The cast list of The Corfu Connection reads like something out of an Agatha Christie novel

By Richard Little John
Last updated at 12:50 AM on 24th October 2008

The cast list of The Corfu Connection reads like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. Grand panjandrums, Russian oligarchs, media moguls, upper-class twits and exotic same-sex lovers are the stuff of fiction. The only missing ingredient is Hercule Poirot - which is a pity, since it would take the great detective himself to unravel this unsavoury melange. You can just imagine the scene as he calls all the players together into the drawing room of that multi-million dollar Russian yacht...

The Mafia paradise that holds secret to tycoons' alliance

By Richard Pendlebury and Neil Barnett
Last updated at 1:00 AM on 24th October 2008

Springtime in Brussels and a familiar figure is wreathed in smiles as he announces his latest diplomatic masterstroke.
After three years of talks Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissoner, has secured a bilateral agreement with the tiny Adriatic nation of Montenegro. 'Today's signature is an important milestone,' he cooed. Montenegro's progress towards becoming a reliable world trading partner had been 'remarkable'
'Future Monaco': The port of Tivat in Montenegro is going to be transformed into the 'Monaco of the Adriatic' and has a tight circle of wealthy backers
Even so, one imagines that Montenegrin trade prospects rarely dominate small talk at the world's most glamorous restaurants. But they might well have done so at the Moscow dinner table we know Mandelson to have shared with his good friend, Oleg Deripaska, only a few weeks before the Brussels' announcement in April.
Or, indeed, on any of the other occasions when the commissioner has broken bread with the Russian and their mutual friend - and Deripaska's business partner and adviser - the British financier, Nat Rothschild.
Why? Because Deripaska, Russia's wealthiest man, is also the single largest private employer of Montenegro's 680,000 population, responsible for half of the nation's legitimate economic output.
Rothschild - who this week caused a political firestorm by accusing Geroge Osborne, the Tory Shadow Chancellor, of soliciting a £50,000 donation from Deripaska - also has a stake in one of the Russian's projects in Montenegro, as well as other heavy business links with him.
Tycoon alliance? Nat Rothschild (left) has a stake in one of Oleg Deripaska's projects in Montenegro
Indeed, this unholy alliance may very well be the key to understanding Rothschild's astonishing betrayal of his old university chum, Mr Osborne.
BUT why has a tiny state like Montenegro assumed such importance to Deripaska and his business partners? It is no secret that the country has a significant and well-established black economy. As one Balkan business analyst said: 'It is the one country in the region that isn't just bedevilled by corruption, it's a kleptocracy.'
Montenegro, which broke from a federal union with Serbia two years ago, has been governed by prime minister Milo Djukanovic since 1991.

More...
Mandelson to face questions over links to Russian tycoon and plans for a £5bn super-rich haven in Montenegro
The cast list of The Corfu Connection reads like something out of an Agatha Christie novel
Djukanovic is an interesting character. He had long been ' tolerated' by the West for opposing the regime of late Serbian tryrant Slobodan Milosevic. But allegations of links to hugely profitable, mafia-run tobacco smuggling between his country and the EU have seen him repeatedly investigated by Italian prosecutors.
If Djukanovic is the political leviathan of this tiny state, then his friend Deripaska, similarly tainted by alleged mafia-links, is his economic equivalent.
It is said that Djukanovic personally handled the controversial sale of Montenegro's most important state-owned industrial asset - the KAP aluminium firm - to a subsdidiary of Rusal, Deripaska's aluminium concern.
Rusal is the world's largest producer of the metal and benefited greatly from two EU aluminium import tariff cuts which were made while friend Mandelson was trade commissioner.
Some say that KAP was considerably underpriced. There are whispers of kickbacks. Others resent the way in which Russia has taken such a huge stake in their country.
Since 2001 Russia has commanded first place in the countries investing in Montenegro.
Investor: Lord Rothschild, father of Nat, is also on board for the Porto Montenegro marina development near the town of Tivat
Tourism from Russia has rocketed, too. But the main source of investment in recent times has been in real estate, mostly along the gorgeous Adriatic coast.
There are those cynics who say that much of the Russian property investment is a money laundering operation by criminal elements from the Russian Federation.
Of course, there is no suggestion that this might explain Mr Deripaska's interests in the region.
But there is undoubtedly one project for which he has particularly-high hopes - or at least had before the credit crunch shrank his £14billion fortune. That is the extraordinary Porto Montenegro marina development near the town of Tivat.
It is often said of Monaco that it's 'a sunny place for shady people'. Given the identities of some of its recent investors, much the same could be said of the beautiful Montenegran coast.
But at Tivat they really are going to build what has been billed 'the Monaco of the Adriatic'. A Four Seasons hotel is part of the multi-billion-pound plan, as well as hundreds of luxury appartments and berthing for 800 boats - 150 of them superyachts.
Once again prime minister Djukanovic was personally involved in the negotiations, which saw an abandoned ex-Yugoslav naval base and dockyard sold to foreign investors in early 2006. Once again there were allegations of underpricing.
The yard was bought by a firm called TriGranit, Hungary's biggest property developer. It is co-owned by a Hungarian-born Canadian billionaire named Peter Munk and Nat Rothschild.
Munk, 80, is owner of Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold producing company. He was advised to invest in Montenegro by the Rothschild family, with whom he has long enjoyed business ties.
Then he made a call to Deripaska. 'Oleg made the first phone call to the prime minister (Djukanovic) and opened the door for me,' Mr Munk explained.
But Munk and Rothschild were not alone in the project. Also on board are Nat's father Lord Rothschild and two other business big names. One, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, adds lustre.
The other - Deripaska himself - adds a blizzard of cash and a warship-sized yacht, the 283ft Queen K, which has been the subject of recent notoriety as a honeypot for Britain's political elite.
Work on the Montenegrin project is already well under way. Giant palm trees have been brought in from Spain, the pier fenders are lined with African teak and fountains made from Venezuelan stone tinkle prettily.
Porto Montenegro should open for business next year. PM Djukanovic hopes that he can persuade the EU to accept Montenegro as a member by 2012, which should help the Tivat development considerably.
Certainly, its tight circle of wealthy backers have much at stake. Munk sits on the international advisory board of Rusal, Deripska's metals giant. Nat Rothschild (whose JNR firm advises Deripaska) sits on the equivalent board at Barrick Gold.
In return, Munk has reportedly invested heavily in Nat Rothschild's New Yorkbased Atticus hedge fund.
How very cosy. But this nexus of tens of millions of pounds of wealth has been much reduced in recent weeks and is still precarious, thanks to the world financial downturn. Fear stalks the oligarch mansions.
Even Deripaska is reportedly struggling to meet debt repayments on a part of his metals empire and will have to liquidate assets.
In this fraught enviroment, George Osborne - the Shadow Chancellor - made a stupid misjudgment.
He chose to score a cheap political point by leaking embarrassing remarks about Peter Mandelson - the same Commisioner Mandelson who had so enthusiastically praised Montenegrin economic progress and had shown a liking for tariff cuts.
And by so doing, Osborne also unwittingly shone an unwelcome light on Mr Rothschild's most important business partner, Mr Deripaska.
So Rothschild went on the attack. When business is this stormy, you have to choose your place of shelter. And Rothschild's was the Porto Montenegro connection.

New twist as tycoon loses $6bn oil firm to Russian in Osborne donor row

Keith Dovkants 22.10.08
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A TYCOON who clashed with Lord Mandelson's billionaire friend Oleg Deripaska has sought sanctuary in Britain.
The Standard reveals that the Home Office, advised by the security services, decided that businessman Mikhail Gutseriev would be at risk if he was made to return home to Russia.
It is a surprise twist to the Corfu affair which has left shadow chancellor George Osborne fighting for his political life over his meetings with Mr Deripaska. Mr Gutseriev, who is staying at a secret location in London, says he was forced to sell his oil firm, valued at $6 billion, to Mr Deripaska after he was hounded by the Kremlin.
The revelation comes at a time when Mr Deripaska is being seen as toxic for both Labour and the Conservatives.
His friendship with Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has been overshadowed by a claim that during a gathering on his £80 million yacht anchored off Corfu this summer, Mr Osborne discussed a £50,000 donation to the Tories.
Mr Osborne's denials have been contradicted by his Corfu host and old friend Nat Rothschild, also a friend and business partner of Mr Deripaska. Today, another holiday guest supported Mr Rothschild's version.
The Standard's investigation reveals the depth of controversy which has embroiled Mr Deripaska.
The Gutseriev affair was known about in business circles in London and Moscow and although Mr Osborne may not have been aware of the case, Lord Mandelson, as a former EU trade almost certainly did. The Standard's inquiries show that Mr Gutseriev tried desperately to hang on to his company, Russneft, as the Russian authorities squeezed him.
In the end, he decided to flee Moscow after the public prosecutor brought serious charges against him. He says the charges were trumped up.
Weeks later his son Chingis, educated at Harrow, was killed in a mysterious car crash. Mr Gutseriev, 50, is believed to be moving between a number of addresses in Britain and is presently uncontactable.
Sources said that Mr Gutseriev has not sought asylum, but that he has been given leave to remain as an independent businessmen under immigration rules.
The Gutseriev affair could prove especially embarrassing for the Government. Gordon Brown may not enjoy having one Cabinet member, Lord Mandelson, defending his friendship with Mr Deripaska, while the department of another, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, has moved to safeguard a man who claims he is a casualty of activities by the Kremlin from which Mr Deripaska is likely to benefit.
The Russneft case sent shockwaves through Moscow's business community and triggered alarm among British companies in Russia, including BP.
Their concern was that the Kremlin was apparently using its muscle against a prosperous company, a repeat of what happened when oil giant Yukos was seized by the Russian government and its owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was sent to a Siberian jail on what his supporters maintain were phoney charges.
Mr Gutseriev's friends say the fraud and money laundering charges against him were also falsely manufactured by the Kremlin to put pressure on him to sell his business at a cut-price rate.
When he continued to resist selling, the Russian tax authorities demanded $800 million in what they claimed was unpaid tax.
Before he left Russia in July last year, Mr Gutseriev complained on his company website that he had been "bullied" into selling. He claimed Russian government officials wanted him to sell to a business rival.
"They made me an offer to leave the oil business," he wrote. "I refused. Then, to make me more amenable, they tightened the screws on the company with unprecedented persecution."
Mr Gutseriev, a Muslim born in the Caucasus, had been a Kremlin insider and he knew what to expect. But his friends say he was a man of honesty who, unlike other oil oligarchs, had built his company up through straightforward takeovers. He used to boast that he was untainted by controversy over how he acquired his wealth.
He was born in Kazakhstan into a family reduced to humble circumstances by Stalin's purges. Mr Gutseriev was educated in Grozny and took menial jobs to pay for his university studies. He rose through the ranks of officialdom during the Soviet era then, in the late 1980s, founded one of Russia's first co-operative banks.
He was elected to the Duma and, with the backing of shareholders, took over an oil company in 2000.
Two years later, he started Russneft. The company grew and Mr Gutseriev was unwilling to part with it.
A few weeks after he left the Moscow prosecutor issued a warrant for his arrest and alerted Interpol.
Mr Deripaska was cleared to complete his takeover of Russneft last week when a Russian court lifted a freezing order on its assets.
According to observers in Moscow, the acquisition of a company with solid resources like Russneft comes not a moment too soon for Mr Deripaska. Although even recently he was reckoned to be Russia's richest man with a fortune of around $28 billion, his interests have been vastly depleted in the financial turmoil of the past few months.
At the end of this month he has to find £1.14 billion to repay loans he arranged to buy a stake in a big Russian nickel concern, Norilsk. His company, Rusal, is already in breach of "collateral covenants" on the loan, it was reported this week. Russian stocks have plunged by more than 70 per cent since May.
Mr Deripaska's spokesman declined to comment.

MAIL COMMENT: A modern tale of money and sleaze

By Mail Comment
Last updated at 1:28 AM on 22nd October 2008

Nobody emerges with any credit from the drama of dazzling wealth, political intrigue and back-biting played out this summer on the Greek island of Corfu.
What did George Osborne think he was doing, accepting hospitality from a controversial Russian billionaire aboard his £80million yacht - or, for that matter, gossiping at a private dinner with the poisonous Peter Mandelson?
At best, the Shadow Chancellor was naive to allow himself to be drawn into the gilded world of his old Oxford chum, hedge fund manager Nathaniel Rothschild, on whose estate he was enjoying a free family holiday.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne defends himself yesterday
At worst, it was highly improper of him to permit any discussion - no matter who started it - about the possibility of an illegal donation to the Tory Party by the yacht's owner, Oleg Deripaska.
Under David Cameron, the Conservatives have had an honourable record cleaning up party funding.
If Mr Osborne's ineptitude has indeed put that at risk, he forfeits all claim to our sympathy.
More...
Osborne is forced to admit he met oligarch FIVE times after crossing Mandelson (and just look who's smiling now)
Then there's the rather unappealing Mr Rothschild, a close business associate of Mr Deripaska. Whatever possessed him to write his vicious letter to the Times, putting the worst possible construction on Mr Osborne's behaviour? Some 'friend'.
Did somebody put pressure on him to land the Shadow Chancellor in the mire? Inevitably, the finger points at the man we must learn to call 'Lord' Mandelson.
Only a fortnight ago, it emerged that Mr Osborne had been regaling friends with stories of that private dinner, at which the then EU Commissioner had 'dripped poison' into his ear about Gordon Brown.
Shouldn't the Shadow Chancellor have learnt by now that anybody who spreads damaging tittle-tattle about the Prince of Darkness must expect a terrible revenge? How convenient for Lord Mandelson, too, that these allegations switch the spotlight from his own friendship with Mr Deripaska.
Only yesterday, more disturbing questions were raised about the EU's decision to lift tariffs on aluminium, which benefited the Russian billionaire to the tune of a cool £200million.
It now emerges that his association with Lord Mandelson goes back at least to January 2005 - much earlier than previously admitted and, crucially, before the decision on EU tariffs was taken.
When Lord Mandelson returned to the Cabinet, the Mail warned that offering him a third chance was a huge gamble.
We wrote: 'Any hint that he is spreading poison, doing favours for friends or greedily pursuing personal advancement will be swiftly punished.'
Less than three weeks on, with the miasma of sleaze hanging over the Government once again, our misgivings already seem horribly prescient.
But it's not only the Corfu mob who emerge badly from this affair. Isn't it quite incredible how the BBC has behaved?
On the Today programme, political editor Nick Robinson openly boasts that he 'resisted' making much of the yacht allegations when they concerned only Lord Mandelson. But now that a Tory is implicated, the corporation gets stuck into the story with all guns blazing.
Talk about double standards, from an organisation supposedly bound by its charter to impartiality.
On one point, though, Mr Robinson is right. The Corfu saga is a 'story of our modern times' - and what profoundly depressing reading it makes.
As for any lasting damage it may do to Mr Osborne, at least he can justly proclaim that the Tories accepted no money from Mr Deripaska (which is more than can be said for Labour and Bernie Ecclestone).
That may yet save him. Meanwhile, may we suggest that in future both he and Lord Mandelson choose their holiday companions with more care?

Osborne is forced to admit he met oligarch FIVE times after crossing Mandelson (and just look who's smiling now)… The Prince of Darkness.

By James Chapman and Michael Seamark
Last updated at 1:37 AM on 22nd October 2008

George Osborne is struggling to contain a political firestorm over illegal donations as he paid the price of crossing Peter Mandelson.
The Shadow Chancellor was forced to admit discussing a potential £50,000 gift to the Tory Party from Russia’s richest man, and that he met him five times in total.
Mr Osborne was left fighting for his reputation after what allies claimed was a dirty tricks campaign orchestrated by Lord Mandelson.
Happy birthday to me: Lord Mandelson, who turned 55 yesterday, looks jubilant as his rival George Osborne battled accusations he discussed an illegal donation
Labour’s new Business Secretary had blamed him for leaking embarrassing details of private remarks about Gordon Brown during a holiday in Corfu this summer, when both visited aluminium billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s yacht.
Yesterday the row took an extraordinary twist as one of the Shadow Chancellor’s oldest friends, Nat Rothschild, stabbed him in the back.
He claimed in a letter to the Times that while on board the yacht Mr Osborne attempted to ‘solicit’ money for the Conservatives from Mr Deripaska.
Donations from foreign residents are against the law, though a gift from one of Mr Deripaska’s companies trading in Britain would have been permitted.
Ill at ease: Mr Osborne answers a barrage of reporters' questions yesterday
Mr Rothschild, a friend of Mr Osborne and Lord Mandelson, was hosting guests at his family villa in Corfu and apparently invited both men on to Mr Deripaska’s yacht.
Mr Osborne held a press conference yesterday lunchtime at which he categorically denied the claim that he and chief Tory fundraiser Andrew Feldman had sought cash from the aluminium tycoon.
He insisted: ‘We didn’t ask for money; we didn’t receive any.’
But Mr Rothschild was telling friends he would not ‘back down’ over the allegations and was even prepared to defend them in court.
Sources close to him say they have a ‘silent witness’ - a wealthy American named Jim Goodwin - who was present in Corfu and will back up Mr Rothschild’s claims.
The row over the Shadow Chancellor conveniently overshadowed fresh claims that Lord Mandelson, who signed off changes which benefited Mr Deripaska’s firm while EU trade commissioner, had known the Russian for far longer than he implied.
David Cameron made clear that his closest ally’s job is secure, insisting he had shown good judgment by turning down any donation and disclosing full details of his meetings with Mr Deripaska.
Last night the Shadow Chancellor issued an extraordinary statement admitting that he met Mr Deripaska five times. Four meetings took place over one August weekend.
He insisted he had not solicited or received any donation, or ever discussed directly with Mr Deripaska the possibility of him giving money.
He was forced to concede that he had been involved in a conversation with Mr Rothschild over the possibility that the Russian oligarch could make a donation.
Knife in the back moment: Nat Rothschild and his accusing letter to The Times
However, he placed the blame firmly on Mr Rothschild - saying he had initiated the discussion - and effectively accused his friend of lying by claiming that he had ‘solicited’ cash.
Mr Osborne said Andrew Feldman had stated that a donation could come only from a ‘legitimate UK trading company’, while the Tories insisted that the possibility of a donation from Mr Deripaska or one of his companies was dismissed on the grounds it would ‘not be appropriate’.
But aides admitted that decision had never been relayed to Mr Rothschild. Despite Mr Cameron’s backing, some Tory MPs were privately questioning Mr Osborne’s judgment in entertaining even a brief discussion about a donation from a foreign source.
The row comes at the worst possible time for Mr Osborne, who has faced criticism over his response to the banking crisis.
Gift: Lord Rothchild's estate on Corfu where Mr Osborne enjoyed a free holiday
And it seems in danger of escalating after Mr Rothschild was said to be furious that his version of events in the letter to the Times had been questioned.
A source close to the banking heir said he had been ‘ incandescent’ with rage that his privacy had been invaded when Mr Osborne divulged private conversations with Lord Mandelson while enjoying his family’s hospitality.
The source said he had telephoned Mr Osborne to tell him he had decided to make his allegations public in a ‘highly emotional’ phone call.
The same source claimed that Lord Mandelson was ‘obviously pleased’ that the Tory donations row had erupted, but insisted he had not orchestrated it.
Shortly after his appointment as Business Secretary this month, Lord Mandelson was embarrassed by claims that he had told Mr Osborne that Gordon Brown had presided over a ‘culture of debt’ during the Corfu holiday, and ‘dripped poison’ about the Prime Minister.
He retorted at the time that he also had dirt to reveal from his unlikely heart-to-heart with the Shadow Chancellor.
Trappings of wealth: Billionaire Deripaska's superyacht Queen K in Venice
He issued what was widely seen as a threat to Mr Osborne when he said: ‘I would no sooner talk about in public what he said to me about his colleagues than I hope he would what I said about my colleagues.’
In his letter, Mr Rothschild said he was writing because it ‘ill behoves all political parties to try and make capital at the expense of another in such circumstances.’ He added: ‘ Perhaps in future it would be better if all involved accepted the
age- old adage that private parties are just that.’
He said Mr Osborne ‘found the opportunity of meeting with Mr Deripaska so good that he invited the Conservatives’ fundraiser Andrew Feldman, who was staying nearby, to accompany him on to Mr Deripaska’s boat to solicit a donation’.
He added: ‘Since Mr Deripaska is not a British citizen, it was suggested by Mr Feldman, in a subsequent conversation at which Mr Deripaska was not present, that the donation was "channelled" through one of Mr Deripaska’s British companies.
‘Mr Deripaska declined to make any donation. I mention this because it turns out that your obsession with Mr Mandelson is trivial in light of Mr Osborne’s actions.’
However, doubts were cast over Mr Rothschild’s version of events last night when it emerged that there were three different versions of his letter to the Times.
It was apparently amended twice because of legal concerns and clarifications to his account of the affair.

pictures will be posted soon

Tories hit back over yacht claims

21.10.08

Senior Tories were dragged into the furore over Lord Mandelson's stay on a Russian billionaire's yacht.
A friend of the new Business Secretary revealed that George Osborne and David Cameron's chief fundraiser Andrew Feldman also spent time on the Queen K this summer.
It was reported that the possibility of receiving a £50,000 donation from Oleg Deripaska - reputed to be Russia's richest man - was discussed.
The claims were made in a letter from Nathaniel Rothschild - an acquaintance of both Mr Osborne and Lord Mandelson - to The Times.
Mr Rothschild said that on the yacht, which was moored off Corfu, Mr Feldman suggested the oligarch could channel cash through one of his British companies.
Accepting donations from overseas residents is illegal, as is using a British company as a proxy to disguise an impermissible donation. But a Tory spokesman strongly denied the claims, and stressed that the party had not accepted money from Mr Deripaska.
"The allegations made in Mr Rothschild's letter are completely untrue," he said. "Both Andrew Feldman and George Osborne deny absolutely that they attempted to solicit a donation from Oleg Deripaska. Nor did they suggest a method by which he could conceal a donation via a British company.
"They spent a short period of time on Mr Deripaska's boat at the invitation of Mr Rothschild. Donations to the Conservative Party were not discussed with Mr Deripaska."
Conservative sources said Mr Rothschild had approached the party later and suggested that Mr Deripaska could give money, but the offer had been refused. The sources accused Mr Rothschild of changing his story when challenged.
The letter sent by banking heir Mr Rothschild - who was at Oxford with Mr Osborne and has strong links with the Tory Party - alleged that the shadow chancellor and Mr Feldman went on board Mr Deripaska's yacht "to solicit a donation".

Major industrialised economies will suffer the worst slump since the 1930s, according to new research from Deutsche Bank

By Edmund Conway
Last Updated: 10:38PM BST 19 Oct 2008

Worst slump since Great Depression: Bud Fields and his family in their home during the Great Depression in Alabama, 1935. Photo: Corbis
The warning underlines the fact that policymakers have failed to prevent the financial crisis from turning into a full-blown economic slump. It comes as world leaders agreed to hold a summit in New York billed as the “Bretton Woods meeting for the 21st century”.
In its major assessment of the global economy’s health, Deutsche Bank also warned that Britain is even more vulnerable than the US or the euro area, as it predicted that the powerhouses of India and China would fail to support the wider global economy through the downturn.

Northern Rock chief's mistress, the 5 mortgages and the secret £1m property empire

It's not all bad news for the man behind £585m bank crash
By Guy Basnett, 10/08/2008 News World.

THE secret mistress of ex-Northern Rock boss Adam Applegarth bought FIVE homes in THREE years using loans from the bank to build a property empire now worth more than £1 MILLION. Slim brunette Amanda Smithson was granted a succession of mortgages to fund the deals between May 2003 and July 2006—while she was a Rock employee on just £30,000 a year and Mr Applegarth was chief executive. Our revelations of her spectacular rise to wealth come in the week that the troubled bank announced LOSSES of £585 million in the last six months. There is NO suggestion of any financial wrongdoing by 37-year-old Ms Smithson or her powerful married lover. An inside source told the News of the World: “Nobody is suggesting Amanda’s affair with Applegarth had anything to do with it. But many people suffering because of Northern Rock’s woes may be surprised by her portfolio. “She’s now so wealthy she’s well set up for the future and will never have to work again. But she WAS a relatively low-paid executive who was able to gain approval for FIVE mortgages and change her fortunes.” Official Land Registry documents detail just how quickly Ms Smithson amassed her impressive empire, spread across Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Four of the buildings were bought in just a 10-month period. Today we reveal details of her amazing property spending spree: 1. PLUSH apartment, bought for £139,950 in May, 2003, in art deco block The Wills Building, a gated development and one of the city’s most fashionable addresses. 2. UPMARKET mews house, bought for £193,500 in September, 2005, in the same secure compound. 3. RIVERSIDE apartment, bought for £187,000 in December, 2005, on Mariners Wharf, overlooking the city’s fashionable quayside. 4. TRENDY Otterburn Villas flat in posh city suburb Jesmond, costing £155,000 and snapped up just SIX DAYS after property No 3. 5. SWISH £150,500 home in Lavender Garadens, a family neighbourhood of the well-to-do West Jesmond area, bought in July, 2006. Checks on the Land Registry records this week revealed that Smithson was still recorded as the owner of ALL the properties —with all the home loans from Northern Rock still in place and outstanding.
Interestingly just 10 days before she bought property No 3 in Mariners Wharf another flat, just a few doors away in the same block, was purchased in the name of Mr Applegarth’s eldest son Gregory, who had just turned 18.
Documents show it cost £329,000 and was also arranged with a Northern Rock mortgage.
Smithson’s properties are understood to have been purchased as investments for the buy-to-let market, although she is believed to be living in No 2 herself.
Our source said: “By any standards Amanda’s is a high- value property portfolio that’s now easily worth over a million.

Ms Smithson's impressive property empire“She has amassed a small fortune in bricks and mortar very quickly, while most people spend years gradually building up their empire, so they’re not overstretched.” Smithson left Northern Rock in early 2007 after at least five years with the firm, according to a senior company source. She worked in the commercial lending division which covers buy-to-let mortgages. Our source said she had been a management-grade, employee earning around £30,000 a year until the middle of 2006 when she was promoted to a senior manager role, with a rise of up to £9,000.
The source said Smithson is believed to have first met boss Applegarth at a company sales function in 2003 or 2004
It is not known when their affair began. The relationship emerged when anonymous letters were sent to the bank’s board and Applegarth’s devoted wife Patricia in 2006.
Suspicions were first aroused after Smithson began turning up for work wearing expensive jewellery and driving a plush executive car.
Also she mostly booked the same time off work as the boss, who was jetting to the US to holiday at the luxury Four Seasons Hotels in New York and Washington.
A senior source said Applegarth denied the allegations but later privately admitted they were true.
There is NO suggestion he had any influence whatsoever over her property and mortgage deals. But our source said: “It may raise questions because this was when the bank was heading for trouble.
“On one hand, we have a chief executive careering into trouble while having a passionate affair.
“On the other, we have the low-paid employee that he was seeing being granted a series of loans.
“It’s believed she actually owns at least one other home, apart from these five.”
Her financial success is in stark contrast to the bank’s own fortunes.
It ran into crisis last September after management strategy left it overexposed to high-risk deals in America’s sub-prime mortgage market, forcing it to call for emergency help.
It sparked the first run on a British bank in more than 100 years, with queues of worried savers besieging branches all over Britain.
The Government was later forced to nationalise the bank using £17.5 BILLION of tax- payers’ cash.
Despite that, it has now recorded losses and home repossessions have soared by 67 per cent.
Father-of-two Applegarth, who lives with his wife in a £2.5 million home in Matfen, Northumberland, resigned following the crisis.
He took a £760,000 pay-off and £2.2 million pension pot with him.
He is now under investigation, along with the previous management, to determine whether they discharged their duties correctly, or whether their conduct was lacking.

***********************************************
Jane Atkinson, 10/03/2008

The day the House of Lords died of shame

RE: LORD MANDELSON

Richard Littlejohn, Daily Mail
Last updated at 9:28 PM on 13th October 2008

Unlike yourself, I have spasms where I am lost for words other than falling back into Bethnal Green Road vernacular.....This is one of them.

No more Ferraris: we are the masters now

By Daily Mail
Last updated at 11:31 PM on 12th October 2008

"So, on this momentous day, taxpayers the world over have a clear message for all financiers: you are no longer working for that second Ferrari or that dream villa in the south of France. From this day forward, until you have repaid every penny of the billions you owe, you are working for us."

Again talking through your arse as Peter Mandelson

Your mates in the city will never pay back one penny. Obviously , at times, the Mail gang thinks we are all idiots ready to swallow your bleary, boozed up "articles"

"So, on this momentouse day" You sound like Gordon Brown...... another complete idiot


Frightened to put your name to this piece ????

The financial crisis could be the euro's death knell ... and even end the shambolic EU

By Christopher Booker
Last updated at 1:42 AM on 08th October 2008

Brilliant..someone willing to shout the truth..Blair gone, with it so much corruption, truth twisting in the name of political correctness. The EU is nothing but a brothel in every conceivable way.

The truth about Brown and Mandelson

Donald Macintyre:

"Their relationship has always been more complex than the caricatures suggest"


Do you mean they meet in public toilets and discuss the deep political issues of the day ?

Arise, Lord Sleaze: Brown resurrects Peter Mandelson ... the disgraced Prince of Darkness

By Benedict Brogan and Michael Lea
Last updated at 1:39 AM on 04th October 2008

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Brown , without the slightest doubt, is a creature reflecting not only his own mental instability, but those surrounding him. Cameron, another segment of the mass hysteria engulfing what was England.

Fall of Britain's Flamboyant Financiers Fuels a Debate About Greed

Washington post.
LONDON -- Ilchester Place screams wealth, from the towering brick townhouses to the Rolls-Royce and Bentley parked next to lovely stone curbs.
But it also whispers financial disaster, with the discreet little "For Sale" sign in the window of No. 8 and the unclipped hedges outside.
That three-story, six-bedroom house, on the market for $18 million in a bank repossession sale, has emerged as a symbol of how the global financial crisis is hitting Britain, and of what many see as its cause: the raw, unchecked greed of financial barons.
"The working man like me is paying for it," said Jason Moy, 37, who sells flowers around the corner on Kensington High Street. "I can't get a mortgage; I'm really quite annoyed."
The Ilchester Place house was recently repossessed by Barclays Bank from Robert Bonnier, a flamboyant London financier. Once fined more than $500,000 by regulators for improperly manipulating the stock market and now sought by creditors who say he owes millions, Bonnier has become an unwitting example in a national debate about the point at which success becomes greed.

A decade ago, Peter Mandelson, a top official and a corrupt crook in the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, famously quipped: "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich."
It was a sign of prosperous times, also a stark insight into the minds of the Blair and his gang of financial manipulators. Blair now being the richest ex prime minister in the history of Britain.
Last week, the two most senior leaders of the Church of England weighed in with stinging critiques of a financial culture they said had enriched a minority at the expense of society.
In a speech to a bankers group Wednesday, John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, said: "We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from 'Alice in Wonderland.' " He referred to traders who profit from the losses of others as "bank robbers and asset strippers."

I'm no novice - I'm the man who can repair Britain, insists David Cameron

By James Chapman
Last updated at 9:41 AM on 01st October 2008

I hardly believe you can repair the kitchen tap. Your "conference" was a nothing, just another piss up of the well heeled. You did not throw one punch, probably never have done that in your padded existence.
My forecast and I am rarely wrong , is that you will go down the pan with the rest of the Scotch gang..You are aware that a Russian Nuclear bomber came within seconds of Hull. As the man said " If Hull were wiped off the map who would know??", more pointedly, who would care ? This information was withheld for a year by you and your cronies... My money is that Putin will strike. His timing has always been precise.
In the present crisis caused by the likes of yourselves and I do include your mate Blair (who was and is the arch instigator of corruption) what could be a more auspicious time and how many would come to your aid ?? Certainly not I.

Blairs blow £500k on garden

Credit crunch? Blairs are spending a fortune on home, such a lovely couple.

By Ian Kirby, 19/10/2008

THE credit crunch has clearly not hit Tony and Cherie Blair—they‘re poised to spend £500,000 tarting up the gounds of their new country pile.

With the former Prime Minister’s Cabinet colleagues about to be hit by a pay freeze as the country goes into recession, planning permission has been granted to renovate the gardens at the Blairs’ Grade 1 listed South Pavilion in Wotton Underwood near Aylesbury, Bucks.

£5.7m mansion

They plan to install an infinity POOL, a POND, a TENNIS COURT, two PAVILIONS, a PERGOLA, an avenue of trees and extra parking at the seven-bed mansion they bought for £5.75million in the summer.

The house—said to be haunted by the ghost of actor Sir John Gielgud, the previous owner—is just 20 miles from Chequers.

The Blairs said the thing they missed most about his time as PM was the use of the country retreat. A former Government colleague and friend told the News of the World: “The Blairs have a London house but the thing they wanted most of all was a family base.

“Chequers was a bit like that. The whole of the family, Keith Vaz, Lord Mendelson, my dear, inebriated friend , John Prescott. All my friends and hangers on could pile down and enjoy themselves in privacy, talking about who is sleeping with whom and of course, the next financial/political stroke we would all pull, to our immense benifit, South Pavilion is just the same. "

Crime pays.

Credit crunch banker leaps to his death in front of express train

By Christopher Leake
Last updated at 11:06 PM on 27th September 2008

Tragedy: Kirk Stephenson took his own life despite a successful 20-year City career, vibrant social life and a loving family
The City was in shock last night after the apparent suicide of a millionaire financier haunted by the pressures of dealing with the credit crunch.



......1929 .

Top Tory William Hague flew off on Barclays £500,000 Italian jolly as markets crashed

By Benedict Brogan, Political Editor
Last updated at 1:11 AM on 11th October 2008

William Hague is facing awkward questions about his judgment after he joined a lavish Italian trip for Barclays executives on a black day for global markets.

World panic on Freefall Friday ends worst week ever

• 1,048 points - Dramatic fall in the FTSE in just five days
• 21% - Drop in wealth of Britain's top companies
• £250billion - Wiped off the value of your investments

By Becky Barrow and Benedict Brogan
Last updated at 12:56 AM on 11th October 2008

A catastrophic £250billion has been wiped off the stock market in the worst week ever for the FTSE 100.
Political leaders were left looking powerless yesterday as appeals for calm were ignored and 'blind panic' set in on Freefall Friday.
But last night a G7 source told Channel 4 News that there was no chance of other major countries adopting Britain's £500billion plan to prop up inter-bank lending.

Mandelson to get £1m pay-out from EU

'Golden goodbye' package after just four years for new Business Secretary as questions hang over relationship with Russian oligarch

By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Sunday, 12 October 2008 …Independent

Peter Mandelson will pick up a £1m "golden goodbye" package following his departure from Brussels, despite walking out after serving only four years as Britain's European Commissioner.
The new Business Secretary will receive a £104,000 salary as a minister in the House of Lords, and qualifies for a total of £234,000 in "transitional payments" over the next three years to help him readjust to life outside the European Commission.
But he is also guaranteed an EU pension when he reaches 65 – in 2018 – starting at £31,000 a year and rising in line with the cost of living. The overall cost of funding such a pension is put at £750,000.

Commentary: Bank bosses blinded by arrogance

Chris Blackhurst. Ev.Standard 08.

FINALLY, a significant head has rolled from the top of a major British bank. One of the most shameful aspects of this process has been the refusal of those who run our banks to accept any culpability. Their sneering superiority has seen them cling to their multi-million-pound packages and heavily-funded lifestyles in the face of growing evidence that they were to blame.

t was breathtaking and infuriating final proof, surely, that this generation of bankers had ceased to make the connection between the people who populate their branches and their swanky, over-the-top lifestyles. Like modern kings, they were surrounded by fawning, loyal entourages. To question them was to risk their wrath and be excluded from the court. A glance at the boards of RBS and HBOS finds them chaired by people who were not equipped to tackle the chief executive. At RBS, Goodwin, who had steered RBS's transformation from Scottish bit player to world-conquering dynamo that at least was the intention was supposed to answer to Sir Tom McKillop, the chairman who hailed from the pharmaceuticals industry. Sir Tom presumably could run a good meeting and host a top-class lunch but he couldn't oversee a would-be global bank.

At HBOS, the chief executive was Andy Hornby, ex-Asda. He could talk marketing and retailing as well as any superstore executive but he wasn't a banker. He didn't have a feel for the traditions and ways of the past traditions and ways that were often there for a reason. Assessing risk wasn't something in his armoury.

The HBOS chairman, Lord Stevenson, is what's known politely as a polymath. Less decorously, that can mean jack of all trades and master of none. A consummate networker, he was able to schmooze his way round the corporate world and at Westminster. There's nobody he doesn't know. But when push came to shove, was he able to rein back his bank, to tell Hornby to shape up or get out? The fact his bank has had to succumb to a bid from Lloyds TSB and there will be no place for Stevenson or Hornby in the new set-up says it all.

They assumed they knew best, and so did those around them. It wasn't only their boards who climbed on the gravy train. Every bank employed teams of advisers who racked up fees galore telling them just what they wanted to hear. In all this, the distance between bank chief and customer grew.

Their weapons to make them more efficient also had the dual effect of broadening that gap: so branch closures, call centres, outsourcing and slick advertising all took them further away from the people they were meant to serve.

Something came over these men. It was a red mist, a blindness to where their bank had come from. The one benefit to emerge from the taxpayers' bail-out, in the peasants moving in (make no mistake, that is how it will be seen in lofty banking circles), is that banks may now return to how they were. Yes, they may become boring institutions but they will be safe. No harm in that.