Goldsmith nabs a royal jab in Gulf state, then zips home to Blighty
Multi-millionaire financier Ben Goldsmith will do anything to avoid staying in an airport hotel. i can reveal the Government adviser has finally returned to Britain from the united arab emirates, where he has been working ‘remotely’ since mid-December. But rather than have to quarantine in a london airport hotel for ten days, as Britons travelling from the red-listed Gulf State are required to do, Goldsmith flew home via Kenya with his wife Jemima and family.
this meant Goldsmith — whose late father, referendum Party founder Sir James Goldsmith was renowned for being a buccaneering billionaire — was spared any indignity and discomfort on his return to Blighty.
‘We are back in the UK now,’ Goldsmith tells me. ‘We spent three weeks in Kenya, a country not on the red list, before flying home.’
also in Kenya were other members of his extended family including his sister Jemima’s two sons.
While in the uae, Goldsmith, 40, and his wife Jemima, 33 (pictured), managed to jump the jab queue back in Britain after receiving the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine at the invitation of a member of the ruling family of abu Dhabi. tycoons, politicians and royalty have descended on the uae in recent months to secure early access to coronavirus vaccines, as the oil-rich Gulf state has overseen one of the fastest inoculation programmes in the world. ‘it was never our intention to get vaccinated, but when the opportunity presented itself we gratefully took it,’ says Goldsmith. ‘the uae is vaccinating anyone who asks; we just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’ the financier, who has three children with Jemima and two surviving children with his first wife, banking heiress Kate rothschild, says he went to the uae in December, before the UK lockdown, and decided to stay rather than return home. But even then the British Government was advising against non-essential travel abroad.
Goldsmith, who is the brother of environment minister lord (Zac) Goldsmith, was appointed as a nonexecutive board member of the Department for environment, Food & rural affairs in march 2018.