Johnson, the £800,000 loan facility & Old Corruption
The Sunday Times has reported that a guarantor of the previously reported £800,000 loan facility Boris Johnson took up in late 2020 was Richard Sharp. Sharp was Johnson’s appointee as Chair of the BBC. He was not Chair at the time he guaranteed the loan but Cabinet Secretary Simon Case warned Johnson not to pursue any links with him. Sharpe did not declare his link to Johnson when appointed as BBC Chair in early 2021, although he had previous links with Johnson and Sunak.
The Sunday Times reports that the arrangement appears to have been agreed at a dinner at Chequers (chop suey & wine) where Johnson was joined by Sharp and the Canadian businessman Sam Blyth who made the loan. None of this was reported or registered.
There is a term for all this: Old Corruption. It describes the pre-democratic politics of England before the 1832 Reform Act where positions and titles were often handed out not on the basis of merit or work done but as personal favours. They were sinecures. Any actual work was done by others. It is not a new development in British politics but with Johnson it reached new levels of depravity.
It stands comparison with the lack of democratic accountability seen in the behaviour of ex-President Trump and some other political leaders around the world.
Democracy can be seen as a rather abstract concept to those struggling to pay energy bills. However just as the demand for the vote at Peterloo in 1819 was linked to pressure for affordable bread prices so too with the current cost of living crisis.
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