It’s just not tennis

WHILE Russia continues to carry out atrocities in the Ukraine, the British Conservative Party links to Russia become even more disturbing, and cause doubt as to whether they will ever bring in meaningful sanctions against the property of Russian oligarchs, much of which is held in London.

It is well known that the Conservative Party has received £2 million from Russian-linked people in recent years.

We also know that Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Putin’s former deputy Finance Minister, is a member of a Tory board which raises funds for the Conservative Party.

It is reported that she paid £165,000 to play tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson; and £135,000 for an evening with Theresa May.

Most British people, in this time of ever increasing living costs, are anxious about how to live within their household income. They would not, I feel, see £165,000 for tennis matches, or £135,000 for a dinner date (however exciting the latter must have been) as great value for money.

Even more bizarrely it seems that, at some time in the past, the Conservative Party’s fundraiser, Ms Chernukhin, also bid £30,000 to have dinner with Gavin Williamson in the Churchill War Rooms in Whitehall.

I can only think that Mr Williamson’s part in this distasteful moneyraising function is the real reason why Boris Johnson has just elevated him with a knighthood.

Certainly a man who was sacked by Theresa May as Defence Secretary as he had ‘lost her confidence,’ and then sacked again as Education

Secretary by Johnson for general incompetence, would not be seen as a someone who was top of the list for receiving a high honour. Alan Snook

Redland