David Cameron

[drfchound]

With hindsight the sale of gold was a financial blunder, you are now in the process of hair splitting, Gordon Brown wasn't corrupt unless you have proof, which you can take to the police. If there was proof wouldn't you think the tory party would have been all over it like a rash?

“With hindsight the sale of gold was a financial blunder.”
So it is ok to let Brown off for a massive blunder but had it been one of those nasty Tory people who had done it I am guessing that your line would have been simply “the sale of gold was a financial blunder”.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yeah but it was only a few billion quid that you and me are now paying for.

Sorry, I don't want to make light of it. It was a stupid mistake. I thought so at the time.

I read an article a few years ago that claimed there was some huge crisis coming in the financial markets that required the release of the Govt gold.

I've no idea if that's true. But it is totally irrelevant to the theme of this thread. If it WAS a mistake, it was a mistake. A pin prick compared to what we lost through Austerity or Brexit, but those were all clear political decisions. The OP was about an ex-PM filling his own pockets through graft at the country's expense. Something that, as far as I can see, is without precedence in living memory.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Just to be clear on the scale of Cameron's graft, he was paid for his ability to call old chums in Govt and get them to offer his imploding company £400m of Govt underwritten loans. His imploding company then loaned that money out to their biggest debtor, who they knew was himself on the brink of collapse.

In any reasonable world, Cameron would be looking at a ten year stretch for fraud on an industrial scale.

[drfchound]

So if it is cut and dried that Cameron committed fraud, why isn’t he facing charges?

[belton rover]

So if it is cut and dried that Cameron committed fraud, why isn’t he facing charges?

Because, apparently, sometimes both sides of a story just aren’t necessary.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The SFO is currently investigating Greensill. We'll see what happens, although I'm sure Cameron will have been savvy enough to be able to claim plausible deniability.

 Fascinating that you can't bring yourself to utter a single syllable of criticism against Cameron though.

[drfchound]

Well, as you say, investigations are ongoing.
Let’s see what the outcome is before lynching him eh.

[SydneyRover]

''Mr Cameron's spokesman told Panorama he was neither a director of Greensill, nor involved in any lending decisions, and that he had no special insight into what ultimately happened.

The spokesman said: "It is also preposterous to suggest that he would work for any company if he was aware that it was behaving improperly, or was in any way seeking to mislead investors."

He's cleared himself ...................

[BillyStubbsTears]

''Mr Cameron's spokesman told Panorama he was neither a director of Greensill, nor involved in any lending decisions, and that he had no special insight into what ultimately happened.

The spokesman said: "It is also preposterous to suggest that he would work for any company if he was aware that it was behaving improperly, or was in any way seeking to mislead investors."

He's cleared himself ...................

And that was precisely what I meant when I said Cameron will have a deniability defence. I suspect that will be enough to insulate him from legal charges.

Whether it is morally plausible is another matter. Consider this.

His defence appears to be that it never dawned on him to question why he was paid £7.5m for two years of part time work which involved repeatedly pestering Sunak and Johnson to give special treatment to his company to receive huge lashings of emergency public funds that it wasn't entitled to. It never dawned on him to ask his employer why that influence was so vital that they would pay him at a rate 150x that of a full time new nurse for part time work. An ex-PM, used to dealing with the most complex problems was happy to be dumbly ignorant of the context of what he was doing.

Stretches credulity just a tad, no?

[normal rules]

Influence is everything in top level politics and business.

Look no further than Theresa May Ltd’s website “weworkwithyou” and check out her registered business interests.

The amounts of money she gets for influential speeches around the world is eye watering. JP Morgan paid her £160,000 for a 4 hr speech!!!!
Also worthy of note is her overseas travel during obvious lockdowns to places like South Korea and Paris.

I’ve said it before. Power, money, influence - all the constituent ingredients for corruption to flourish.  But not the sort that lands you in jail. Corruption that keeps you the right side of the law. Just. Influence peddling I believe it is called. Extremely difficult to prove of course. Then there is lobbying and interest representation. All of which would have been present during Cameron’s involvement with Greensill , I suspect.

[Not Now Kato]

But just look how much better off the exchequer must be from all the tax they pay on it.   (Why haven't we got a YEH, RIGHT emoji?).

[normal rules]

Seems Cameron may have been “influencing” elsewhere with a fresh allegation hitting the papers today.

David Cameron has denied lobbying the government on behalf of Illumina, a genetics company he worked for.
The denial comes after it emerged Mr Cameron encouraged Health Secretary Matt Hancock to speak at a conference co-hosted by the firm shortly before it won a £123m government contract. A contract that appears to have been without any competition whatsoever.

[foxbat]

I dread to think how many Donny Folk voted Tory because  the thought  Cameron would best represent their interests.