Will Dave face a Euro ear-bashing from his millionaire donors?
AS A former public relations executive, David Cameron is acutely aware of the power of carefully staged photo opportunities. Whether it’s posing with huskies in the Arctic, or next to a Cornish beach with his wife Samantha in the latest Boden leisure wear, Cameron has often sought to exploit images for political gain.
But at tonight’s Black and White Party, the highlight of the Conservative social calendar, Cameron will be unusually camera shy.
He would rather the event, which will raise at least £2 million for party funds, went unnoticed. It’s why not a word appears about it on the Conservative Party website. Staff at the venue, the 18th- century Brewery in Chiswell Street, in the City of London, have also been ordered to take a vow of silence.
The guest list is meant to be a secret, but I have discovered that it includes a collection of hedge-fund millionaires, bankers, dodgy tycoons and even the odd pornographer. And the more they are willing to pay, the closer they get to the seat of power.
A ‘Standard’ table for ten, which costs £5,000, secures the presence of a junior minister or senior backbencher. The £10,000 ‘Premier’ tables guarantee a middle-ranking minister. The £15,000 ‘Premium’ table reels in a Cabinet minister, or heavy hitter like London Mayor Boris Johnson — who was conspicuous by his absence last year. Every Cabinet minister has been ordered to attend.
But all this expensive back-slapping doesn’t mean it’ll all be plain sailing for the PM just nine months after he led the party to election victory.
The coming EU referendum is looming large — and threatening to tear the Tories apart once again.
Consider that the event is sponsored by hedge-fund millionaire Howard Shore, who has given £500,000 to the Conservatives. Given the widespread disdain for the ‘deal’ the Prime Minister hopes will keep Britain in the EU, his conversation with Mr Shore should be interesting: the City figure has repeatedly called for Britain’s withdrawal.
Not only that, while Cameron’s government pledged a crackdown on tax avoidance in 2010, Shore moved the headquarters of his company, Shore Capital, to the tax haven of Guernsey.
And that’s not the only dissenting voice the PM will have to negotiate. Another high-profile guest i s the JCB i ndustrialist Lord (Anthony) Bamford, who lives in a vast mansion in the PM’s Oxfordshire constituency. He was given a peerage in 2013 by Cameron, and his family has given more than £2 million to the Tories.
Last year, he penned a blistering article stating ‘the price of our membership [of the EU] has simply become too high’.
Will he remind Mr Cameron of those views over the canapes? I bet Dave can’t wait.
THE DRESS-DOWN DRESS CODE
CAMERON and his clever coterie of well-heeled advisers came up with the wheeze a few years ago of changing the name of the stuffy Winter Ball — once staged by the party’s dowager duchesses — to the achingly cool Black and White Party, designed to reflect the chic style expected, including men in dinner suits and black tie.
But after stinging criticism that the event reeked of privilege in a time of austerity, Dave has ordered Cabinet ministers tonight to wear lounge suits, with cocktail dresses for the women. Bow ties and tiaras will be frowned upon.
The media have been banned from tonight’s proceedings. There will be no official photographer inside either.
Anybody would think the PM doesn’t want people to see him courting the super-rich. So much for Cameron’s mantra ‘we are all in this together’. Perhaps that should be: we’re all rolling in it together.
THE GUESTS WITH A COLOURFUL PAST
JACQUELINE GOLD, the chief executive of Ann Summers, arrived last year in a silver rolls- royce, her diamond--
encrusted necklace, handbag and watch twinkling under the flashbulbs. Unveiled as a celebrity supporter of the Tories a year ago, she is expected to make a similarly dramatic entrance tonight. Ms Gold is best known at Ann Summers for bringing the rampant rabbit sex toy to Britain.
THE debonair property speculator Christopher Moran, who has been censured several times by the London Stock Exchange for a series of controversial share purchases, and who holds the dubious privilege of being the first person in 300 years to be barred for life by Lloyd’s of London for ‘dishonourable conduct’, is also on the guest list.
ANOTHER woman expected to make an entrance is Karren Brady, best known for her role on TV show The Apprentice. Now Baroness Brady after being ennobled by the PM, she was mentored by David Sullivan, the porn baron who in 1982 was convicted of living off immoral earnings. Brady used to work in sales at his smutty newspaper The Sunday Sport.
MICHAEL SPENCER, whose ICAP City brokerage has been fined £55 million by regulators over the Libor interest-rate rigging scandal (though he was not personally implicated), was nominated by Cameron for a peerage last year — but it was blocked by the watchdog that vets the nominations. Spencer has still taken a table this year.
LASTLY, there’s James Lupton, a Tory treasurer, who was given a peerage last year by Cameron for raising millions for the Tory election war chest. Lupton, who has taken a £15,000 table, has given £2.5 million to the party. He has recently been forced to deny claims that he persuaded the Government to give a £3 million grant to the controversial Kids Company.
At last year’s ball, he donated a week’s stay for 24 people at his La Fortaleza estate on the Bay of Pollença in Majorca. The lot went for £210,000. But this year Lupton has not given anything to the auction. I wonder why?
BUT WHERE ARE THE RUSSIANS?
AT LEAST there won’t be any embarrassment with russian oligarchs this time. Two years ago, at the summer gala, controversy resulted when Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, a former finance minister under Putin, paid £160,000 to play tennis with Cameron and Boris Johnson.
After an outcry, the match was cancelled and no cash paid.