Butler to the World: The book the oligarchs don’t want you to read - how Britain became the servant of tycoons, tax dodgers, kleptocrats and criminals

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If you have ever wondered quite why so many prime pieces of real estate in the ritziest areas appear to be unoccupied, this is the book for you . I had no particular plan, beyond a desire to learn Russian, but got a job at a local magazine and realised I liked finding things out and writing about them. It both horrified and fascinated me, and I resolved to find out as much as I could about Chechnya and the North Caucasus, to try to understand the roots of the conflict that had burst so unexpectedly into my life.

I did not give five stars as while I overall felt the level of clarity was strong, I would have appreciated a higher level of explanation of some of the finer economic topics such as how Eurodollars work.In it, he shows how both British government and finance have altered or ignored laws, welcomed criminals and exported crime to other countries, all in the name of income. Unbeknownst to Mullin and indeed to pretty much everyone else, the Treasury and the private equity industry were actually seeking to loosen those same regulations, so limited partnerships would have to report even less information to the authorities than they already did. Anyone who cares about the future of this country should read this sizzlingly written and incendiary story of our national decline. Bullough has a gift for making complex financial information comprehensible and strives to leaven this depressing story with jokes and deft character sketches . All one needs is a controlling interest in one of these companies with a bank account or accounts attached and the process can begin.

It's an important book that helps explain the current situation, and the title is great but unfortunately -- it's boring. These are civil servants like Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov, who can somehow afford to give his 21 year old daughter (he is a bigamist with at least two families) her first apartment, a four million pound flat in the fashionable west end. Rolls over the rock of dark money, tax dodging, and state-sanctioned criminal money laundering, thanks to some exceptional journalism by Bullough.From the murky origins of tax havens and gambling centres in the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar to the influence of oligarchs in the British establishment, Butler to the World is the story of how we became a nation of Jeeveses – and how it doesn’t have to be this way. Meanwhile the Chancellor of the Exchequer has moved out of his Downing Street flat after it was discovered his wife considers herself non-domiciled in Britain so that she pays no taxes on the IT fortune she inherited in her native India. The country continually finds ways to accept and launder dirty money, offer thieves not just citizenship, but honors, and racks up gigantic financial gains while aiding them to become established, if not sainted. His unifying idea is the classic English butler, Jeeves, who can fix anything for his master, even if he has to bribe or beat up a cop to do it. Book pretty much just walks people through the development of the process of sheltering dirty money in the west throughout chapters on Suez, British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Scotland etc, all through the colourful but still detail oriented anecdotes from people who helped or fought the entrenchment of dirty money in Britain.

To głęboko przygnębiająca analiza historii gospodarczej Wielkiej Brytanii, która stręczy się najbrudniejszymi pieniędzmi świata. It starts hundreds of years ago, when Scotland allowed the formation of limited partnerships, feudal firms that never had to reveal ownership, activities or pay taxes. Istnienie firm, które ułatwiają przestępcom wykonywanie ich brudnej roboty, takie jak szkockie spółki z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością.In the chapter ‘Giving Evidence’, the author describes the UK’s woeful record on tackling money laundering, leaving him to conclude that what measures are in place are designed to give the impression of extreme activity while actually doing nothing. You can find it as much in Dubai, Sydney, Lichtenstein, and Curaçao as you can in Switzerland or New York.