‘Dodgy Dave’s’ dealings- an investigation into the former PMs finances
Back in 2016, former Labour MP Dennis Skinner referred to the then Prime Minister David Cameron as ‘Dodgy Dave’. So, as the former prime minister makes his controversial return to the cabinet, I decided to take a look into his finances and further business ventures.
First of all, where did the nickname Dodgy Dave come from? During Prime Minister’s questions, Skinner had taken it as an opportunity to call out Cameron on his taxpayer-funded second mortgage, which if he had taken out privately, he would have saved the taxpayer £22,000.
He decided to take out a £350,000 mortgage (almost the maximum that could be claimed) in 2001 for a house in Oxfordshire. This was only a few mere months after he had won a seat as a member of parliament for Witney. Of course, what he did was completely legal - through the now infamous Commons Additional Costs Allowances - and I’m sure that many other MPs take full advantage of this provision. However, it accurately sets the scene, giving context, to Mr Cameron’s later financial conquests.
Cameron made $10 million (£8.2 million) through promoting the controversial business Greensill Capital - a ‘high tech lender’. The premise was that small companies awaiting payments from customers could borrow money against their invoices. When Covid hit, the company saw this as a chance to expand their services, through the government, using their contact - David Cameron.
When the government had announced their floods of financial support to business to help through Covid, Greensill capital made a bid to be a company offering loans through the government (the money being taxpayer guaranteed - insured by the government in other words). This was eventually allowed after intensive lobbying by none other than the right honourable gentleman, Mr Cameron himself.
Again, his actions were not illegal but could be viewed as unethical. His lobbying consisted of using private channels to lobby ministers, including WhatsApp messages to the then Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and private text messages to Treasury’s top civil servant. He had also previously met Matt Hancock in 2019 for ‘private drinks’ discussing a new payment scheme for the NHS through the new company he was now working for.
Anyway, he was successful in his lobbying, which has caused calls for tighter regulations on the procedure. So, where did this money go? To help the small businesses it was meant to? If you were so naïve to think so, I am here to correct you, it did not. £400 million was loaned out in 8 payments to companies who ALL had links to Sanjeev Gupta. The financial relationship between the two is currently being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, as Greensill’s company had previously lent £3.6 billion to a series of companies owned by Gupta.
Many of whom the company had loaned money out to were unable to pay it back and after taking out loans of up to $10 billion-around £8 billion- from Credit Suisse (Swiss investment bank), the company found themselves in tricky waters. Since then, both Greensill Capital and Credit Suisse have gone under. Greensill Capital went bankrupt just over two years ago and $2 billion is still to be recovered from administrators to this day. However, Credit Suisse made it to March 2023, before collapsing, detailing the loss on Greensill loans as a contributing factor.
But not to worry, Cameron is back in the cabinet with a hefty sum of money in his back pocket, while his business venture is still the subject of a criminal investigation.
*Lobbying- an individual/group attempting to persuade someone in parliament to support a particular policy or campaign, trying to influence someone with political power.
Photo Source: mirror online