Nudge nudge wink wink

Thanks to BBC Radio Four's Profile programme I have learnt a little about Sir Paul Marshall, a mega-wealthy hedge fund chap who is the major backer of the baleful GB News. Happily, it seems GB News lost £42 million last year. They ought to ask themselves whether Rees-Smug and ‘30p’ Lee Anderson are worth it, two of their shining shining stars. Marshall is a committed Christian it seems, so as a mega wealthy person, gives a little bit of his wealth away to good causes, although I suspect he still wouldn’t be able to squeeze through the eye of a needle. And I’m sure that as wealth/income inequality has grown massively in the UK over recent years he probably doesn't see himself as part of the problem. But he is precisely one of the causes of inequality. Along with his industry compatriots. Now it seems he wants to buy the Daily Telegraph, which has led to the following headline in said paper (courtesy of MSN 10/3/24): ‘GB News-backer Paul Marshall ‘unfit to own a newspaper’, claims Telegraph bidder’. The bidder, the story reveals is a chap called Jeff Zucker, ‘the former CNN boss who now runs investment vehicle RedBird IMI, [who] criticised Sir Paul after he was accused of endorsing social media posts espousing “far-Right ideologies, Islamophobia, and conspiracy narratives”’.  Apparently ‘The social media posts he “liked” on Twitter/X included ones that warned there had “never been a country that has remained peaceful with a sizeable Islamic presence” and that Muslim immigration was a form of “infiltration” that would lead to “the establishment of a totalitarian Islamic theocracy”, according to the charity Hope Not Hate. ‘ ‘Sir’ Paul has deleted the post and has said such thoughts do not represent his views, which begs a few questions. Perhaps he was just joking. Or can’t read.
 
So there’s one mover and shaker who hopes to guide the UK out of its current hell hole into the next one. But I also read of other ones who seem to typify the age of private influence we live in. This came in the form of a book review (Cuckooland: Where the rich own the truth, Tom Burgis, William Collins) in the New Statesman where we learn about Mohamed Amersi and Ben Eliot and the way doors are opened (and sometimes closed) when money rubs shoulders with politics. Judging by the review I will have to read the book but suffice to say when these people talk about our country—they only envisage enhancing their own wealth, bugger the rest of us.
 
None of this is new of course, and as we know the filthy rich can do what they like ‘as long as they pay their taxes’ (which they don’t at the level they should). Thankfully Labour will put a stop to all this. The filthy rich will not influence Labour’s policies in any way whatsoever. And what’s more, Labour will put a stop to cronyism in the awarding of public contracts, following the Tories’ VIP nudge-nudge wink-wink Covid PPE scandal. The latter bit will be very welcome, but I’m afraid I have little faith the former assertion will stand. Labour’s leaders may not inhabit the same milieu as the Tories, but the company of millionaires (preferably billionaires) will not be eschewed when the time comes.