On that note, this is great. Bullough argues well and with a lot of wit. It's nice to read a book on financial crime which works so hard to keep the reader's attention. A similar thing happened in the 2000's with Climate Change literature and hopefully this will spark wider discussions on Britain's abhorrent record of servicing financial crime. The first few chapters cover a good bit of pop history, interweaving personal stories and grander historical trends. Of particular interest were the chapters covering the British Virgin Isles and Gibralter, respectively. In his punchy follow-up to Moneyland, Oliver Bullough's Butler to the World unravels the dark secret of how Britain placed itself at the centre of the global offshore economy and at the service of the worst people in the world… 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. 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

Bullough was born in 1977 and grew up on a sheep farm in Mid Wales. [1] [3] He studied History at Oxford University. [4] Career [ edit ] Today, regulators that have had their budgets continually slashed are swamped with reports from banks about suspicious accounts and transactions, but they don’t even have the staff to read them all. So the vast majority of the filings don’t ever get read, just filed, and only a sliver (.04%) have penalties imposed. Because of this, 98.5% of cases never even get reported. In other words, the UK offers all but zero chance being caught.A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting. To say this unmissable, deeply depressing book – about exactly how Britain pimps itself to the world’s dirtiest money – is timely is to miss author Oliver Bullough’s point. The fact is the stories that he tells, sordid tales of a nation flogging its real estate and its services and its football clubs and its good name to the shadiest and highest bidder, no questions asked, have been hiding in plain sight for decades. It has just seemed in no government’s interest to notice them.

The connections between Britain and America are profound—in foreign policy, in investment, in literature, in pop music, in the sharing of each other’s celebrities. Sometimes, the closeness leads the two countries into terrible mistakes, as with the Iraq War; sometimes, as with defeating the Nazis or filming This Is Spinal Tap, the exchange leads to something magnificent. The term Special Relationship—which was popularized, if not invented, by Churchill—has become a cliché, invoked increasingly dutifully by American politicians and increasingly needi-fully by British ones, but it still reflects a deep and enduring connection that goes far beyond what the two countries have with anyone else. That provoked me into writing my second book, The Last Man in Russia, which describes the struggle of a Russian to live in freedom and the efforts of Soviet officials to stop him. The life story of Father Dmitry, the Orthodox priest I chose as my central figure, seems to me to mirror the life of his whole nation, which is beset by depression and alcoholism. It’s not just that Britain isn’t investigating the crooks, it’s helping them too. Moving and investing their money is of course central to what the UK does, but that’s only the start: it’s also educating their children, solving their legal disputes, easing their passage into global high society, hiding their crimes and generally letting them dodge the consequences of their actions. 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 PropagandaThe Suez Crisis of 1956 was Britain's twentieth-century nadir, the moment when the once superpower was bullied into retreat. In the immortal words of former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, 'Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.' But the funny thing was, Britain had already found a role. It even had the costume. The leaders of the world just hadn't noticed it yet. Subsequent chapters examine how an obscure financial device called the Scottish Limited Partnership, often exposed by The Herald, became criminals’ preferred method of hiding money and how Dmitry Firtash (“Putin’s man in Ukraine”, topically enough) integrated himself into British society by adopting the role of a generous philanthropist. The next year I moved to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, then joined Reuters news agency, which sent me to Moscow. The first major story I reported on was the Moscow theatre siege of 2002, when a group of Chechens seized a theatre in the capital. Nixon, Simon. "Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough review — how Britain became a dirty paradise for kleptocrats". thetimes.co.uk . Retrieved 20 March 2022. 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

In this book, I reveal that hidden side of Britain, which I fear the vast majority of people have no idea exists and which will shake anyone’s confidence in its worth as a close ally. The country’s public image is as the home of Harry Potter, Queen Elizabeth II, top flight soccer, and socialized healthcare; as an exporter of whiskey, Hollywood baddies, late-night television personalities, and endless costume dramas. But behind the scenes, there is an entirely different country, one which—in a career of writing about corruption, money laundering, and financial crime—I have gradually come to glimpse, understand, and grow alarmed by. It was an understanding that crystallized during a conversation that took place a couple of years ago, with an American academic called Andrew. Mr Bullough’s thesis is that London became a favoured destination for dodgy dough not by chance but by design. For over half a century, Britain’s business model has been to act as the butler of his title to oligarchs, gangsters and kleptocrats looking for a safe place to park their often ill-gotten gains and enjoy the high life. Jones, Adam (June 2011). "Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus". Journal of Genocide Research. 13 (1–2): 199–202. doi: 10.1080/14623528.2011.554083.Eventually, in response to his interlocutor’s bafflement, he blurted: “We’re not a policeman, like you guys, we’re a butler, the butler to the world… If someone is rich, whether they are Chinese or Russian or whatever, and they need something done, or something hidden, or something bought, then Britain sorts that out for them… – that’s what a butler does.” The American asked him another question: “How long has this been going on?” and Bullough again found himself answering without hesitation: “It started in the 1950s. We needed a new business model after America took over as the world’s superpower, and this is what we found.” How long has this been going on?’ he asked at last, and the answer came to me without me having to think about it. It was suddenly obvious.