Why can’t I be shameless like a politician?

Still haunted by minor faux pas from his past, Will Gore wonders how the likes of Nadhim Zahawi can apparently be so unbothered by their mishaps

Oh, to be able to brush off mistakes like Nadhim Zahawi brushes off five million quid (Getty)

Sometimes, I would like to be unembarrassable. I would like to be one of those rhino-skinned people who seems never to worry about what they’ve done or said, or what other people think of them; who never blushes at a social faux pas and appears to sleep soundly every night, without a care in their shameless head.

Then again, if I was one of those people, I might end up in government, and that is not something I would like.

Nadhim Zahawi may, for all I know, toss and turn in his bed, worrying about the “careless and not deliberate error” that meant he had to pay five million quid to the taxman. He may in private feel the heat when he considers that a sizeable portion of this was a penalty, and he may have hidden behind the sofa when he heard the boss of HMRC say penalties are not imposed for innocent mistakes.