GET A GRIP Profile picture
Mar 9 27 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

Who funds GB News?

Dubai-based hedge-funders & Christopher Chandler, a foreign billionaire who founded the Brextremist free-market Legatum Institute which has significant influence over Govt Ministers, & was accused by a Tory MP of “a link with Russian intelligence”.
So who is Christopher Chandler?

He's a New Zealand-born billionaire & founder & funder of Dubai-based investment company Legatum. He has an estimated net worth of US$1.7 billion, & has been called "one of the world's greatest contrarian investors" by Fortune Magazine.
Chandler launched & operated Chandler House, a department store in NZ, & in 1982, he & his older brother, Richard, took over the business & expanded it to 10 stores, adding fashion design, manufacturing & real estate, before looking for international investment opportunities.
In 1986, the brothers formed investment firm Sovereign Global in Monaco to focus on transitioning industries in Russia, Latin America & Eastern Europe - investing in assets which it felt were 'mispriced' in times of uncertainty AKA disaster capitalism.
According to Fortune Magazine, Sovereign “bet big on commercial real estate at the time of the transition in Hong Kong from British to Chinese control, when most of the world was profoundly pessimistic about the city's prospects” - but Sovereign seemed to thrive on risk & chaos.
Among Sovereign's major early investments was Hong Kong real estate after the signing of the Sino-British Accord; the Brazilian telecommunications industry, just after the country came out of hyperinflation; & in Russia, just after the fall of communism.
By the end of 1994, the Chandlers had bought a 4% stake in Unified Energy Systems, Russia's largest electric utility; 11% of Moscow electricity distributor Mosenergo; 5% stakes in each of the three main production arms of Yukos Oil Co.;
15% stake in Novolipetsk Metallurgical Kombinat, Russia's biggest steelmaker; & a small, undisclosed stake in Russian state controlled gas company Gazprom, the world's No.1 gas producer.

In 1997, the Chandlers invested nearly $1 billion for slightly less than 5% of Gazprom.
When Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Menatep Bank took control of Yukos in 1996 through a state auction, the Chandlers sold their stakes in its production companies and invested the proceeds in a further 10% of steelmaker NLMK, giving them a blocking minority stake of 25% plus one share.
The Chandlers used this to launch 'a governance crusade'. After armed guards prevented their representatives from attending the company's AGM, they teamed with Sputnik Fund, which also held a 25% stake, & sued in the Russian courts for the right to appoint board members.
However, Sputnik Fund - controlled by Russian financier Boris Jordan - sold its NLMK stake at a profit before the appeals process was finished. A decade later Sputnik's actions still rankled Richard Chandler.

institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150nr…
Gazprom was selling vast quantities of gas at below-market prices to a little-known company called Itera Group that Sovereign & others believed had close ties to Gazprom chief executive Rem Vyakhirev and other company directors, who held five seats on the 11-person board.
US Libertarian Charles Ryan was CEO of investment bank United Financial Group, the Moscow firm that advised the brothers. To combat Gazprom's abuses & release its value, the Chandlers backed a campaign by Ryan's partner, UFG Chair Boris Fyodorov, to gain a Board seat at Gazprom.
UFG was established with a Moscow based parent firm & an Isle of Man based firm managing its shell companies.

Ex-World Bank Director, & one of Russia's most prominent 'reformers', Fyodorov asserted that Gazprom was plundering corporate assets for the benefit of third parties.
In July 2000, Fyodorov was elected to the board over a management candidate. By teaming up with the government appointees, who were sympathetic to complaints about management abuses following the election of Putin in March 2000, Fyodorov changed the balance of power at Gazprom.
In May 2001, the board removed Vyakhirev as chief executive, moving him to the largely ceremonial position of chairman, & installed Alexey Miller, then deputy Energy minister, as his replacement. Vyakhirev stepped down as Chair a year later, replaced by Dmitry Medvedev.
With Alexy Miller, a confidant of Putin, stopping much of the transfer pricing, Gazprom's share price rebounded.

Sovereign sold off its stake between late 2002 and mid-2003, posting a 12.5% total return on its investment over nearly four and a half years.
In unseating Vyakhirev the Chandlers had saved their fund from a significant loss. "We finally left after nearly ten years in Russia because we felt we had done as much as we could in corporate governance and in shareholder rights."
In 2006, Christopher Chandler founded Dubai-based Legatum Capital as an independent venture separate from his brother.

The company was co-founded with Philip Vassiliou, & two GB News Directors, Mark Stoleson & Alan McCormick.
Legatum is an extremely influential, private, multibillion-dollar investment firm that puts money into companies in developing countries as well as the world's capital markets.

In April 2012, Legatum acquired its own building in Dubai.
Somewhat confusingly, Legatum Capital, based in Dubai, is part of Legatum Group, which funds the free-market think-tank 'Legatum Institute', which was founded in 2007, funded by the Dubai-based Legatum Group under its owner Christopher Chandler.
Legatum’s belief that Britain should remove all tariffs influenced leading eurosceptics like Steve Baker. Legatum's Shanker Singham, wrote that Britain could "maximise the benefits & minimise the disruptions of Brexit" by leaving the EU as soon as possible & removing tariffs.
I cannot stress enough how influential Legatum & Chandler have been (& continue to be) in shaping Britain over this last decade. Without them, imho it is extremely unlikely that Brexit would have happened.

And they're only just getting warmed up.

See @bakerstherald
In 2017 & 2018, British MPs, including Bob Seely, accused Christopher Chandler of links to Russian intelligence. Chandler has consistently rejected these claims.

In 2018 Chandler sued private investigator Donald Berlin.

buzzfeed.com/alexspence/chr…
In May 2021, Chandler revived part of his libel lawsuit against private investigator Donald Berlin, whose 2003 confidential report on Chandler’s activities, including alleged ties to Russian mobsters, fueled negative coverage in the British press more than a decade later.
Ultimately, the accusations made in Parliament about Chandler have apparently been proven false.

Chandler successfully revived the libel suit against Berlin in appeals court in 2021, enabling Chandler to receive partial compensation & a retraction of the statements by Berlin.
Obviously, given Chandler's background, experiences, ideology, funding of the free-market Legatum institute & now GB News - we all need to raise very important questions about the huge influence of foreign billionaires - be they from NZ, Australia, the USA or Russia - on Britain.

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More from @docrussjackson

Mar 10
#THREAD

While stock markets crash across the world, one set of unethical investors is doing extremely well out of the war: investors in the almost half a trillion dollar defence industry.

Is it easy for defence industry representatives lobby UK MPs?

theconversation.com/ukraine-how-th…
Arms manufacturers & healthcare businesses are among private firms that have bought access to Parliament through a £13 million “back door” lobbying network.

Unregulated All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) took more than half their funding from private sector firms.
APPGs are ‘informal’ groups of MPs & peers examining topics ranging from coronavirus to jazz.

Although some are supported by charities, many are almost entirely run by profit-motivated private lobbying firms, which can act as the groups’ secretariats.

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
Read 8 tweets
Mar 8
#THREAD

#Neoliberalism has been a cataclysmic failure:

Taxes for the rich have been cut, & regulation reduced or privatized

Worker, consumer & environmental protections have been removed

Deregulation produces not competition, but market concentration

prospect.org/economy/neolib…
Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration

Wealth distribution is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower & more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism Image
Daily life has become more of a struggle for hundreds of millions of ordinary decent people

The economic collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance, costing the US economy upwards of $15 TRILLION (vastly more globally) ImageImage
Read 9 tweets
Mar 8
Britain's top schools are awash with oligarch's dirty money.

In 2016, while UK Ministers including then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson waited hours for an audience with Putin, 11 Eton schoolboys who flew to Moscow were met by Putin in the Kremlin.

theguardian.com/world/2016/aug…
Eton said it was a private visit organised independently of the college. It's possible that one of the boys or intermediaries involved in setting it up was the son of one of Putin’s inner circle, who despite loud displays of patriotism are fond of schooling their children abroad.
In the 2012-13 school year, the fee income from international students at the UK's top schools was about £685 million - and the number of pupils from Russia increased by 27.4%, to 2,150, the third-quickest rate among non-British students.

cnbc.com/2014/04/03/for…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 8
Benefit sanctions are cruel.

While they have positive impacts for employment, they have significant associations with increased material hardship such as food deprivation & mental & physical health problems, as well as increasing child maltreatment.

cambridge.org/core/journals/…
"The evidence reviewed casts serious doubts on the sanctions policies being pursued in many countries, particularly those which have expanded the reach and increased the intensity of sanctions regimes in recent years. The evidence does not seem to show that sanctions ‘work’."
"While sanctions tend to increase exits to employment in the short term, there is evidence of adverse impacts on job quality, job stability, earnings & income, & of increased exits to non-employment or inactivity."
Read 5 tweets
Mar 7
#THREAD

Conspiracy Theories & the Manufacture of Dissent.

In a democratic society, the quality of information that citizens consume matters, since the ability to develop informed opinions is central to pressuring Govt to formulate policies that serve a common good." - DiMaggio.
A summary #THREAD of Anthony R. DiMaggio's 2022 paywalled article:

'Conspiracy Theories & the Manufacture of Dissent: #QAnon, the ‘#BigLie’, #Covid19, & the Rise of Rightwing #Propaganda'.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
DiMaggio's journal article examines the impact of partisanship, rightwing media, and social media on attitudes about contemporary conspiracy theories. Mainstream scholarly views that ‘both sides’ of the political aisle indulge routinely in such theories are challenged.
Read 145 tweets
Mar 6
Just *fuck* these moronic, divisive, shit-stirring populist nationalist anti-humanity charlatans.

They've already spent years trying to turn Britain into a polarised hateful shithole on behalf of a right-libertarian billionaire elite who do not give a shit about British people.
Thankfully, not many people have heard of Dominique Taegon (now Dominique Samuels).

She was "a young influencer" for the dangerously irresponsible hard-right propaganda outfit Turning Point UK, which was supported by the likes of Paul Joseph Watson, Nigel Farage, & Priti Patel.
Here she is with Charlie Kirk, who launched TPUK, who has falsely claimed humans have no significant effect on global climate change & promotes the antisemitic conspiracy theory of Cultural Marxism which inspired far-right terrorist Anders Breivik, & conspiracy nut Candace Owens.
Read 16 tweets

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