Left Wing Author Reveals the Truth Behind Sleazy Levy

An old colleague of mine from my ports industry days, Dave Osler, has a very good extreme leftie blog called Dave's Part. Dave reckons I tried to get him sacked from his job as a journalist once (I was doing media relations for the port employers during the 1989 dock strike and he was an industrial correspondent), but I have to say I don't recall it! Sounds very unlike me.

Anyway, he wrote a very good book a few years ago called Labour Party PLC and included quite a bit about Lord Cashpoint Levy. THIS is what he wrote about Levy and Tony Blair's Blind Trust. It gives a good insight into the way Levy conducts his affairs...

But some of those who saw the blind trust system up close and personal are not so sure just how blind it was. Henry Drucker, briefly a key player in Labour's search for big donations, has described the set-up as essentially "evil". This is criticism from a surprising quarter. The US-born academic, who now holds dual nationality, is a longstanding Labour Party member. In 1979 he co-edited a book with Brown, and was later chairman of Cook's constituency party.16Drucker founded the Oxford Philanthropic fundraising consultancy, known as Oxphil, which specialises in finding backers for good causes. Clients include Nottingham University and the Welsh National Opera. He successfully raised £340m for Oxford University, Alma Mater of many a leading politician. Little wonder Labour wanted him on board.In March 1996, Drucker was hired until after the next election to work on ways of extracting sums of £25,000 or more from companies and wealthy individuals. This was a time when Labour still considered a £5,000 donation a relatively big gift. But, as Drucker points out, the super-rich are happy enough to hand over £100,000, or even £1m, for causes they truly support.Right from the start, press coverage pointed to probable tension between Drucker and Levy. But no matter. The appointment was obviously personally sanctioned by the party leader himself. Drucker recalls being recruited by Blair's chief of staff Powell after Blair had just returned from a trip to Hong Kong. "People told Blair the Tories came to Hong Kong with a bag and left with it full of cheques. Basically he wanted to know how to do the same thing."17Oxphil agreed to assess the market, its standard methodology, and was given a tight deadline. Powell supplied a list of people he thought would give sizeable sums, and Drucker set about interviewing them. That didn't prove too difficult. "This was a period of maximum charisma for Blair and New Labour", Drucker recalls. "They were clearly going to win the next election, and all sorts of people wanted to be on Blair's good side."18The object of market assessment is to tell clients what they have to change about themselves to get the money rolling in. What Drucker found was enormous resentment of blind trusts, and widespread disbelief that they were indeed anonymous. Additionally, people were fed up with being approached by multiple competing blind trusts. The whole shooting match was also considered hypocritical on the part of a party pledged to openness in matters of political funding. No message could have been more guaranteed to infuriate Levy.Drucker made his findings clear through progress reports fed to Powell, who by now realised blind funds were a big issue. "What I, in retrospect foolishly, didn't appreciate is that there was no way Michael Levy was going to live with the recommendation of no blind funds, and no way Blair was going to live with recommendations Michael Levy would not live with."19After just seven weeks Drucker and Labour parted company. The official line was that the party had decided to keep fundraising in-house rather than relying on a paid outsider. But the main reason for the rapid divorce was Drucker's moral concerns.A showdown between Levy, Drucker and fellow Oxphil consultant Rebecca Rendel took place at Levy's home in the spring of 1996. Drucker recalls the gathering vividly."I think I was set up by Levy. He knew perfectly well what we were saying because Jonathan told Tony and Tony told him. As soon as we got to the house we were subject to a verbal assault. He was shouting and unpleasant.... It was obviously an authority issue. Who the hell did we think we were? He was running this. What the hell were we doing making recommendations? I knew he was running Tony's blind fund so I didn't anticipate a very pleasant meeting. It was basically, 'this is what I am doing and therefore you will accommodate it'."20Shortly afterwards, Drucker formally presented his findings to a Labour delegation at Pall Mall's Reform Club that included general secretary Tom Sawyer, finance director Paul Blagbrough and two or three others. The meeting made no difference. Drucker was thrown off the case. His views found sympathy in some quarters, however. He recalls a one-and-half-hour telephone consolation chat with Donald Dewar – later First Minister of the Scottish assembly – who advised him not to take things personally.21Despite parting on bad terms, Drucker is still unwilling to disclose the names of the donors he canvassed. "You would be able to guess two-thirds of them", he maintains. "The other third is too obscure." Nevertheless, he does recollect some pretty in-your-face approaches from honours-seekers. One British-based businessman with foreign connections came right out and asked how much the going rate was for a peerage. He was willing to pay several million pounds for the privilege, Drucker believes.

Henry Drucker also tells Osler of Levy's approach to soliciting big donations.

"If Michael Levy thought you would give a lot of money to the party, he would invite you to play tennis at his house and say 'there's a fair chance Tony will turn up'. Tony turned up, of course. When Tony left. Levy asked for money. I'm sure Levy, being the sort of guy he is, would ring Blair up ten minutes later and say, 'we got two £500,000 cheques today'."

Nice man.