Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife has avoided paying over £4m UK tax in the last year by claiming non-dom status just as her husband is forcing ordinary people to pay increased tax on their much more modest earnings.

His argument that she was forced to do so because she was born in India and is an Indian national was a lie and his switch to arguing that she was being smeared also quickly unravelled. How can telling the truth about the tax affairs of the Chancellors wife creating conflicts of interest be a smear? After the revelations that the Chancellor held a US Green card well into being in charge of the UK’s finances showed that the US tax authorities knew more about his tax affairs than the UK Treasury, his future is now hanging by a thread. The fact that his response to these revelations is to launch a leak inquiry and threatened whoever may be responsible with criminal proceedings shows that he just doesn’t get it.

This is one of the most egregious examples we have seen of a Chancellor putting taxes up – by over £1,000 a person – while his own family pay less by benefitting from rules minimising their own contributions. This morning Sajid Javid has admitted taking advantage of non-dom rules before he was an MP working as a banker. How many more have dodged paying the taxes we are all expected to?

It is shameful and Rishi Sunak, who was being talked up as a possible future Tory leader, should resign. It’s another example of there being one rule for them and another for everybody else. The sooner these crooked Conservatives are out of office the better off we will be.