Boris ‘bought off’ by hedge funds
Boris Johnson, who is leading the fight against a European crackdown on City financiers, faced accusations of being “bought off” today, when it emerged that more than half the money donated to his mayoral campaign came from the financial sector including hedge funds and private equity.
Johnson has criticised the EU’s so-called “hedge fund directive,” draft rules published in the spring which would limit debt levels for alternative investment managers, such as hedge funds, and force them to be more transparent.
The London mayor travelled to Brussels last month to make the case in person to EU internal markets commissioner Charlie McCreevy, and raised the issue again in his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester last week.
But research by the Party of European Socialists (PES), which is supporting tougher regulation, shows that Johnson received £324,000 from City grandees between September 2007, when he was endorsed as the Conservative party’s candidate, and March 2008 when the mayoral race kicked off. That was more than half of the total £584,701 in donations he received – and 77% of the total campaign spending he was allowed by law.
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Reader comments
If it was half the donations he received, and 77% of the total allowed campaign spending, then that means 23% of the donations he received would’ve put him over the total allowed campaign spending. Where did that money go?
Christ, what a Tory scumbag. The election was bought by the same City wankers who brought the economy crashing down. A two-fingered salute to the arseholes who voted for Boris, though, because without them none of this would’ve happened.
Do these stories about Boris get reported by the local media in London? I hope so because this is the first I’ve heard of this story and it seems like something Sky News or the BBC should report.
It’s not just Boris who is close to the hedge funds – look at Dave. His appointment as Party treasurer, Stanley Fink, is a hedge fund boss. Personal contributions to his leadership campaign were dominated by those from hedge fund managers and the party now receives regular large donations from the same. And waht do they get in return – a deafening silence on any regulation on hedge funds and opposition to proposals thereon coming out of the EU.
In the meantime the hedge funds are happily playing the commodities markets without a care for the consequences for ordinary consumers who have to deal with the price volatility which arises. Even those Conservatives who believe in rational and efficient markets recognise that the type of market manipulation performed by hedge funds doesn’t help their cause – but not our Dave and little George.
Did you know that all the world’s tim stock are now in the hands of a single investor – perhaps a free marketeer could explain how this promotes market efficiency, and give a credible explanation as to why the investor concerned has intentions other than market manipulation?
“Do these stories about Boris get reported by the local media in London?”
I don’t know about London media, but the news stories certainly made the EU media”
“But advocates of greater regulation [of financial institutions] fear recent indications that Europe may be clawing its way out of recession could put the breaks on the proposed initiatives.
“In particular, they worry that the banking sector’s substantial influence will end up silencing attempts at real reform.
“‘My fear is that nothing will happen. This is dangerous because if we look at the costs of the financial crisis, we can see that in Europe we have lost six to seven percent of GDP,’ said MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who is also president of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr Rasmussen says many in the financial sector are working overtime to see the hedge fund proposals watered down, referring to a recent visit by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
“‘In that last two weeks, you even saw the mayor of London here in Brussels. We looked into his campaign funding and it looks like more that 60 percent of his campaign costs were covered by hedge funds,’ said the former Danish prime minister.”
http://euobserver.com/9/28814
News update:
In the present context, readers will probably be fascinated by an article on the front page of the FT on Wednesday under the headline:
One in five hedge fund managers found to be misrepresenting facts
” . . Using confidential data taken from 444 due diligence reports commissioned by investors between 2003 and 2008, academics at Stern analysed the extent to which hedge fund managers’ representations about their funds differed from reality. . .”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc7d2e7e-b859-11de-8ca9-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
Has Boris pronounced yet on this prospect?
“Banks are being threatened with a windfall tax on profits amid mounting criticism from across the political spectrum of a return to huge bonuses.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6880249.ece
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RT @libcon Article:: Boris 'bought off' by hedge funds http://bit.ly/iqfm9 << well, like, durr, what did you expect?
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- Liberal Conspiracy » Could this be Boris Johnson’s achilles heel?
[...] that time he has sucked to the City and defended the very bankers who caused the recession, been ‘bought off’ by hedge funds, wasted a huge amount of money scrapping bendy buses, and created a financial [...]
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