'The boy from Baghdad' Fall of MP who aspired to be prime minister

As the MP for Stratford-uponAvon, Nadhim Zahawi talks proudly of representing the birthplace of William Shakespeare. His own political downfall has all the makings of a tragedy in five acts.

- Josh Halliday

The Kurdish-born Iraqi refugee, who arrived in Britain aged 11, was sacked as chair of the Conservative party yesterday after he was found to have committed a "serious breach"" of the ministerial code over his tax affairs.

His dismissal follows days of mounting pressure after the Guardian revealed that the former chancellor had agreed to pay a penalty to HMRC as part of a multimillion-pound settlement last year.

He was sacked by Rishi Sunak after an investigation found that he had failed to declare this investigation by HMRC when he was appointed chancellor last July.

The prime minister's ethics adviser found that he had breached the ministerial code again when he failed to declare the tax penalty when appointed to the governments of Liz Truss and Sunak.

It is an extraordinary downfall for a man who less than a year ago ran to be Conservative party leader and, with it, prime minister.

Zahawi is, by some measures, one of the most remarkable politicians of his generation. Born in Iraqi Kurdistan, he came to England in 1978 when his family fled Saddam Hussein's regime.

The "boy from Baghdad", as Zahawi calls himself, initially struggled to settle in his new country and his parents were warned he might suffer from learning difficulties owing to his initial inability to speak English.

He overcame those difficulties and entered local politics, serving for 12 years as a borough councillor in Wandsworth, southwest London. At this time, in the late 1990s, he worked for the Conservative MP Jeffrey Archer (who referred to Zahawi as "lemon kurd").