{"id":127877,"date":"2014-07-03T19:55:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T19:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=127877"},"modified":"2014-07-03T19:55:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T19:55:00","slug":"banker-pays-160000-ultimate-tennis-match-david-cameron-boris-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/banker-pays-160000-ultimate-tennis-match-david-cameron-boris-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Banker pays \u00a3160,000 for \u2018ultimate tennis match\u2019 with David Cameron and Boris Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wife of the former deputy finance minister of Russia\u00a0last night won an auction at the\u00a0Conservative summer party\u00a0to play \u201cthe ultimate tennis match\u201d with David Cameron and Boris Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n

The auction\u00a0took place\u00a0at the Hurlingham Club, west London, where secretaries of state sat at tables sponsored by\u00a0hedge fund tycoons, senior\u00a0oil executives and\u00a0property developers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lubov Chernukhin, a banker, is believed to have paid \u00a3160,000 for\u00a0the lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lawyers for Vladimir Chernukhin, her husband and former chairman of the Russian state bank\u00a0<\/i><\/b>Vneshekonom,\u00a0said: \u2018Mr Chernukhin attended the Hurlingham Club event with his wife, Lubov Chernukhin. Mrs Chernukin is a Conservative party member and supporter.\u00a0<\/span>Mrs\u00a0Chernukhin bid on the lot to which you refer.\u00a0Mrs Chernukhin\u2019s bid was successful.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Party headquarters refused to comment on the identify of\u00a0the wealthy tennis challenger. The Mayor of London\u2019s spokesman said the sale of the match was \u201ca party matter\u2019\u201d and referred inquiries to party headquarters, as did Downing Street.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hugo Swire, the \u00a0foreign minister\u00a0and\u00a0former Sotheby\u2019s director,\u00a0conducted the auction. Swire\u00a0volunteered Lynton Crosby, Conservative party election director, and Lord Feldman, the party\u2019s chairman, as ball boys for the tennis match which will take place at\u00a0a central London location.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost the entire Conservative cabinet\u00a0attended the event last night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no suggestion that any of the guests discussed policy or commercial issues with politicians.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guests dined on smoked duck and chicken rillettes, fillet of seabass with asparagus and jersey royals and chocolate orange truffle cake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other auction prizes included a \u201cFantastic Eight Gun Pheasant Shoot\u201d, which according to the event\u00a0brochure was donated by Rosemary Said, wife of the Syrian-born business man Wafic Said.\u00a0A bottle of champagne signed by Margaret Thatcher was auctioned off for \u00a345,000. A pot of honey was sold for \u00a320,000. Sources said the auction alone raised \u00a3500,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the attendees\u00a0was James Henderson, the chief executive of public relations and lobbying firm Bell Pottinger, who was a member of the organising committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, heavily criticised how political party fundraising events provides an opportunity for powerful business leaders to secure secret access to high ranking politicians.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s shocking that you can pay for such secret access,\u201d he told the Bureau.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a formal meeting with a government minister you would have to disclose that\u2026The whole lobby is a central issue that the political system has to get to grips with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Concern was echoed by Spinwatch director, Tamasin Cave.\u00a0She said: \u201cThere is now a huge gulf between people\u2019s expectation of how politics should be done, and the Conservative party\u2019s modus operandi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt talks the talk on transparency and fairness, it sounds modern, yet the party carries on, as always, with the secret donor dinners for the privileged few.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJust ahead of the last general election, nearly five years ago, David Cameron said he believed politicians should come clean about who is buying power and influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201dWe can\u2019t go on like this,\u2019 he said. Give us the sunlight you promised, Cameron, preferably before we go to polls again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday,\u00a0the Bureau revealed\u00a0<\/span><\/a>\u00a0billionaires, lobbyists and\u00a0foreign business tycoons\u00a0with a\u00a0combined wealth in excess of \u00a311bn paid up to \u00a312,000 a\u00a0table to dine with cabinet ministers including the prime minister, home secretary and defence secretary as well as the secretaries of state for health, transport, culture and justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the guests were 73 financiers, 47 retail and property executives and 12 lobbyists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Secretaries of state at\u00a0the Hurlingham included George Osborne, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, Eric Pickles and Sajid Javid. Business minister Michael Fallon and city minister David Gauke were also present but\u00a0London mayor Boris Johnson did not attend.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were more than 50 tables. Each\u00a0guest\u2019s place setting included an\u00a0individual \u2018pledge card\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Supporters\u00a0dined\u00a0in a room opened to\u00a0the club\u2019s croquet lawn beneath a dozen heavy\u00a0white floral \u2018chandeliers\u2019\u00a0hanging in\u00a0dense cones from the ceiling.<\/span><\/p>\n

The prime minister and his wife sat at a \u00a0long table with around 40\u00a0other guests in the centre of the room.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sir Alastair Graham added: \u00a0\u2018Thankfully investigative journalism is throwing some light on [lobbying] that will at least give politicians pause for thought\u2026 I am sceptical whether this will lead to reform. Experience shows legislation is not easy.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Research by Victoria Parsons and Lucinda Borrell\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wife of the former deputy finance minister of Russia\u00a0last night won an auction at the\u00a0Conservative summer party\u00a0to play \u201cthe ultimate tennis match\u201d with David Cameron and Boris Johnson. The auction\u00a0took place\u00a0at the Hurlingham Club, west London, where secretaries of state sat at tables sponsored by\u00a0hedge fund tycoons, senior\u00a0oil executives and\u00a0property developers. Lubov Chernukhin, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-127877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}