Boris Johnson – Bought politician (by the look of these donors)

By TruePublica Editor: In little more than two weeks between 28 May and 10 June Boris Johnson received £235,500 in “private” donations, to himself personally, as he prepares to become the UK’s unelected Prime Minister. Something is not right in our political system when looking through just some of these ‘donations’ – especially when there’s technically nothing dodgy about them.

 

The Tory party co-treasurer of 2012 was Peter Cruddas – has donated £50,000 to Johnson’s campaign. He ‘resigned’ after it was revealed he was offering access to the prime minister and chancellor for up to £250,000. He was forced out after footage emerged of him apparently making the offer to undercover reporters in what became known as the ‘cash for access scandal.‘ I think that could be classed as about corrupt as it gets.

James (known as Jamie) Reuben is a British-based financier (Melbury Capital) and son of the property investor billionaire David Reuben. He is a director at Britain’s largest horse racing company and has given multiple donations of £25,000.

Quoted lower down in this article is this excerpt – “James Reuben, who gave two donations totalling £50,000 to Johnson, is the scion of the UK’s second-wealthiest family, worth £18 billion. The Reubens made their money, like Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov, in the pillaging of Russia’s massive metal producing assets, which were physically seized by gangsters, in the chaotic US organised Yeltsin privatisation process. The entire basis of their vast fortune was the exploitation of assets effectively stolen from the Russian state and people.”

 

Another is Charles Montanaro – a hedge fund founder/manager.

To the list of wealthy bankers, we can add Alex Wilmot-Sitwell who headed much of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s businesses. He was at UBS when it was heavily criticised for its now famous failures and was branded ignorant and incompetent by the Tyrie Commission. He’s the son of another wealthy banker Peter Wilmot-Sitwell.

 

IPGL is on the list. It is a petrochemical company whose fortunes, based on share price, has not been too good over the last year with a listed share price plunging from 530 to 227. Petro-anything today is on the endangered species list as the environment and climate change movements step up a gear – backed with the much higher support of the general public. A company handing over money means the company is investing – it is different from an individual.

In fact, over the last year, Johnson has attracted over £500,000 in donations, the majority of which, have come from financiers and businessmen, including those who support Brexit, and who surprise, surprise – favour low taxes and the deregulation of the UK economy.

 

Corruption in the UK is much worse than reported – and the political system is now infested with the vested interests of exploitative capitalists who do anything to see Britain turned into little America.

Former UK ambassador Craig Murray put is like this – “The blatant corruption of the UK’s political system is part of the reason for popular alienation from the ruling classes. It was Blair who elevated British politics to US levels of shamelessness in the matter of politicians’ self-enrichment, and Johnson looks set to follow the Blair example. While some may pretend to do so, I do not accept that there is anybody who is naive enough genuinely to believe that such donations do not influence politicians’ policy decisions.

Straight donations aside, the slightly disguised corruption of our political system should also be taken into account. The banks put politicians in their pockets not through direct payments, but through massive, often six-figure, fees they pay them for “speaking at dinners”. That is how Hillary Clinton garnered much of her Wall Street funding. In the case of Boris Johnson, it is interesting that in the House of Commons Register of Members’ Interests, he frequently lists the name of the speaking agency who paid him, but not who the client was.

Another way to pay less obvious bribes – and one particularly pursued by New Labour – was the book deal, where publishers pay massive six-figure advances to politicians which are, routinely, up to ten times the actual royalties earned for which they are an “advance”. This only makes sense when you realise that every single one of the major publishers is owned by a much bigger multinational – for example until recently Murdoch owned HarperCollins.

James Reuben, who gave two donations totalling £50,000 to Johnson, is the scion of the UK’s second-wealthiest family, worth £18 billion. The Reubens made their money, like Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov, in the pillaging of Russia’s massive metal producing assets, which were physically seized by gangsters, in the chaotic US organised Yeltsin privatisation process. The entire basis of their vast fortune was the exploitation of assets effectively stolen from the Russian state and people.”

 

Today, there seems to be a total lack of consequence for the scale of corruption, lies and incompetence in Britain’s modern-day politics. From homelessness to Windrush, from Tory officials blocking a raid on money laundering operations – due to Tory party donations to Theresa May’s husband’s employer making a killing (literally) from bombing Syria.

Tory donors are up to their necks in the Cambridge Analytica scandal that robbed Britain of its future, all while the lying, deceit, propaganda and disinformation campaigns persist. Here is a list of just some of the shenanigans going on in our rotten government – it’s not exhaustive but makes for truly awful reading, commensurate to that of some sort of despotic regime.

 

 

 

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