ANOTHER multi-millionaire Tory cabinet minister fell into ignominy today as Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi was finally sacked over his tax affairs.

The dismissal has intensified questions over PM Rishi Sunak’s judgement in not acting sooner when his failure to pay his taxes was first exposed.

Opposition politicians also asked how much Mr Sunak knew about the issue when he appointed Mr Zahawi Tory Party chairman — and automatically a Cabinet member — last October.

Mr Zahawi’s sacking followed an investigation into his response to revelations that he reached a deal with HMRC tax officials not only to pay unpaid taxes, but to fork out a significant penalty charge for not paying them — in total £4.8 million.

The row centred on a tax bill over the sale of shares in YouGov — the polling firm he founded — worth an estimated £27 million and which were held by Balshore Investments, a company registered offshore in Gibraltar and linked to Mr Zahawi’s family.

But Mr Sunak had ignored calls for Mr Zahawi to be sacked, instead ordering an investigation by Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministers’ interests.

Sir Laurie concluded that Mr Zahawi’s behaviour was a “serious breach” of the code by which government ministers are expected to conduct their financial affairs.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham placed the focus of the affair squarely on Mr Sunak’s questionable judgement in failing to sack Mr Zahawi immediately.

“This latest episode again underlines the lack of experience and direction of Rishi Sunak as our prime minister,” she said. 

“Instead of acting decisively, he has been guilty of poor judgement, dither and delay.”

She likened the Prime Minister’s decision with his failure to recognise the seriousness of the escalating dispute involving NHS staff.

“The prime minister’s tactics of covering his eyes and ears, hoping it will all go away, along with his total lack of judgement, are fundamental factors in the escalating NHS dispute,” she said.

Scottish Greens economy spokeswoman Maggie Chapman MSP said: “This revolving door of scandal, borderline corruption and incompetence is spinning out of control. 

"This prime minister, like the previous two before him, is now shrouded in controversy.

“The Tories cannot be trusted. This rotten husk of a government must go, and go now.”

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “Despite the writing on the wall, the Prime Minister showed himself to be too weak to act. 

“Rishi Sunak should have sacked Nadhim Zahawi a long time ago.”

Labour Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds and deputy leader Angela Rayner have written to Mr Sunak asking what the Prime Minister knew and when.

Ms Rayner said: “Rishi Sunak shouldn’t have needed an ethics adviser to tell him that Nadhim Zahawi’s position was untenable, but instead he continued to prop up the man he appointed to Cabinet.

“He must now come clean on the advice he was given about that appointment in the first place and why he apparently ignored the warnings.”

In his letter to Mr Zahawi, the PM paid tribute to his contribution to the government, including his role as vaccines minister during the pandemic.

“As you leave, you should be extremely proud of your wide-ranging achievements in government over the last five years," Mr Sunak’s letter said.

Mr Zahawi, who has been MP for Stratford-upon-Avon since 2010, had said that HMRC concluded there had been a “careless and not deliberate” error in the way the founders’ shares, which he had allocated to his father, had been treated.

He had also insisted he was “confident” he had “acted properly throughout.”

On Sunday, he told Mr Sunak: “It has been, after being blessed with my loving family, the privilege of my life to serve in successive governments and make what I believe to have been a tangible difference to the country I love.

“You can be assured of my support from the backbenches in the coming years.”

Mr Zahawi is no stranger to questionable financial practices. During the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009-10 he was found to have claimed taxpayers’ cash to heat the stables in which he kept his horses.