9th March 2022
Another brief post today – am not well and Twitter today has used up what spare mental energy I had – and so here is another link with an explanation.
This is to the ‘Russia Report’ – a document that many did not realise had actually been published.
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1500098105936654340
And if you cannot read its fifty-five pages, you can read the four page summary here.
And, if those four pages are too many, just read the bullet-points – especially the first:
“Russian influence in the UK is the new normal.
“Successive Governments have welcomed the oligarchs and their money with open arms, providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’, and connections at the highest levels with access to UK companies and political figures.”
You would think such a conclusion of a senior cross-party committee would have made the political news.
But – unless you have a particular interest – you would have never known it had been published at all.
A wise civil servant once observed that if you want to hide something, just publish it – for nobody will read it.
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As it was a cross-party report, you have to wonder why opposition MPs didn’t raise it.
Is Russia that ingrained in our system?
I’m not sure that I’m that optimistic but I get the impression that some people who have been passively supporting the Government – real people not politicians – are starting to see through the front bench.
(Totally different issue but… a knighthood for Williamson?)
I suppose this leaves us with a question about whether people actually want decent Government or not.
Maybe things will need to get even worse before they get better.
Sorry to read that you’re unwell. Hope you feel a bit better soon. All best wishes.
Hope you are better very soon. And thanks for yet another fascinating post.
Get well soon! Yes an important report confirming some serious fears …
There may be some small consolation to you to receive personal messages and acknowledgements from one of your many followers but I echo Dorothy’s words – I was very sorry to read that you are unwell and I wish you a speedy and complete recovery.
Forgive my cynicism but isn’t this report & its contents all a little bit late given a) current events b) the different ways member states of the EU, specifically Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Malta & Greece have all ,to a certain extent, ‘benefited’ significantly from close collaboration with Russia.
This is not to say that what UK did is good ( it isn’t) but the fact that other EU states (above) have all gained significant economic advantage from their close relationships with Russia, diminishes somewhat the charges against the UK.
Sadly in this inter connected World, Russia has actively and indirectly tainted everything it touches. Real- politik at its worst on the basis that nature abhors a vacuum?
It’s very hard to quantify which nation state has been the greatest beneficiary of Russian ‘kindness’/proximity.
The UK specifically has a financial services industry which is not matched anywhere in the EU (or probably the world).
The wealth management sector within that industry isn’t passively taking deposits and looking to maximise return. Wealth management is also about enabling wealthy client to achieve their goals by using their financial capital.
The UK may not have been the greatest beneficiary. But allowing Russian financial capital to achieve Russian goals could be achieved through London in a way that it would not have been done elsewhere.
And having a Tory party heavily dependent on fees for wealth management (as well as direct donations) is not, I suspect, able to be replicated anywhere in Europe.
I remember the report being published as Parliament rose for the summer recess in July 2020. Plenty of time spent “eating out to help out” then followed, and the report was of little concern when Parliament returned in September to fears, for some at least, that COVID cases were on the rise.
” The committee’s report was sent to the Prime Minister on the 17th October 2019 ”
Am I correct?
If so, is it reasonable to ask -What in the name of all that is miraculous has the Prime Minister been doing with it ?
You mean, apart from persuading the House of Lords Appointments Commission to overcome their security concerns about awarding a life peerage to the eldest son of former KGB officer, who has maintained links to the Russian intelligence apparatus and somehow became a billionaire. That nomination was included in the political honours list published on 31 July 2020 – 10 days after the report was published. But no doubt all “appropriate due diligence” was performed before the prime minister’s personal friend took a seat in our country’s legislature for the rest of his life.
Get well soon, David.
Two years of pestilence (hospitalisations increasing again, unfortunately), and now war. Let’s hope famine is not to follow.
Yes I was aware it had been published but was also aware that on the orders of No10 the report has been heavily redacted before been released.
take it easy and do get better soon — for your sake, not only ours…
How many things in your possession were either made in China or have components that were?
Tainted? Yes. Avoidable/boycottable? In theory, yes, at a price. It was a damned sight easier to buy non-Outspan oranges back in the ’80s than it is to buy a taint-free computer (without which government services are ever less accessible) now.
Apart from football-tickets and my daily round of merchant banking*, I’m not sure how much of the full range of Russian taint I personally consume as a matter of course. I’ve a feeling I shall be left in no doubt in the coming months.
*Both = 0.
Only had time to read the summary, fine words butter no parsnips. Not surprised this went in the round filing cabinet, anodyne garbage not worth the paper. Mr Sunak might usefully take a look at this entire sector.
Sure Russia is a threat – but when and how and what are you going to do about it. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Hope it’s not serious, get well soon.
“A wise civil servant once observed that if you want to hide something, just publish it – for nobody will read it.”
And he means, just publish it, and be very careful to do no more. Just put it on your website in the list of published documents. With no other links to it. Don’t have a news release. Don’t signpost the way to find it. Give it a vacuous title so it is not even obvious it is what you want when you find it. Don’t help search engines find it.
There’s a fair bit of stuff like that on public sector websites. You don’t notice it by accident, or have it drawn to your attention when researching that topic. Quite hard to find even if you know it has to be there somewhere.
But the potential exists, as here, for people to find it and publicise it.
I think this highlights the need for experts in the whole accountability/transparency process.
It does feel like there has been a targeting of experts as a way of making transparency valueless.