Dodgy Russian money has destabilised Britain’s democracy. We have to crack down on it

theguardian.com:

In 2010 I was approached on behalf of a Russian multimillionaire offering £30m. I’d recently launched a philanthropic foundation to help grassroots charities cope with the aftermath of the financial crisis.

We attracted a lot of support from individuals with genuine motives, but soon we were being approached by professional philanthropy advisers – a recently established money-making trade created by wealth managers and “private offices”. But on this occasion an adviser from a luxury concierge firm told us it had a Russian client willing to give us a huge sum to help us start up.

But there were strings attached. The client and his wife had to be invited to charity events attended by royalty, politicians, celebs and opinion formers. We would have to seek out big-brand arts and culture organisations, high-profile sports such as polo, and several named military charities, taking them on as trustees or board members. And they would have to have a say on the charities we funded, including charities in Belarus and Romania.

These demands rang alarm bells. The adviser boasted that he had helped this family to set up a charitable trust and other lucrative services that were earning his firm fat fees.

Even back then, questions were raised about the ability to move large sums of money out of Russia without permission from Vladimir Putin. There was a lot of good we could have done with such a vast sum, but it would have compromised all my principles.

The Conservative party and some of its MPs – Boris Johnson and David Cameron among them – have, of course, been less choosy. This is what makes it very difficult for the prime minister to talk with any credibility about making life tough for rich Russians: he has defended donations made to