Rishi Sunak faces questions over Nadhim Zahawi sacking – UK politics live

Sunak to hold Q&A in north-east as Labour says ‘many questions unanswered’ over firing of Tory party chair

Good morning. It was widely predicted that Nadhim Zahawi would lose his job as Conservative party chair after the investigation into his tax affairs, but I don’t think anyone in the Westminster politico-media world was expecting a sacking at 9am on a Sunday morning. Normally that’s a dead zone for No 10 announcements. The timing seemed contrived to imply decisiveness, and to show that Rishi Sunak was taking the initative.

But the departure of Zahawi has not stopped the opposition, and others, criticising Sunak’s handling of the affairs. The story has moved to the “raises questions about this judgment” phase of scandal coverage and Labour has written an open letter to Sunak with a string of as-yet unanswered questions. It says the scandal “leaves many unanswered questions”. Here is the letter.

Zahawi is said to be furious and believes he has not been given the chance to put his case across. He had one 30-minute meeting with Magnus last Wednesday and only saw details of Magnus’s report when it was published on Twitter.

Allies of Zahawi have disputed Magnus’s timeline. Magnus says that Zahawi failed to inform the Cabinet Office of the settlement he reached with HMRC until January. Those close to Zahawi claim that he did so in September, before his appointment as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Liz Truss and as chairman of the Conservative Party by Sunak.