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2 Aug, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Conservative party chairman Ben Elliot arranged for his company’s clients to buy PCR and antibody tests for hundreds of pounds in the midst of a national shortage during the deadly first wave of the pandemic
thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-el…
Emails show that at the same time as Elliot’s Conservative colleagues in government were battling to ramp up NHS testing, his company – Quintessentially – was willing to introduce its wealthy clients to private companies offering testing
The revelations follow claims that Elliot used this company to sell ultra-wealthy clients and Tory party donors access to Prince Charles

Elliot is the nephew of Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall
thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-c…
In one instance, a telecoms millionaire paid an annual fee of £15,000 to be an elite member of Quintessentially for several years before the company organised for him to fly to meet the prince over an intimate dinner in 2013
As a result of the introduction the businessman, Mohamed Amersi, became a member of the prince’s inner circle and a trustee of one of his charities.

He has since donated more than £1.2 million to the prince’s charities
According to leaked emails, Elliot responded to news of Amersi’s first donation to his uncle by writing: “Well done.”
thetimes.co.uk/article/access…
The use of Dumfries House – which the Prince of Wales borrowed £20 million to help preserve – to woo wealthy donors has repeatedly embroiled it in controversy

Many of the funds raised from these meetings eventually reached Charles’s foundations
thetimes.co.uk/article/dumfri…
The prince now fears that he has become “collateral damage” amid infighting in the Conservative Party and is “being dragged into” a political row over the behaviour of his nephew
thetimes.co.uk/article/prince…
Quintessentially, co-founded by Elliot in 2000, boasts of its ability to “take care of every aspect of our members’ lives, ensuring they’re engaged and experiencing the absolute best the world has to offer”

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More from @thetimes

The Times Profile picture
3 Aug
#WorldAtFive 🇿🇦 The worst bout of lawlessness since the end of apartheid makes a fresh exodus of talent from South Africa seem likely, writes @janeflan thetimes.co.uk/article/south-…
The mass departures of the early 90s were dominated by so-called “white flight”, but recent inquiries are split evenly along racial lines. “Mostly young and highly skilled families” looking for safe haven in Britain, Canada and Australia
More than half of those polled this year believed corruption still festered among politicians, officials and advisers working in the office of the president. That number has been creeping up steadily since 2002 when 13 per cent expressed distrust.
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The Times Profile picture
3 Aug
Are dead-end jobs good for the soul?

The actor Simon Pegg seems to think so: he says that his three years working at Debenhams after graduating “made me who I am”. But is that just nostalgia talking? Three Times writers weigh in
thetimes.co.uk/article/dead-e…
"I got £1 an hour, and raw knuckles"

For columnist Robert Crampton, his less-than-glamorous job at a bicycle factory in Hull came before university – and lasted just six months Image
His experience was so salutary that it persuaded him to take his A-levels, aged 21, and then apply to Oxford:

“£1 an hour, 8am to 4.30pm five days a week, with half an hour’s unpaid break for a chip butty, is no fun at all…apart from the butty.”
Read 12 tweets
The Times Profile picture
3 Aug
#Olympics update

#TeamGB celebrated double Olympic gold in sailing this morning, while athletes in Tokyo also claimed medals across cycling and diving, making the 11th day of the Games one of the nation’s most successful so far
thetimes.co.uk/article/tokyo-…
Jack Laugher claimed bronze in the 3m springboard diving final, securing the third medal of his Olympic career
thetimes.co.uk/article/jack-l…
“A lot of the time I am asked about the perfect race. I said it didn’t exist — but this is the closest I’ve ever come”

Karsten Warholm demolished his 400m hurdles world record in the midday sun
thetimes.co.uk/article/tokyo-…
Read 4 tweets
The Times Profile picture
2 Aug
Joseph Naddaf tried to stop the disaster at Beirut port, the explosion which ripped through the city, enveloping it in flames and smoke, and killing 200 people a year ago

Yet afterwards he was interrogated, arrested and held in jail for eight months thetimes.co.uk/article/jailed…
Naddaf had repeatedly warned his superiors of the impending disaster and the dangers of the ammonium nitrate stashed in Hangar 12

He has now been released on bail, but still faces charges, even though he is back at his job
At first, he says, he thought he was victim of a fishing trip, a trawl of anyone who had information. But then he ended up in a cell for eight months.

“I was surprised,” he said in an interview with The Times, with some understatement. “‘Why was this?’ I asked myself.”
Read 4 tweets
The Times Profile picture
2 Aug
After seven decades of discrediting sightings, the US military has recently confirmed that UFOs are a subject of concern.

Its report did not find proof of alien visits to Earth but nor did it rule them out… 🛸 thetimes.co.uk/article/the-tr…
Feature writer @Mcinparis went to Todmorden, West Yorkshire where news of America’s volte-face has caused a buzz of excitement among local UFO enthusiasts.

But will the stigma surrounding the local alien spotters – and the scorn and ridicule often heaped on them – soon go away?
“Ordinary people often have extraordinary experiences,” says Lyall, a trained counsellor and Todmorden’s UFO club secretary.

The society gives them a “forum in which to discuss their encounters without fear of ridicule”.
Read 10 tweets
The Times Profile picture
2 Aug
Mena Suvari found fame in American Beauty at the age of 19. She tells Helena de Bertodano about self-medicating with drugs, exploitative relationships and an ‘odd’ incident on set with Kevin Spacey. thetimes.co.uk/article/mena-s…
For decades, Suvari played the role of the girl with the gilded lifestyle. “That was absolutely painful, to be in an interview and I couldn’t be myself,” she says.
“‘What was American Pie like, it must have been so great?’ I couldn’t say, ‘I’m being severely, severely abused.’”

📸 As Heather in American Pie
Read 9 tweets

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