Press Fails To Cleanse Rishi’s Fishy Dishy

Not for some years has a politician’s stock fallen quite as precipitously as that of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak: his recent “mini-budget”, such as it was, unravelled rapidly, his attempts to pretend he was a “man of the people” were a PR disaster - and then came the revelations about his wife.

Popularity? What popularity?

Sunak is not merely well-off: he is unimaginably rich. His wife, Akshata Murty, is even richer. She also enjoys “non-dom” status, which appears to have enabled her to pay rather less in tax to the Government department headed by her husband than she would, as a British citizen resident in the UK, have had to do. Thus the criticism.

An obedient client "journalist" speaks

As his ratings have slumped, Sunak has turned to our free and fearless press in an effort to shore up his credibility. His search for a suitable client “journalist” led him to the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, now somehow elevated to become the political editor of the Murdoch Sun. Cole has insinuated that Sunak is the victim of racism.

Why the aggressive headline?

Not that he was coming straight out with the claim, relaying Sunak’s thoughts: “People, I don’t think, have an issue with the fact that there’s an Indian woman living in Downing Street … Her family home is in India, she obviously has a very close connection … It wouldn’t be reasonable or fair to ask her to sever ties with her country because she happens to be married to me … These are her choices, right?”

Ah right

But what about that “non-dom” status? “I appreciate that in the past British people were trying to use this thing to basically not pay any tax in the UK. I can see that from my inbox, right? That’s a very clear perception … But that’s not the case here. She’s not a British citizen. She’s from another country. She’s from India”. Ri-i-i-ight.

Ms Murty can still be an Indian citizen and pay taxes in the UK, in the same way, and in the same amounts, that British citizens do. But she has chosen - of her own volition - to become a “non-dom”, which is estimated to have enabled her to avoid £20 million in tax.

As for the claims that Sunak is the victim of a “smear”, the quote marks seem to be doing some very heavy lifting, as Ian Fraser has pointed out. “It’s nonsensical of Rishi Sunak to claim that revelations about his wife Akshata Murty are a ‘smear’. To smear someone is to damage their reputation with false accusations but her ‘non dom' status and £11.6m in annual dividends from Infosys are facts”. LBC host James O’Brien was also unimpressed.

“It is not a ‘smear’ to suggest that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wife should pay the same percentage of her income to the Exchequer that the average resident is required to. But Sunak, with the inevitable connivance of client journalists at The Sun, is pretending that it is”. In any case, as Sam Coates at Sky News has told, it’s getting a lot worse.

“Did he have a US Green Card - declaring himself ‘permanent US resident’ - during his first year as Chancellor? No denial tonight from Treasury, who only say he doesn’t have one now”. So he would, if true, have been paying his taxes not to the department he heads, but to the IRS. In the USA. Which renders his chat with Master Cole pointless.

The Murdoch mafiosi have, in the past, prided themselves on an ability to override reality. This time, though, their efforts have already failed. Sad, really.

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