was it a missing link in the Hackgate saga?

On the trail of Groucho members, Newscorpers, and Shadow Ministers

The story so far: we know that the Groucho Club run by JHJ Lewis indulged in unregulated surveillance. We know that a website using the same domain and name as The Groucho was an active paedophile linking forum for at least a year. We know that Mr Lewis has donated a probable six-figure sum over time to the new Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. We know that Lewis gave Hunt £4000 to visit New York, where he hob-knobbed with the Murdoch media elite. We know that ten days later, James Murdoch met David Cameron and confirmed that the Murdoch-owned Sun newspaper would support the Conservative Party in the forthcoming election. And we know that Lewis was in charge of a major Tory paper on UK Tourism, one in which the Prime Minister…

Safe houses and raw gold are being snaffled up by the 3%

I read this kind of analysis four or five times already today:

‘…gold will head towards $1,700 an ounce or higher as central bank moves into purchase and production problems increase the demand for gold, analysts said…’

As we’ll see, those ‘production problems’ are not all they seem.

Yes – these are factors about the resurgent gold price, no doubt about it. Also a third factor is folks gambling on the alleged certainty of QE3…although the logic behind the gamble continues to elude me: QE means messing with the Dollar and thus compromising its value, but rather more directly it leads to higher stock market dividends and consequently reduced interest in gold as a stock market hedge.

However, none of that explains the overall sentiment for alternatives to cash, stocks and commodities in the context of falling global…

Few companies will benefit more than DRS if AV is passed:

Fervent AV supporter Neil Kinnock took 29,408 shares in the company 18 months ago.

Lord Kinnock…..lovely, lovely, lovely

Following disturbing revelations last week about material benefit accruing to AV enthusiasts, The Slog can exclusively reveal this morning that major AV supporter Lord Kinnock is a non-Executive Director of electoral counting suppliers DRS – one of  two major players in the sector.

If the Alternative Vote referendum wins the day in May, only two players will benefit from the need to count more votes – Electoral Reform Services and DRS. The two outfits have created a joint venture company IntElect specifically to gear up for the expected win. But what AV enthusiasts may not have known until now is that fellow-traveller  and former Labour Party leader Lord Kinnock owns nearly 30,000 shares in DRS.

The evidence….other shareholdings have been obliterated…

The time has come at last for even the more smug and sleepy among us to get real. This is the situation we have:

1. A gentleman with a posh name, a senior and shady role on Tory affairs (and no doubt the wearer of nice shoes) is in charge of seeking out naughty paedos – and has now been accused of being one of their number.

2. The Prime Minister and his staff covered up the issue until caught out.

3. The Prime Minister’s Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is bankrolled by a John Lewis who was at a key time Chairman of the Groucho Club. At that time, it was hosting a PIE-style website and taking illegal pictures of its clients snorting coke.

4. Alistair McAlpine successfully sued the backside off various people for being wrongly outed as a paedophile, but kept secret his certain knowledge about Jimmie McAlpine…

Why did the British Council use an off-the-peg company to award Jeremy Hunt business?

Hotcourses and Sheffield Data…..same building, same contract

The Slog looked briefly here yesterday at Jeremy Hunt’s extremely advantageous dealings with the British Council. Since then I’ve been looking more deeply into the affair. Now there are even more questions about it.

Jeremy Hunt co-founded the educational directory Hotcourses with adman Mike Elms in the 1990s. After producing a widely-criticised website for the British Council in 2002, an odd sequence of events resulted in the eventual appointment  of another company called Sheffield Data Services. Although this was not made public at the time, Hotcourses had a 50% shareholding in this company. There is no explanation I can find as to why this company should have been put into the mix; but over the next seven years, the Council’s relationship with Sheffield Data Services was richly rewarding for…

The one-word secret of Hunt’s success:

NEPOTISM

His relationship to Virginia Bottomley…..his dealings with the British Council….his inheritance of the SW Surrey constituency….his father’s history in UK Health provision….the Health interests for whom Bottomley now works….his capture of the Health portfolio in the recent reshuffle.

♣  ♣  ♣  ♣  ♣  ♣  ♣

Throughout his career, Jeremy Hunt’s advancement somehow always seemed to involve his path crossing that of the former Virginia Bottomley, known since 2005 as Baroness Nettlestone. Now – with the help of some initial sleuthing by regular Slogger Jackie – I can offer readers a big clue: they are cousins. Laid out below (for anyone with any feeling for the importance of meritocracy) is how still, in 2012, career progress of the type admired by David Cameron – “the leg up” – is alive and well. One where the right tie, who you know, and above all a…