Crispin Odey: This man supports Boris Johnson in the belief that his Brexit will crash the economy – and make him a fortune.

It seems Facebook has taken a dislike to This Site – some say because Vox Political has been too ready to reveal the facts about Boris Johnson, his backers, and the ways they may be undermining us in order to enrich their selfish selves.

Now, I have no idea why Facebook would want to hide that, but the shadow-ban hasn’t materially harmed This Writer, so here’s some more, courtesy of Beastrabban.

He has quoted a Private Eye article from August that shows up another Johnson lie.

“The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts,” boomed Boris Johnson in his first prime ministerial speech. In fact the betters-against-Britain are the only true winners in Brexit Britain – as the new PM should know.

One big beneficiary is Johnson’s long-time supporter and funder, hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, whose latest gift was a £10,000 cheque for the leadership campaign last month [July] and most of whose funds are domiciled in, er, Ireland.

Odey was public about shorting the pound last year as the process hit Britain’s currency, then earlier this year reversed his position as the market bought into the idea that a no-deal Brexit would be avoided. (Odey’s funds are also profitably shorting major British names including Royal Mail, AA, Debenhams, Autotrader and shopping centre-owning Intu – hardly a vote of confidence in UK plc).

Now that Johnson’s “do or die” Brexit policy and outright rejection of the Irish backstop has sent the pound tumbling again, the short-sellers can cash in once more… In the days before Johnson’s win, and with his coronation looking secure, hedge funds’ bets against the pound rose to more than $6bn worth, according to Reuters. The ensuing fall will have benefited them to the tune of more than $100m.

Somebody’s certainly losing their shirt – but it’s not those betting against Britain.

There’s an update in the current Eye:

Last month the Byline Times added up the sums bet against UK stocks by hedge funds that had donated to either the prime ministers’s leadership campaign or to Vote Leave. Its finding that there was an “£8bn bet on no-deal crash out” was roundly pooh-poohed – with some justification, given the crudeness of the calculation and the host of other reasons for shorting shares. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t nefarious motives in the cross-over between short-selling and political influence, as non-conspiracy theorists ex-chancellor Philip Hammond and now ex-Treasury permanent secretary Sir Nicholas Macpherson have observed.

“Mr Hammond is right to question the political connections of some of the hedge funds with a financial interest in no deal,” tweeted Macpherson last weekend. “They are shorting the £ and the country, with the British people the main loser.” Alas, as the Eye put it last year, “there may be rules against rigging the financial markets, but not if the move is big, brazen and political enough.”

Nor is it possible to find out who is placing bets through currency trades, where the political/economic link is most direct. Post-financial crisis, significant share short-sales are publicly disclosed, but currency trades remain secret. Surely time to change this, and for more disclosure of the real financial interests behind those filling Boris Johnson’s boots.

And these things have knock-on effects. In case you haven’t noticed, the UK economy took a dive in the last quarter – that’s because investors are losing confidence.

You can be sure this is because Boris’s backers have been betting against Britain.

And you can also be sure that he won’t get the blame.

He is, after all, their own private “magic money tree”.

Source: Private Eye on the Hedge Funds Supporting Boris Against British Prosperity | Beastrabban\’s Weblog

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