“Boris Johnson committed himself to changing gambling rules to help Richard Desmond’s [pictured with Johnson] business after the prime minister was lobbied at an event at Downing Street last year, according to the billionaire former media mogul.
No 10 has repeatedly refused to say how many times the prime minister met Desmond in the run-up to the government’s decision to approve the Westferry development — a £1bn luxury housing scheme in the Isle of Dogs, east London.
However, Desmond, the former owner of the Daily Express, used a rare interview with The Sunday Times last week to reveal that he met Johnson on September 17 in Downing Street. That was after the government had seized control of the planning application from Tower Hamlets council in April.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/…/richard-desmond-boris-johnson-…
Also…
“BORIS JOHNSON has welcomed ex-Barclays boss Bob Diamond – seen by many as emblematic of all that was worst about the British banks behind the 2008 crash – as a major new Tory donor.
[…]
After the 2008 crisis, Diamond clung on as Barclays’ chief executive until 2012, resigning when the bank was fined £290m for manipulating key interest rates (Eyes passim). The Financial Services Authority described the way Barclays cheated the Libor rate as “serious, widespread and extended over a number of years”. His successor, who said Barclays had had an “aggressive” and “self-serving” culture under Diamond, closed its structured capital markets division, which had made the bank around £1bn a year under Diamond through “structured” deals that were really mostly tax avoidance.
[…]
The Tories also accepted £100,000 from luxury property developer Nick Candy, seemingly having forgotten past controversies about tax avoidance by his and his brother Christian’s businesses, and the lurid allegations against them in a court case brought by their former business associate, Mark Holyoake (Eyes passim).”
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/hp-sauce
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