Pulled by a current of Tory indolence, Britain flounders in a sea of dirty money
The paradox of the oligarchical money that washes around the British elite like a sea of dirty water is that it has yet to buy every aspect of British foreign policy. Opposition politicians and journalists can identify the Kremlin-linked billionaires funding the Tory party. We can look in a mixture of revulsion and astonishment at how the naturally conservative milieu of City financiers, libel lawyers, estate agents, the art market and private schools has become as dependent on the proceeds of crime as opioid addicts on OxyContin.
But we cannot say that Vladimir Putin owns this government. The UK supports Ukraine and shows no inclination to excuse Russian imperialism. If you want a truly cynical European power, look to Germany, which would rather see Putin’s armies march into Kyiv than risk Volkswagen losing the sale of a single hatchback.
Domestic, not foreign, policy is corrupted. Your taxes are rising and your public services are failing because a governing elite that is at ease with easy money will not pass laws to drain the money swamp. Because it does not police oligarchs, the government allows every type of fraudster to flourish.
The temptation is to focus on a London populated by caricatures out of socialist agitprop. Here we have Ben Elliot, connected to royalty via his Auntie Camilla. Elliot provides “unique access and exclusive privileges” to the super-rich on the one hand and charges Tory donors £250,000 for meetings with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak on the other.
To show you the damage, however, let me take you far from Mayfair to Manchester crown court by the River Irwell, where Judge Anthony Cross stared at Asif Hussain last month and confessed to being staggered. Before him in the dock was the leader of an
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