Hareth: Who was Nadhim Zahawi father?

Nadhim Zahawi is the current Chancellor of the Exchequer and MP for Stratford-on-Avon.

Zahawi, a member of the Conservative Party, has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010.

Zahawi was born into a Kurdish family in Baghdad, Iraq.

His father is known simply as Hareth, and is a businessman and a director of Balshore Investments.

When Saddam Hussein came to power in the late 1970s, Zahawi’s family came under threat.

However, Zahawi’s father, a businessman, got a tip-off that the authorities were coming for him and quickly arranged to fly out.

Zahawi recalled the anxiety of watching the plane preparing to take off from Baghdad Airport.

After all the passengers had boarded, a military vehicle drove up to the plane. His mother was in tears as they saw a passenger being removed.

The passenger turned out not to be his father, but the man who had been sitting behind him on the aircraft.

Mr Zahawi described it as a “traumatic” childhood moment “stamped on his memory”.

So instead of growing up in Iraq,  Zahawi grew up in Sussex.