Mark Thatcher, son of the former UK PM, seems to have been dogged with accusations of financial impropriety. I bring him up, because of a comment on this blog about his direct involvement in an international conspiracy to cover up the manipulation of precious metals that was apparently outed in 2002 in the UK, but was covered up. In researching the comment, I began with some background on Mark Thatcher.
Here’s a brief summary of some financial “improprieties” as they show up in a Guardian article from 2004.
“But hit controversy in 1984 when the Observer alleged that he benefited from his mother’s position when a large construction deal in Oman was awarded to a building firm, Cementation, with which he was involved, after Mrs Thatcher visited the tiny Gulf state. The accusations were never proven.
Further controversy dogged him through his friendship with the Middle East businessman Wafic Said – a quiet-spoken Syrian with close links with Saudi royalty.
Among other business ventures in the 1980s, he was involved in several large-scale arms deals, most notably a £20bn contract between British Aerospace and Saudi Arabia.
Although rumours of impropriety have dogged his business career, he largely disappeared off Fleet Street’s radar after moving to the US.
But it is recorded that his wealth grew to the point where he spent periods as a tax exile in Switzerland.
In the 1990s he helped secure the multimillion pound contract for his mother’s Downing Street memoirs, but after the failure of a security alarm business in the US and a prosecution for tax evasion, Mark, his wife and their two children moved again – this time to South Africa.
Three years after the move to Cape Town, in 1998, he was investigated by South African police over a money-lending business to police officers. He counter-claimed that officers working for him as agents had defrauded him and the investigation was eventually dropped.
He returned to the UK last July for the funeral of his father, Sir Denis, a former oil businessman, who died aged 88. He inherited his father’s hereditary baronetcy to become Sir Mark.
Sir Mark, who was known as “Thickie Mork” among other nicknames at Harrow and who has been criticised for his lack of charm, was once described by the Financial Times as “a sort of Harrovian Arthur Daley with a famous Mum”.
A devoted Lady Thatcher, however, has always had faith in him. “Mark could sell snow to the Eskimos, and sand to the Arabs,” she is reported to have said.
His notoriety was not welcomed by Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady Thatcher’s former press secretary.
Asked by Sir Mark how he could best help his mother win the 1987 general election, Ingham reportedly replied: “Leave the country.”