Stop the Yachts: Malcolm Offord as Dick Whittington

At last night’s leaders’ manel on STV Lord Offord boasted that he had come from a humble background and made his way to London to make his fortune and that: “Today I own six houses, five cars and six boats.”

It was the highlight of a turgid evening.

It’s interesting to think about why it divides opinion.

First of all, Lord Offord had previously not been so proud of his lavish lifestyle. Only in January, when he was quizzed by journalists about how many houses he had, he replied: “I am not going to be drawn on that.”

He also side-stepped a question on his net worth: “I’m not talking about my net worth. For a start, it’s not something you just pluck out of the air, as assets are not necessarily easily valued.”

Offord was also asked if he would commit to publishing his tax return. “No, I want to think about that,” he said.

I’m sure he does.

Presumably his team reckoned someone would do some digging and his assets and property would be revealed, though, to be honest I think that’s giving the Scottish media more credit than they’re due. Whatever. What was once top secret would now be framed as a boast.

For many Offord’s hagiographical account chimes with their own world-view: Scotland needs more of these thrusting vigorous types to subsidise the indolent masses. In this universe, wealth cascades down from the super-rich to furnish the rest of us with our benefits. There will be jobs cleaning the many houses, servicing the many cars and splicing the mainbrace of the many yachts. What’s not to like?

Cash for Ermine

I mean, apart from the inability to read the room when Scotland is suffering from years of austerity imposed by his former party, Offord, or how crass it might come over to boast about owning six houses when many can’t afford one, there is something deeply disingenuous about Offord, and his most recent account.

There is something deeply deceptive about a man who created a front-group called ‘No Borders’ in 2015, only to stand ten years later on a platform of ‘Stop the Boats’. No Borders was of course forced to suspend the comments on its own website, only days after it was launched when its video testimonials from people defending the Union were brutally mocked online. And you might remember too that No Borders was also forced to withdraw a cinema advert which suggested sick Scots children might not be treated at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital after independence.

“They can join the long list of foreigners waiting to be seen,” one of the actors in the ad said.

The NHS trust which runs Great Ormond Street said it had not been consulted, regularly treated patients from other countries, and requested that the advert be removed from cinemas.

Or there is of course, the little problem, when we are framing all of this as go-getting meritocracy, of the fact that Offord donated £150,000 to the Conservatives before being made a life peer and given a ministerial job under Boris Johnson. I have no idea why this “stench of rampant cronyism” wasn’t called Cash for Ermine at the time, but it should be now (©).

The negative reaction to Offord’s boasting about his fantastic wealth has caused apoplexy among some of his colleagues and friends. The intrepid Merryn Somerset Webb (Bloomberg’s ‘Wealth Editor’) wailed: “I repeat. Scotland’s problem. A toxic combo of disdain for wealth creation and a side dish of envy. It isn’t getting us anywhere.” This was the same Somerset Webb who famously worried that Nicola Sturgeon’s dangerously radical policies would result in her losing her skiing holiday [Nicola Sturgeon Stole My Skiing Holiday – Bella Caledonia].

At some point on the campaign trail, while spraffing anecdotes about his rise to great wealth, Offord offered a story about how he had arrived in London with nothing more than his rugby boots, and had known hardship because he had once had too little money to go on a rugby tour of Kenya. The whole edifice of sycophants’ genuflecting at Offord’s wealth [Admiring Malcom Offord’s Jaguar] is pretty nauseating. But much of the narrative from the right and the super-rich is not just about a supreme lack of self-awareness or lack of consciousness about entitlement; it’s about a faith in the long-discredited idea of trickle-down economics.

Many watching Offord last night will have disdain for someone boasting about their lavish lifestyle in a society disfigured by grotesque inequality and where so many people are struggling to get by. But many more just fail to believe that a banker working in private equity contributes more to society than a bus driver, a cleaner, a janitor, a teacher or an unpaid carer. It was not just the crass lack of humility that Offord was brandishing last night but a complete ignorance of Scottish values.

In December 2020, Malcolm Offord was one of 54 people ennobled by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 13 of which had either funded the Tories or had an employment or personal connection to Johnson. Among those made peers in December were Johnson’s own brother, Jo, and his friend Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian-born newspaper owner who formerly hosted the PM in his Perugia mansion.

The idea that this is a reflection of some sort of functioning meritocracy rather than a cesspit of sleaze and cronyism, or that private bankers create wealth, is a fairy tale worthy of any Ladybird series.