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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/david-cameron-jeremy-heywood-lex-greensill-and-all-that-free-money-slmdtxxnf
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A controversial financier forced through a government loan scheme from
which he directly benefited after citing the personal authority of the
prime minister at the time David Cameron.
Lex Greensill, an Australian banker, told No 10 advisers and senior
civil servants via email that “the PM” had requested that he implement
his ideas “across government”.
The disclosure comes as a cache of emails leaked to The Sunday Times
sheds light on the biggest lobbying scandal in a generation.
They show that in late 2012 Greensill sent details of his proposed
multibillion-pound NHS loan scheme to senior officials but was so
confident he stated: “We are not seeking your approval”.
Weeks earlier civil servants warned that his proposal was potentially
unlawful and that the then 34-year-old had to be “reined in”.
Cameron went on to work for Greensill, receiving share options worth
tens of millions of pounds. But the collapse of Greensill’s financial
services company left the share options worthless and now threatens
50,000 jobs, including 5,000 in the UK.
The government has admitted that Greensill’s former employer, Citibank,
was handed a deal to run the scheme, processing billions of pounds of
payments from the NHS to pharmacists, without any contract or tender.
It can also be revealed that the cabinet secretary at the time Jeremy
Heywood, who brought Greensill into Whitehall having worked with him at
a bank, later nominated him for a CBE for “services to the economy”.
BIRTH OF A SCANDAL
Monday August 1, 2011, was a busy day in Downing Street. The previous
fortnight had brought warning signs of another recession, the
resignation of the Met’s top police officer and a decisive push towards
the defeat of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. Yet the country’s most
powerful civil servant had his mind elsewhere.
At 2.56pm, Jeremy Heywood wrote an email to his officials, deftly making
a clear instruction read like a request. It concerned a virtually
unknown Australian banker in his thirties, Lex Greensill.
Heywood, 49, had met him during a stint at a Wall Street bank. Now he
wanted officials to welcome the man from down under into Downing Street
so Greensill could promote his big idea: using private loans to help pay
government suppliers on time.
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