Publishers Weekly
05/02/2022
Britain and its overseas territories have spent decades soliciting ill-gained fortunes, according to this impressively detailed and frequently enraging exposé. Journalist Bullough (Moneyland) examines how decolonization in the 1950s left Britain “essentially broke” and in need of foreign investment. He also details how budget cuts in the wake of the 2007–2008 financial crisis led police to stop “showing interest in cases of financial crime... just as the spread of online banking and payments made fraud easier than it had ever been,” and explains that notaries, who handle some property transactions, have been regulated by an obscure office under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury since the reign of Henry VIII. On a tour of Britain’s overseas territories, Bullough notes that officials in Gibraltar turned a blind eye to smuggling when the Royal Navy shuttered local bases in the 1980s and then authorized low-tax offshore betting on the peninsula. Spotlighting the influx of Kremlin-aligned oligarchs into England, Bullough also details how British officials including Prince Philip feted Dmitry Firtash, a “cash-rich” oil executive who funded pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine and bought a disused Tube station in London for £53 million. Lucid explanations of complex financial matters and a simmering sense of outrage distinguish this timely investigation into how Britain sacrificed its principles for pounds. (June)
From the Publisher
Urgent and essential reading…Bullough has drilled down to the root of the malaise that's rotting the UK system. Beautifully written with quiet despairing humor, this is the defining story of our times.” —Catherine Belton, author of Putin’s People
“Not only a witty and well researched economic history of Britain's role as financial Butler to the world, this is also a savage analysis of Britain's soul. As essential as Orwell at his best.” —Peter Pomerantsev, author of This Is Not Propaganda
“If like me you've ever wondered what all those university graduate schemes were ultimately about, Bullough outlines it here...Timely and revealing.” —Lucy Prebble, writer and executive producer of Succession
“A horribly brilliant account of just how much historical integrity Britain has sacrificed at the altar of dirty money. Bullough is a compelling and expert guide to the newly-dug sewers flowing through the heart of our political, legal and financial establishment.” —James O'Brien, author of How Not to be Wrong
“This is an absolute must-read for everyone who wants to understand Britain's crucial role in the global dirty money crisis…Bullough lifts the lid and explains in a very clear and intelligible way why and how Britain is facilitating illicit finance across the world. The narrative is gripping, the analysis original and powerful and the detailed examples terrifying. This book will provide a powerful contribution to the important debate on the UK and dirty money.” —Margaret Hodge, MP and chair of the Public Accounts Committee
“Oliver Bullough unsparingly reveals the devastating facts behind Britain's dirty financial secrets and moral guilt while directly challenging the UK to clean up its act. This book is a must-read for those who care about our reputation in the world today.” —Andrew Mitchell, MP and former British international development minister
“Anyone who cares about the future of this country should read this sizzlingly written and incendiary story…This book blows apart Britain's image of gentlemanly respectability and lays bare the real picture: ruthless greed disguised by hypocrisy, and tolerated because of willful ignorance.” —Edward Lucas, author of The New Cold War
“The shocking revelation of how the old heart of an unscrupulous empire turned into a fawning servant to the global super-rich. The sooner more people realize this, the better.” —Danny Dorling, author of Rule Britannia
"Couldn’t be timelier... A stinging case for developing a regulatory regime to force the U.K. 'to seek a different way to earn a living.’” —Kirkus
"Impressively detailed…Lucid explanations of complex financial matters and a simmering sense of outrage distinguish this timely investigation into how Britain sacrificed its principles for pounds.” —Publishers Weekly
“Highly readable... deserve[s] praise for going beyond moralizing and pointing out how an industry geared to enabling the corrupt is not just unsavory but can hurt a country's real economic prospects.” —Financial Times
“An urgent account of Britain's history of welcoming corrupt capital...Mr. Bullough argues compellingly that though more anti-corruption funds and tougher enforcement are welcome, what is really needed is a change of philosophy: for principles to take precedence over the profits of a few.” —The Economist
“Mr. Bullough, a lively and clever writer, has alighted on a lively and clever metaphor around which he builds Butler to the World. Riveting it is to read.” —Wall Street Journal
"In Bullough’s enthralling book he charts just how London sought to find its place in a post-Suez Crisis world and in so doing opened the doors to dodgy money...all at the expense of the British people and the countries the money came from." —Diplomatic Courier
Kirkus Reviews
2022-03-29
A scathing portrait of the U.K. as a kind of ATM, maintained by servile bankers, for the use of nefarious characters around the world.
Continuing themes he sounded in Moneyland, Welsh financial journalist Bullough delivers a book that couldn’t be timelier given current efforts to impound the expatriated wealth of Russian oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine. His argument is unsparing: that the U.K. “has spent decades not helping America but picking its pocket, undermining its government, and making the world poorer and less safe.” The vast financial complex known as the City of London, for example, rivals institutions of Zurich for keeping the ill-gotten gains of “some of the worst people in existence” tucked safely away. London is far from alone. Former outposts of the British Empire such as Gibraltar and Mustique do yeoman—no, butler—service in hiding assets, laundering money, and offering casinos in which to gamble one’s fortune away. Seeing all this, Bullough writes, the U.S. long ago “copied Britain’s lax regulatory regime” to discourage dollar flight across the Atlantic, but even so, other nations, such as the Netherlands via Curaçao, “understood the profits to be made from gaming the system” and raised the stakes. Britain responded by further relaxing the rules, which is why places like the British Virgin Islands are now money havens for “North Korean arms smugglers, crooked Afghan officials, American tax dodgers, South American drug cartels, Kremlin insiders, corrupt football administrators and far too many criminals to name.” As Bullough writes in this eye-opening account, other U.K. entities seek new ways to serve, from “Scottish limited partnerships” to hidden accounts on Jersey, all of which help disguise money trails.
A stinging case for developing a regulatory regime to force the U.K. “to seek a different way to earn a living.
