Pyramid of Lies: The Prime Minister, the Banker and the Billion Pound Scandal

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He won a High Court challenge in 2019 against a court summons that claimed he had misled the public. The UK Statistics Authority said Mr Johnson’s claims were “a clear misuse of official statistics” (Photo: PA) Talking Turkey DUNCAN MAVIN: That is also a very, very good question. So Lex comes across the government. He makes his government connections from around about 2011. He had met a very senior former Civil Servant named Jeremy Heywood, when he was at Morgan Stanley. They both worked together there. At that point, Lex was a pretty junior guy and Jeremy Heywood was a very senior guy, very high-level Civil Servant who'd moved into the bank temporarily. Few of these dramas seemed to have much impact in Henley, where Johnson was selected to be the party’s candidate in July 2000. He had made it to the final three in part because of a sense his presence would liven things up at the hustings, where around 500 turned up to Benson village hall. Barry Brown, a party activist, said there were many unfamiliar faces at the meeting. “There were so many people we had never seen. People who had never had anything to do with the association,” he said. While other alleged affairs have been attached to Mr Johnson’s name throughout his career, claims of an alleged fling with American tech entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri have attracted the most media attention. A few years ago, I made it into an intimate meeting at the "top table". Just me and the top brass. I had prepared copious notes to discuss the large deal that was imminent. But I hadn't prepared to discuss horse racing, the ownership of horses, or the best dogs to keep at stables.

When the company finally collapsed it exposed the revolving door between Westminster and big business and how David Cameron was allowed to lobby ministers for cash that would save Greensill's doomed business. Instead, Credit Suisse and Japan's SoftBank are nursing billions of dollars in losses, a German bank is under criminal investigation, and thousands of jobs are at risk. Mr Johnson’s early dismissal from The Times and his scandal while at The Telegraph did little to thwart his steady rise in journalism, with the writer becoming editor of The Spectator in 1999.

The Prime Minister, the Banker and the Billion Pound Scandal

I mean in the end, I think you made several million pounds. It's unclear exactly how much Cameron was paid, but certainly a substantial amount of money. I think there was also, for Cameron may be, an appeal that this was a fast-growing fintech in theory. And so that's a bit more exciting than going to work on the Board of an established company. A bit cooler, a bit more kind of future of Britain. And so I think there's an appeal. What's interesting to me is that the red flags around Greensill were pretty easy to spot by then. Many of them, they are never going to see the amount that they had put into it,” Guth said. “But they will be able to benefit from some of it. And some of it may be better than nothing at all.” NATHAN HUNT: The book, once again, The Pyramid Of Lies: Lex Greensill and the Billion-Dollar Scandal. Duncan, thank you for joining me today on the podcast.

The future Prime Minister, then aged 23, is said to have “invented” a comment from a distinguished Oxford don, historian Colin Lucas — who happened to be his godfather. The wood-panelled, chandeliered dining rooms of the Savoy hotel across the road became the office canteen

Mr Johnson apologised on Wednesday afternoon for attending the gathering, marking the first time he has publicly admitted to attending the event at Downing Street. Greensill achieved its rapid growth by becoming, in effect, a lender of last resort. A handful of risky borrowers came to dominate its business, the largest of which was Sanjeev Gupta’s steel group, to which Greensill kept lending long past the point where it was obvious there was no ability to repay. As time went on, more and more loans started to go sour, and the insurers started to pull out. The business finally collapsed when the new Japanese owners of its last insurer (a small, bamboozled Australian outfit) called time. To its founder, Greensill Capital is more than a business: his whole new identity depends upon it. As the story unfolds, we see his drive and determination evolve fatally into messianic ambition and a blinkered disregard for differing views.