When Adam Afriyie sold his political data business, DeHavilland, for £18m, only months after his 2005 election to the House of Commons, it looked as if the fledgling MP had secured a strong financial platform to support his vaulting political ambition.
His 72% stake in the company netted him £13m and one of the Conservative party’s first black MPs – sometimes dubbed the “Tory Barack Obama” – was at one stage reputed to be worth £100m.
Yet this week, HMRC submitted a petition to the high court to have him declared bankrupt over an unpaid bill for at least £1.7m in taxes from his crumbling business empire. Companies House filings suggest that Afriyie’s businesses collapsed owing a total of £2.3m.
Afriyie’s position as an MP, in the safe Windsor
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