HOW DAVE’S CHUMS ARE LINING THEIR PORKY POCKETS
Forget their tainted gongs. This devastating investigation reveals how all Cameron’s No10 mates — drawing on knowledge and contacts gained in power — have been enriching themselves
SET in 20 acres of Florida’s ocean-front splendour and with the best suites costing from £6,000-a-night, the Fontainebleau Hotel is in area of Miami Beach known vulgarly as Millionaires’ Row.
This week, one of its guests has been David Cameron, on the latest stop of his postDowning Street money-making career. He was a star turn at the annual Credit Suisse Global Trading Forum where business leaders discussed ways to enrich themselves and others in the world of finance. His fee was around £100,000.
Next month, the former PM (who quit as an MP very soon after his humiliating EU referendum defeat and thus is no longer obliged by parliamentary rules to declare his earnings) will speak at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas.
Cameron isn’t the only one cashing in on his six years in Downing Street. His closest former advisers and friends — most of whom he rewarded with gongs and titles — are also lining their pockets in a way that tarnishes public trust in the political system.
Though for one of this chumocracy, the gravy train suddenly hit the buffers this week. Rachel Whetstone, a former Tory HQ strategist and godmother to Cameron’s late son Ivan, quit her £1million-a-year PR role at the tax-dodging U.S. minicab firm Uber after the Information Commissioner’s Office began an investigation into an alleged cover-up by No 10 officials over their dealings with the company.
How are the others faring?
CRONY EX-TORY CHAIRMAN LORD FELDMAN
SINCE leaving Downing Street alongside Cameron after their Brexit humiliation, the former Prime Minister’s old buddy has wasted no time in building up a rich portfolio of jobs.
For a start, he’s been given a consultancy with political strategists the Messina Group. As Tory chairman, Feldman signed off more than £400,000 in payments to Messina for work during the 2015 General Election campaign.
Feldman, 51, had been involved in the decision to hire Jim Messina, who founded the group, to co-ordinate the Tories’ digital strategy.
He will now work for the London office of Messina, which was set up only days before the election. How very cosy! What’s more, the millionaire — who met Cameron at Oxford, where they played tennis — could be about to get even richer through a property deal involving a Tory donor whom he cultivated for years on Cameron’s behalf.
When Cameron became Tory leader, Feldman ran the controversial Leader’s Group of donors, which gave wealthy Tory supporters direct access to Downing Street via dinners with Cameron and senior Tories in return for donating a minimum £50,000 a year.
One billionaire with whom he forged a good relationship and who dined with Cameron in No 10 was investor Sir Michael Hintze, who gave the Tories £2.8million between 2008 and last summer. (Hintze, known for generously backing various causes, was knighted in 2013.)
In February, Feldman joined the board of property developer Architekton of which Hintze was already a board member and shareholder.
The firm is re-developing two factories in Norwich in a £100 million scheme.
Another Architekton board member is Sir Michael Peat, former Treasurer to the Queen and Private Secretary to Prince Charles. And a few weeks after Hintze and Peat joined the company last year, the Norwich site was visited by the Prince.
It has the blessing of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment (a school and trust founded to ‘promote a return of human values to architecture’). The Foundation’s chairman? None other than Michael Hintze.
I’m told that Feldman is expected to pocket a tidy sum from the Norwich scheme. Any profits will be paid into Andrew Feldman Associates, the firm he set up just ten days after leaving the Tory Party.
That’s not all. Feldman, who lives in a £10million West London house with his City fund manager wife Gaby Gourgey, 47, has another income stream from a firm linked to the Tories.
In September, he joined the senior advisory board of Tower-Brook Capital Partners, a transatlantic investment management company.
Its founder and co-chief executive, Ramez Sousou, gave £525,000 to the Tories while Feldman was party chairman. His wife Tiziana Cantoni, who describes herself as a philanthropist, gave £435,000 over the same time.
Mr Sousou also attended the Feldman-organised ‘dinners with Dave’ — including one in 2012 with Cameron and then Chancellor George Osborne.
Under House of Lords rules, Feldman doesn’t have to disclose how much he’s paid by the two companies or by his successful family textile company Jayroma, which has assets of more than £7 million.
The firm paid its four directors — including Feldman, his wife and mother — more than £900,000.
Incidentally, Cameron’s wife Samantha’s new luxury fashion range Cefinn, which she developed since her husband left No10, is made at a factory in Eastern Europe owned by a controversial Macedonian businessman who has done business with Feldman since the Nineties.
Feldman has two other new roles: one with Macro Advisory Partners — a consultancy whose chairman is former MI6 chief Sir John Sawers, which pompously says it provides clients with ‘the strategic insights to navigate the intersection of global markets, geopolitics and policy’ — and another with TFG Asset Management, a global financial company with offices in Lon-
don. So it’s not surprising that Feldman’s participation in proceedings in the House of Lords has been poor.
In six years, he has spoken only once (in 2011), never asked a question and taken part in fewer than one third of votes.
None of this will play well with the Tory grassroots, who he infuriated after he was accused of describing party activists as ‘swivel-eyed loons’ — an accusation he denied.
UBER CHAMPION AND EUROPHILE DANIEL KORSKI
EvEN before Cameron’s rushed departure from Downing Street, the deputy director of the highly influential policy unit had set up a new company, Public Group, which shamelessly exploits his time in No 10.
The firm was incorporated at Companies House on July 5, just days after the EU referendum.
It offers ‘growth programmes’ to help start-up companies to win government contracts and public sector deals in return for a 3 per cent equity stake.
Korski shrewdly recruited as a fellow director Eileen Burbidge, 45, a venture capitalist who also had connections to Downing Street. She had been appointed by Cameron in 2015 to be chairman of Tech City UK, a governmentbacked organisation supporting digital business.
She was a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group, which was wound up by Theresa May. Burbidge was given an MBE by Cameron.
‘Learn from experts,’ boasts the Public Group website, where Korski, who was made a CBE by Cameron, brazenly offers access to advisers working at the highest levels in government, including his successor at the No 10 policy unit, Natalie Black, the former director of the Office of Cyber Security.
Others listed on the website as being available for discussion included advisers for Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
These details appeared on Korski’s website even though none of the names had been approved by the Cabinet Office or the Government’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which is responsible for deciding if there is a conflict of interest when former ministers and government officials take jobs outside Whitehall. Not surprisingly, the arrangement was eventually ruled to be in breach of Civil Service regulations and the names removed from Public Group’s website.
The controversy came days after the Mail revealed Korski had, some years earlier, tried to bully the then London mayor Boris Johnson to stop him approving rules that would curb the activities of Uber, which uses a phone app, low fares and self-employed drivers to undercut traditional black cabs.
This pressure was said to be the result of the intimate relationship between Cameron, Osborne and Uber, where Rachel Whetstone was senior vice-president.
Korski, whose venture has been approved by the Cabinet Office, has denied doing anything wrong, but it symbolises the notorious revolving door used by those exploiting knowledge gained in government to secure lucrative jobs in the private sector.
SPIN DOCTOR OF PROJECT FEAR SIR CRAIG OLIVER
AN ARCHITECT of Project Fear during the referendum campaign. As part of a cynical bid to frighten voters, he used the phrase ‘leap in the dark’ about the risks of the UK leaving the EU.
Cameron’s 47-year-old director of communications was accused of being behind other black propaganda such as organising a letter from retired military chiefs warning of security threats if there was a Leave vote — as well as being involved in spreading fears from the Bank of England about the economic effects of a Leave vote.
Awarded a knighthood by Cameron, the former BBC man received the honour from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace having requested no publicity from the media. However, he’s not coy about exploiting his title for commercial reasons.
Now a senior director of the lobbying firm Teneo Blue Rubicon, he is described as ‘Sir Craig’ three times in his 18-line biography on the company website.
The firm — which specialises in ‘Global Corporate Reputation Management’ and provides ‘comprehensive strategic counsel to help solve complex business challenges’ — has clients that include another tax-dodging firm, Facebook, Royal Bank of Scotland (which was bailed out by £45 billion of taxpayers’ money) and the National Grid (Britain’s power network operator).
Oliver also quickly cashed in on his time in Downing Street by writing a book, Unleashing The Demons: The Inside Story Of Brexit. It was serialised in the Mail on Sunday and made acerbic remarks about Theresa May, saying she ‘notably did not pay tribute to Cameron’ during his last Cabinet meeting.
PART-TIME MP WITH SIX JOBS GEORGE OSBORNE
NOT content with renting himself out on the lucrative lecture circuit to audiences eager to learn from his experience of six years in charge of Britain’s finances, he is lining his pockets in a variety of other ways.
JOB 1: Consultant — earns £650,000 for four days a month at American financial giant, BlackRock (which, oh yes, is one of taxi firm Uber’s major backers). He’s received first quarter payment of £162,500.
JOB 2: Chairman — unpaid role in charge of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a body aimed at creating jobs in the North of England.
JOB 3: Speaker — has made a mint from speeches to banks and City institutions since leaving No11. His biggest cheques have come from Citibank, £85,000; HSBC bank, £51,000; private investment firm Centerbridge Partners, £68,000; J.P. Morgan bank, £81,000 and £61,000.
JOB 4: Editor — London Evening Standard newspaper. Salary thought to be £250,000.
JOB 5: Academic — on an estimated £120,000 a year as the first Kissinger Fellow at the Arizonabased McCain Institute for International Leadership in the U.S.
JOB 6: MP — despite criticism that he cannot fulfil his duties representing his Cheshire constituents, he refuses to give up his £76,000-ayear post as MP for Tatton.
YOUNGEST PEER IN THE HOUSE BARONESS BERTIN
By CAMERON’S side since 2004 when he was in the Shadow Cabinet, at 39, she is the youngest member of the Lords. Last month, Gabby Bertin, who was in Cameron’s media team, took up the £250,000-a-year post of director of strategic communications and campaigns at BT — a firm dealing with several problematic issues involving the Government. Last month it was fined a record £42 million for a ‘serious breach’ of industry rules following an investigation over how it provided lines to rivals such as Talk Talk and Sky. Of course, BT has huge contracts with Government departments.
THE LOYAL GATEKEEPER BARONESS (KATE) FALL
ONE of Cameron’s most trusted advisers and his deputy chief of staff. The daughter of a former ambassador to Moscow was ennobled after the 2015 General Election. It took a year until she
made her maiden speech. Now a partner at PR company Brunswick, which is run by close Cameron friend Sir Alan Parker.
The firm has worked with banks Barclays and HBoS, the Drax Group (which operates the UK’s largest coal-fired power station), the French energy giant EDF (which the Tory Government controversially gave approval to build nuclear power stations in England) and yet another controversial firm, Facebook. Significantly, after the Camerons left Downing Street and while their home was still rented out to tenants, Sir Alan invited the family to stay for a time, at no cost, at his seven-bedroom London mansion.
Like so many others, Fall met Cameron at Oxford. They bonded while working in the Conservative Party Research Department in the early Nineties. She once dated George Osborne.
TORY VICE CHAIRMAN BARONESS (KATE) ROCK
SHE went on the Conservative party payroll in 2008 and was its vice chairman, responsible for business development. Ennobled after leaving No10 in 2015, she set up her own company, Kate Rock Consultants.
Clients include Boden, the upmarket clothing firm run by an Old Etonian, among whose highprofile customers is Cameron.
Controversially, as an opening salvo by the Remain lobby in the referendum campaign, Rock circulated a letter signed by business leaders and Tory donors that argued ‘Britain is better off in a reformed EU’.
Though she took leave of absence from Central Office to work on the Britain Stronger In campaign, her involvement upset those who were told that Tory party officials would stay neutral during the campaign.
She hit the headlines in 2011, when, after announcing major public spending cuts, the then Chancellor George Osborne took his whole family on holiday to the £1.7 million ski chalet in Klosters, Switzerland, owned by Rock and her Old Etonian husband Caspar (who is chief investment officer at Cazenove Capital Management).
When Rock took her place in the Upper House, she was introduced by Lord Feldman. Since January 2016, she’s spoken in the Lords only five times.
OSBORNE’S IMAGE CONSULTANT THEA ROGERS
THE former BBC producer was credited with persuading Osborne to abandon his foppish haircut for a close-cropped Caesar cut to make him look more serious and to lose weight on the 5:2 diet, which involves fasting for two days a week. Oxford-educated Rogers, 35, who worked with Osborne for four years, once dated former Labour Cabinet minister, now BBC bigwig, James Purnell.
Noted for her strong fashion sense, she was known to wear thigh-high boots and jeans when accompanying Osborne. Given an OBE by Cameron, she is now head of PR at restaurant delivery service Deliveroo, recently valued at £480 million.
The firm has been criticised by MPs for making its drivers sign a contractual clause whereby they agree not to challenge their selfemployed status.
By doing so, drivers waive their entitlement to basic benefits enjoyed by employees, such as holiday and sick pay.
Therefore, Deliveroo avoids paying employer’s National Insurance contributions.
SPEECHWRITER TURNED LOBBIST AMEET GILL
AFTER leaving Downing Street, the 34-year-old set up Hanbury Strategy and Communications. One of his first clients was Deliveroo, whose head of PR,
Thea Rogers (see above) is a former girlfriend. His decision to set up the lobbying company within two months of leaving Downing Street without first informing the Government’s anti-sleaze body led to him being censured.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments registered its ‘concern’, saying it had not been able to consider the case properly.
Eventually, it ruled that Gill should not draw on ‘privileged information’ he had access to while in Downing Street. OLD ETONIAN CHIEF OF STAFF LORD (EDWARD) LLEWELLYN OF STEEP
LOATHED by many Tory MPs, he was rewarded with a peerage and the plum diplomatic post of British ambassador to Paris with a £180,000 salary and magnificent official residence.
His unpopularity was based on his ardent Europhile views and failure to win any pre-referendum concessions for Britain from other EU countries. Accused of being ‘smirkingly, eyeball-rollingly contemptuous’ of the idea of making changes to EU treaties, he was nicknamed ‘the pocket Talleyrand’ (after the disloyal French politician said to have a gift for choosing the most opportune moment to abandon whichever unpopular regime he happened to be serving).
The 51-year-old is another who became friends with Cameron at Oxford. He once worked for archEurophiles Lord (Chris) Patten, the former EU Commissioner and Lord (Paddy) Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader.
Ashdown said of him: ‘He’s far too nice to be a Tory.’
THE LADY WHO DITCHED TORIES BARONESS (CAMILLA) CAVENDISH
JUST two months after being given a peerage by Cameron, the former broadsheet journalist, who was head of his No 10 Policy Unit for just 12 months, resigned the Tory whip.
The 48-year-old may have feared that being associated with the Tories might conflict with her career plans post-Downing Street. Now working on assignments for the BBC (having done reports about government efforts to control traffic pollution), the Oxford contemporary of Cameron is married to Huw van Steenis, global head of strategy at Schroders investment house.
Until November he was a managing director at investment bank Morgan Stanley, which donated £250,000 to the Remain campaign and paid Cameron £100,000 for a speech.
And so the carousel of Cameron cronies continues its merry money-making way.