What is it with party chairs and their taxes? Having brought down Nadhim Zahawi, tax lawyer Dan Neidle has now set his sights on ex-Labour Party chair Ian Lavery. According to The i, Lavery is “refusing to confirm he paid tax on £140,000″ in unexplained payments and written-off loans from the Northumberland National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Now Neidle is asking questions… 

It’s virtually a mirror image of the Zahawi saga: Lavery is dodging questions, claiming HMRC has already conducted a “desktop review” of his taxes, and claiming “no further assessment [is] necessary”. Apparently i News contacted him weeks ago, with no response…

Neidle added:

“When there are financial irregularities, undocumented payments, and uncommercial arrangements involving loans, it is reasonable to ask whether the correct tax has been paid on the payments. It is a very simple question, and should have a simple answer… I fear that, like Mr Zahawi, Mr Lavery has decided the best response to people asking legitimate questions about his tax affairs is to provide bland statements that all tax has been properly paid, ignore the specific questions being asked, and hope it all goes away. I expect, like Mr Zahawi, he will be disappointed.”

Perhaps now Rishi’s had a spring clean of CCHQ, this is something Lee Anderson could bring up given his previous beef with Lavery…