Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Boris Johnson responds with laughter to the exposure of Pandora's papers regarding the multi-million dollar house Tony Blair received for free as a bribe from Bahrain

Tony Blair sent thousands of British troops to be killed and wounded in the war against Iraq, in defense of the Gulf states and the region that paid him generously, while deceiving the military and the public as if Saddam had nuclear weapons he never had.

It has now been revealed in Pandora's papers that Tony Blair received a free home in London worth millions, from Bahrain, as a bribe.

Today, after doing the morning media round, Boris Johnson emerged from a booth and set off with his minders across the main hall of the Conservative party conference in Manchester. What was his reaction to the Pandora papers?


And would the Tories be giving back the money they had taken from certain donors and as a personal bribe?

Johnson professed not to have read the detail. “At the moment we are getting on with building back better,” he said. Asked whether the revelations of “corrupt deals” were embarrassing for the Tories, he replied: “You mean Tony Blair?” The prime minister laughed at his own joke and scuttled off, as his aides looked on furiously.

Tony and Cherie Blair had indeed saved themselves millions by not paying for the house they got for free from tha Bahrain rulers plus more than £300,000 in stamp duty when they “bought” a London office in 2017 via an offshore company – entirely illegally.

The revelations about Johnson’s party were of a different order. Documents in the Pandora papers set out how Mohamed Amersi – a major Tory backer – had advised on a $220m (£162m) Swedish telecoms deal, later found to be corrupt.

The money – a bribe, according to US prosecutors – was paid to the daughter of Uzbekistan’s then dictator. (Amersi’s lawyers say he had “no reason” to believe this at the time and the underlying arrangements for the deal had been put in place two years before.)

Then there is Viktor Fedotov, a UK-based Russian-born tycoon. His firm Aquind is seeking ministerial approval to build a power interconnector under the Channel. It has given cash to 33 Tory MPs. Fedotov, the Guardian discovered, owns a New Zealand trust that appears to have taken $97m from the Russian state monopoly Transneft.

Lawyers for Aquind said Fedotov did not personally donate to the Conservative party, was not involved in the management of the company and had “no influence” over its donations.

The files also feature Lubov Chernukhin and her husband, Vladimir, a former Russian government minister. She has gifted £2.1m to the Tories, spending £160,000 on a game of tennis with Johnson. The couple’s oligarch lifestyle – mansions, yachts, a chicken house and a robot to clean the London swimming pool – is paid for via offshore accounts.

All deny wrongdoing in the strongest terms as every criminal does anyway. 

True to form, the UK is not investigating the Pandora papers because bribe involved almost every high level official in UK, from the Palace to politicians.  

Other countries that are less corrupted than UK, have taken a different view of the claims: Pakistan, India, Mexico and Brazil, as well as Panama, Spain and Australia.


The leak comprises 11.9m documents from 14 service providers. There are emails, share certificates and diagrams. Thirty-five world leaders, past and present, 300 public officials and 130 billionaires appear in them.

Some of those exposed have reacted badly.

The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, used a complex offshore chain in 2009 to buy a £13m mansion in the south of France. A BBC Panorama reporter who tried to ask him about it was bundled out of the way. Babiš said he was the victim of a plot by his political foes, with national elections taking place on Friday and Saturday. The purchase was historical, he added.

Another indignant leader was Cyprus’s president, Nicos Anastasiades. The law firm that bears his name was accused of helping to conceal the assets of a Russian tycoon by hiding them behind the names of fake beneficial owners. At an EU summit in Slovenia on Wednesday, sheltering under an umbrella, Anastasiades said he had done nothing wrong.



Grilled by German journalists, Anastasiades implied it was ludicrous to link him with his law firm, now run by his daughters. He seemed annoyed and defensive. “Can you tell me who of those oligarchs, those officials, who their lawyer is?” he asked, before walking off.

Others responded to the Pandora papers by attempting to ignore them.

Ukraine’s actor turned president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was named in connection with a network of offshore companies co-owned with his friends from TV. The president refused to answer questions about his undeclared British Virgin Islands firm, Maltex, and left it to his spokesperson to say that no anti-corruption rules had been breached.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, claimed the papers did not implicate the president nor anyone close to him. The reverse was true: Putin’s alleged former lover and childhood friend appeared in the leak, together with a billionaire oil trader Putin has known since the early 1990s. All have assets hidden in Monaco, including a luxury apartment overlooking the yacht club and marina.

This week’s leak is the latest in a series of disclosures, which also includes the Panama and Paradise papers. Together, they throw into sharp relief what is in effect a vast and complicated shadow world.

Over the last five years, the Guardian, working with partners, has shone a light on capitalism’s murky secrets. Despite all the disclosures, and all promises from politicians about closing loopholes and making things more transparent, the rich and influential continue to hide their assets, paying little or no tax.

Faced with this obvious iniquity, western politicians seem complacent or complicit.

In the US, at least, there have been bipartisan attempts to do something about this two-tier system. Joe Biden broke off from a row over federal debt to say he would examine the leak. Meanwhile, in Congress a Republican and a Democrat have proposed landmark legislation. It would target professionals who enable foreign corruption: law firms, art dealers, banks.

Under the proposals these facilitators would have to report suspicious activity and to carry out checks on money lodged in offshore accounts. The draft law recognises that billions of dollars in dirty cash is swirling around the US, crippling the countries from where it is stolen.

The US itself emerges from this week’s leak as a major tax haven, with $300m (£220m) stashed in the state of South Dakota alone.

“The Pandora papers have ushered in a historic moment for a sweeping policy response,” Josh Rudolph, fellow for malign finance at the German Marshall Fund, said. Paul Massaro, a congressional anti-corruption adviser, praised the work of investigative journalists, adding: “Global corruption is an existential threat to democracy.”

Not everyone seems to have got the memo. With spectacularly bad timing, EU finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday decided to reduce the number of countries on a tax haven blacklist. Anguilla, Dominica and Seychelles were removed. The British Virgin Islands is not even on the list, despite accounting for two-thirds of the shell companies in the Pandora files.

In Britain, Downing Street appears to show little interest in offshore reform. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said he would “look into” the revelations. Thus far, though, the government has not implemented proposed legislation that would reveal the identities of those who use offshore companies to buy UK property. For now, there is no public register.

Which means London remains a highly attractive destination for kings and kleptocrats. We learned this week that the king of Jordan has quietly amassed a $100m property portfolio including a Malibu mansion and three buildings in Belgravia.

Azerbaijan’s ruling family has also bought into UK property. In 2009 the Queen’s crown estate bought a £66.5m building from a British Virgin Islands-based company that was owned by the Azerbaijani president’s family.

More than any other global city, London facilitates offshore transactions, the leak suggests. It is home to PR firms, company incorporation agents and peers, whose job it is to assist the super-rich. There are lawyers too. .

Graham Barrow, a financial crime consultant, said the leak revealed an “all-encompassing global network”. He said: “Most offshore companies provide exceptional levels of secrecy. Money from organised crime and corruption rubs shoulders with funds from those who merely seek to evade public scrutiny. And therein lies the problem. If you hang out with the mob, you get tarred with the same brush.”

In Manchester the Conservatives have ignored the issue, hoping it will soon be forgotten.

The party’s co-chair Ben Elliot – the nephew of the Duchess of Cornwall – set up his own British Virgin Islands company in 2007 to fund a documentary about cricket. The Tory ex-minister Jonathan Aitken got £166,000 in secret offshore cash for writing a flattering book about Kazakhstan’s president.

One insider who attended the Tory conference was pessimistic. “I don’t think things will change. It’s absolutely systemic,” they said. The party says it declares donations to the Electoral Commission, adding they are an essential part of how democracy functions. It adds that donors such as Lubov Chernukhin are UK citizens, free to give money to whoever they want.

Faced with a choice of doing the right thing, or the easy and amoral thing, critics of Johnson say it’s not hard to guess which way he will probably jump.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Unelected PM of the UK holds an emergency meeting because a candidate got voted in… which he says is a threat to democracy…
Farmers break through police barriers in Brussels.
Ukraine Arrests Father-Son Duo In Lockbit Cybercrime Bust
US Offers $15 Million For Info On Leaders Of Cybercrime Group Lockbit
Apple warns against drying iPhones with rice
Alexei Navalny: UK sanctions Russian prison chiefs after activist's death
German economy is in 'troubled waters' - ministry
In a recent High Court hearing, the U.S. argued that Julian Assange endangered lives by releasing classified information.
Tucker Carlson says Boris Johnson wants "a million dollars, in Bitcoin or cash, from Tucker Carlson to talk about Ukraine.
Russia is rebuilding capacity to destabilize European countries, new UK report warns
EU Commission wants anti-drone defenses at Brussels HQ
Von der Leyen’s 2nd-term pitch: More military might, less climate talk
EU Investigates TikTok for Child Safety Concerns
EU Launches Probe Into TikTok Over Child Protection Under Digital Content Law
EU and UK Announce Joint Effort on Migration
Ministers Confirm Proposal to Prohibit Mobile Phone Usage in English Schools
Avdiivka - Symbol Of Ukrainian Resistance Now In Control Of Russian Troops
"Historic Step": Zelensky Signs Security Pact With Germany
"Historic Step": Zelensky Signs Security Pact With Germany
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has died at the Arctic prison colony
Tucker Carlson grocery shopping in Russia. This is so interesting.
France and Germany Struggle to Align on European Defense Strategy
‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners
Greece Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage and Adoption Rights
Russia "Very Close" To Creating Cancer Vaccines, Says Vladimir Putin
Hungarian Foreign Minister: Europeans will lose Europe, the Union's policy must change drastically
Microsoft says it caught hackers from China, Russia and Iran using its AI tools
US Rejects Putin's Ceasefire Offer in Ukraine
The Dangers of Wildfire Smoke and Self-Protection Strategies
A Londoner has been arrested for expressing his Christian beliefs.
Chinese Women Favor AI Boyfriends Over Humans
Greece must address role in migrant vessel disaster that killed 600: Amnesty
Google pledges 25 million euros to boost AI skills in Europe
Hungarian President Katalin Novák Steps Down Amid Pardon Controversy
Activist crashes Hillary Clinton's speech, calls her a 'war criminal.'
In El Salvador, the 'Trump of Latin America' stuns the world with a speech slamming woke policing after winning a landslide election
Trudeau reacts to Putin's mention of Canadian Parliament applauding a former Ukrainian Nazi in his interview with Tucker Carlson.
The Spanish police blocked the farmers protest. So the farmers went out and moved the police car out of the way.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy fires top Ukraine army commander
Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin raises EU concerns
Finnish Airline, Finnair, is voluntarily weighing passengers to better estimate flight cargo weight
Russia's Economy Expands by 3.6% Due to Increased Military Spending
Ukraine MPs Vote To Permit Use Of Dead Soldiers' Sperm
German Princess Becomes First Aristocrat To Pose Naked On Playboy Cover
UK’s King Charles III diagnosed with cancer
EU's Ursula von der Leyen Confronts Farmer Protests Amid Land Policy Debates
Distinguishing Between Harmful AI Media and Positive AI-Generated Content: A Crucial Challenge for the EU
Tucker Carlson explains why he interviewed Putin
Dutch farmers are still protesting in the Netherlands against the government, following the World Economic Forum's call for 'owning nothing.'
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stands up for European farmers and says, 'Brussels is suffocating European farmers.
×