The racy Tory donor who sold dinner for £25k

Gasps of excitement at the Conservative party summer ball last week, when one benefactor bid a whopping £160,000 for dinner with Theresa May.

supper with one-time darling of the party faithful Boris Johnson, however, went for a mere £15,000.

But there was also another dinner date agreed at Wednesday’s bash to boost Tory coffers. Dinner for 12 at Crosby Hall, the former Thames-side home of Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor Thomas More, went for £25,000.

The magnificent 15th-century, 30-room townhouse in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, is owned by the suave businessman Christopher Moran, who has now added ‘Dr’ to his title. Guests walk past a statue of the not-entirely-modest Moran when they arrive.

Grammar school-educated, he made his first million by the time he was 21. But unlike most Tories, Moran had a cavalier approach to the rules. Censured several times by the London stock Exchange for controversial share purchases, he holds the dubious privilege of being the first person to be barred for life by the insurance market Lloyd’s of London.

He also made a $2 million settlement after he was accused of insider trading in New York. Yet there he was bold as brass at the Tory gathering at West London’s Hurlingham Club selling dinner at his house.

One Tory donor told me acidly: ‘Let’s hope they have long spoons — that’s what you need when you dine with someone like that.’

IF Mrs May has pondered trying to form another coalition with the Lib Dems to keep her Government afloat, she should read what that party’s next likely leader, sir Vince Cable, told the New statesman: ‘I have the metaphor of mating with a praying mantis. you get eaten at the end. We don’t want to go down that route again.’