22 October, 2008

UK: The Russian Yacht

Several stories emerge from the party in Corfu aboard the yacht of Mr Deripaska. An interesting, if minor one, is why we immediately assume that Russian billionaires are crooked. If the protagonists had been meeting with a Norwegian (but not Icelandic) billionaire I suspect the perception would have been a good deal less spicy.

A story which will emerge is of the talent of Peter Mandelson, worth his weight in billionaires to his party for his genius, I think there is no better word, at spin.

The main story was (it isn't now) that Mandelson had a close connection with Mr Deripaska and that in his job as EU Commissioner for trade, negotiating aluminium tariffs (Mr Deripaska is one of the world's largest aluminium producers) for example, it showed 'lack of judgment'.

Mandelson, upset that a private conversation he had with Osborne (to the effect that Gordon Brown was a disaster) should have been repeated, and needing to turn the spotlight away from himself, got a joint friend, Nat Rothschild, to spill the beans on Osborne talking about Deripaska donating money to the Tory Party: the suggestion being that it showed, yes, 'lack of judgment'.

What interests me is the relative weight given by the media to these two stories. It is of course grubby to see senior British figures gathering with the super wealthy like flies round a honeypot, but I should have thought the Mandelson story, alleging as it does that he may have been tinkering with international trade tariffs as a result of a friendship, was far worse. But the media have pursued the George Osborne story to the full, Nick Robinson of the BBC admitting that they were not really covering the Mandelson part. Osborne 'fighting for his political life' says the Telegraph, of all papers.

I think this is partly to do with the BBC, traditionally, and the Telegraph, lately, being anti-Tory. But in part it reverts to the genius of Mandelson: they are scared of him.

What is perhaps most terrifying is that all this happened at all. Why were two political opponents, Osborne and Mandelson, having a cosy little chat in Corfu anyway? It seems almost as if they were conspiring. Like in the Rheinmann Exchange, Robert Ludlum's story of the Germans and Americans doing a deal to prolong WWII, it smacks of the political class cosseting itself rather than working for its supporters or its ideals. And for my taste it doesn't smell too good.

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