WHY ARE RUSSIAN ROBBER BARONS WELCOMED TO BRITAIN?
The mayor of London is backing a campaign to entice Moscows oligarchs to bring their ill-gotten gains to his city. For a politician who once suggested that capitalism was responsible for more deaths than Hitler, Ken Livingstone is in the midst of a monstrous U-turn. Backed by real enthusiasm from the mayors office, the tourism quasi-NGO Visit London is engaged in a determined campaign to attract Russias super-wealthy. Advertising in high-end lifestyle magazines and running press junkets to the West End, marketing chiefs have their eye on the spending power of the Muscovite nouveaux riches. Livingstones weakness for oligarchs is in danger of turning Britains capital into the Sun City of the 21st century. The commercial ties between England and Russia have a proud pre-history. In 1553, the Muscovy Company, Englands first joint-stock enterprise, was set up to trade cloth for Russian furs. Elizabethan entrepreneurs made numerous trips to Ivan the Terribles court at Moscow while Russian mer
