Why I believe it would be right for you and I to save £312K in stamp duty but wrong for the Blairs to do the same

If you plan to buy either car or home insurance I wonder if you might look at my small price comparison site A Spokesman Said as we earn a little commission from each sale which helps fund the research and editorial costs of running the site. It has the same offer as the big ones like Go Compare. Thank you.
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If it were you and I the idea of buying a building and saving £312,000 in stamp duty would make it enormously attractive.

But if you were a former Labour Prime Minister (yes a Labour PM) and your missus was a QC you might have thought you would think twice about it.

After all when Tony Blair was in No.10 he campaigned about cracking down on tax loopholes for the super-rich but when faced with exactly the same position what did he do; he jumped in feet first and did the deal.

This is all revealed in a great piece of financial investigation called the Pandora papers.

It shows that back in 2017 Cheri Blair and husband Tony paid £6.7million for the four-floored  building in Mayfair which was to become the HQ of her government advisory firm Omnia Strategy.
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The seller was a Bahraini minister and the Blairs acquired the property’s holding company and not the building and therefore avoided having to pay stamp duty.

There is nothing illegal in what they did, a point the Blairs made in their response to the story.

But being a Labour couple they surely have to be like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion.

Or once he was out of Downing Street perhaps he no longer cared about his PR and his standing as a former Prime Minister.

Shame on him if that is how he thinks.

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PS: So just to mention again but if you plan to buy either car or home insurance I wonder if you might look at my small price comparison site A Spokesman Said as we earn a little commission from each sale which helps fund the research and editorial costs of running the site. It has the same offer as the big ones like Go Compare. Thank you.