know is that his inclination to pay capital gains tax is even less. Sadly for him, his taxation affairs have come to the notice of His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which belatedly asked him to cough up the several million quid he mysteriously neglected to hand over.

Mr Zahawi has grudgingly written the cheque, and bunged 30% on top for his sins. This without admitting wrongdoing, of course. It’s almost as if warm horses couldn’t drag him away from his money.

To compound his odious conduct, he even tried to bully the journalist who broke the story in a bid to prevent publication.

At the time of writing, he still holds his political appointment as a minister without portfolio. The irony here is that his financial portfolio is obviously extensive.

But so egregious is this behaviour that the Labour Party, which usually does not seek the head of Tory politicians for anything less than corpse desecration levels of depravity, is calling for his dismissal.

His defenders are resorting to the ‘he’s done nothing illegal’ defence. While true, that misses the point. He has done something immoral.

Just six months ago, Zahawi launched a brief and unsuccessful Tory leadership bid. This is a man who only last year aspired to be prime minister.

Zahawi has branded RMT leader Mick Lynch ‘the grinch who stole Christmas’ and suggested that striking nurses were somehow playing into Putin’s hands. I sincerely hope he never has the audacity to attack a trade union pay claim ever again.

In a Britain where the gulf between the richest and the poorest – between private affluence and public squalor – grows wider by the day, the ethics of shorting the public purse on a grand scale while striking nurses, posties and rail workers are taxed at source is obvious to anyone considering the question.

Effectively, Zahawi was stealing from an NHS the Tories have brought to the brink of collapse, from schools that this former Education Secretary ensured are still getting less funding than they did under Labour, from pensioners and from the disabled.

If he had attempted to overclaim Universal Credit, Zahawi would have been sanctioned. If he had been caught shoplifting, he may have faced a custodial sentence.

Instead, he walks away, facing no punishment more drastic than having to fork out what he owed anyway. Al Capone may have done time for tax evasion, but Nadhim Zahawi won’t.

And there – wedged between the stories of Michelle Mone’s new yacht and Boris Johnson’s £6m book advance – you have it. But don’t forget, you can eat for 30p a day if you batch-cook.

I’m not a subscriber to the trickle-down theory of economics. But I do know this: £26m will never trickle down for as long as it remains in an offshore trust account in Gibraltar.

The hedonistic excesses of Mick, Keef, Bill, Charlie and Mick Taylor during the Exile sessions remain the stuff of music industry legend.

God knows how the kind of sybaritic existence Mr Zahawi leads compares. But in his case, it’s difficult to have any sympathy for the devil.

David Osland is a member of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP and a long-time left wing journalist and author. Follow him on Twitter at @David__Osland

Image: Nadhim Zahawi MP. Source: https://members-api.parliament.uk/api/Members/4113/Portrait?cropType=ThreeFour. Author: Richard Townshend, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.