Did you get an invite to stay at the billionaire hedge-fund trader Nathaniel Rothschild's luxury villa in Corfu this summer?
No, me neither.
That’s because we’re not members of the global elite.
This Daily Mail reports tells us a lot about the world we live in - and the small band of powerful global financiers and billionaire businessmen who call the shots. Read it and it’s easy to understand why our political elite- whether they go under a ‘Labour’ or 'Conservative' label- put the interests of capital before ordinary working people, every single time. After all, what can we offer them?
The scandal is not so much whether or not Shadow Chancellor George Osborne (pictured above, together with Nat Rothschild in their days as members of Oxford University's notorious Bullingdon Club) or Tory party treasurer Andrew Feldman personally approached the Russian aluminium oligarch Oleg Deripaska for a £50,000 donation to party funds, but that our political elite spend their time in such company.
As this writer says:
Mr Osborne is the man calling for the British people to elect him as chancellor of the exchequer. Lord Mandelson is now one of the most important cogs in the government's attempts to get the country through the economic downturn.
Both these men will undoubtedly use the phrase 'hard working British families' over the next few days in relation to some financial measure or other. But when was the last time either of them actually met a hard-working British family? After all, these are not the men they socialise with. They socialise with the Rothschilds and Deripaskas of the world.
And because they socialise with the Rothschilds and Deripaskas of the world, they will always favour their interests, ahead of OURS.
UPDATE: Martin Kelly has put up a great post about this shoddy affair, which I can highly recommend. Here's an extract:
Just as politics has been described as showbusiness for ugly people, the decline and fall of George Osborne is the political equivalent of Madonna's divorce from Guy Ritchie; a space-filler based on the doings of spectacularly unpleasant, spiritually ugly people, but focussed on wealth and influence instead of celebrity. The logic of the warped morality on display here seems to follow thus - Rothschild does not seem to be indignant, does not seem to care, that an attempt to break the law may or may not have been made in the company he was hosting. Instead, what irritates him is the company's privacy was breached.
To my mind, this displays an amoral attitude. By writing his letter, Rothschild has made himself fair game for further enquiry. The plebs will be asking themselves how many other such gatherings he has hosted at which discussions aimed at lawbreaking may have taken place.
4 comments:
I agree. Can anyone take mainstream parties seriously any more?
I think Osbourne is the new Mandy in making. Same slick, yet slightly sociopathic feel about him. The fact that both seem to be involved with this big money man is a beautiful twist, as if they had thought this through just to prove a point.
The Tories have always had the sleazy edge to them; but over the last 20 years it's seeped into all three main parties.
And just to quote Jarvis Cocker from The Last Day of the Miners' strike:
"'87 socialism gave way to socialising"
Hmm...
This little piggy got caught with his snout in the trough.
Interestingly, the BBC kept insisting on last night's news that "The Big Story" was a question of Osborne's judgement. I'm not convinced. Surely the real story is one about a Conservative Party bigwig being caught pants down in the act of conspiring to commit a breach of UK electoral law.
A string of flimsy denials from Tory Central Office and a promise of an internal inquiry shouldn't be good enough here, although they'll almost certainly be allowed to get away with it. What is really required here is a criminal investigation, although since the police are all tories anyway, it might not make much difference. Still, it might be worth agitating for such a case to be brought, don't you think?
By my reckoning, assuming that Ian Paisley doesn't stand again, Dennis Skinner is on course to be the next Father of the House.
There is a prima facie case that George Osborne either incited, or at the very least failed to prevent (or to report the incitement of), a criminal offence.
Dennis Skinner should report him to the Police.
Meanwhile, the company through which Oleg Deripaska was planning to funnel his donation to the Tories was Leyland Daf. Which he owns.
That company used to be called British Leyland. And you used to own it.
Whether against sharp practice, or in defence of national sovereignty, wasn't privatisation great, eh, Maggie? And Tony? And Gordon?
You are quite right, Osborne probably has done nothing illegal but this whole affair has demonstrated how the global money elite can act in amoral and immoral ways and our politicians still swoon. No wonder there is so little oversight in the US bailout bill, too many of our politicians instinctively take the view and interests of the power elite.
http://schneiderhome.blogspot.com/2008/10/george-osborne-and-aluminium-oligarch.html
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