When most people think of British-Russian relations, they imagine Bond films, iron curtains, Cambridge double agents, irradiated dissidents, and billionaire oligarchs who dress like Evelyn Waugh but behave like Tony Soprano and then sue each other in London courts. But there’s another element underwriting this not-so-special relationship. British elites, elected or otherwise, have grown highly susceptible to the unscrutinized rubles that continue to pour into the boom-or-boom London real estate market and a luxury-service industry catering to wealthy Russians who are as bodyguarded as they are jet-set. This phenomenon has not only imported some of the worst practices of a mafia state across the English Channel, but it has had a deleterious impact on Britain’s domestic politics. And some of the most powerful and well-connected figures of British public life, from the Rothschilds to former prime ministers, have been taken in by it.
Read Here – Foreign Policy
Like this:
Like Loading...
Posted in
Russia,
United Kingdom and tagged
Britain,
Cambridge,
Economy,
English Channel,
Evelyn Waugh,
James Bond,
London,
Margaret Thatcher,
Moscow,
New economy,
new rich,
real estate,
Russians,
Thames,
Tony Soprano |
