Lord James of Blackheath: unearthed Illuminati conspiracy or completely nuts?

Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party · November 3, 2010, 6:35pm

Two days ago Lord James of Blackheath (a Conservative life peer in the UK House of Lords) said the following in the house of Lords:

At this point, I am going to have to make a very big apology to my noble friend Lord Sassoon, because I am about to raise a subject that I should not raise and which is going to be one which I think is now time to put on a higher awareness, and to explain to the House as a whole, as I do not think your Lordships have any knowledge of it. I am sorry my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is not with us at the moment, because this deeply concerns him also.

For the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords, in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention the willing availability of a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country. For want of a better name, I shall call it foundation X. That is not its real name, but it will do for the moment. Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, “We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate”. I had the biggest put down of my life from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde when I told him this story. He said, “Why you? You’re not important enough to have the answer to a question like that”. He is quite right, I am not important enough, but the answer to the next question was, “You haven’t got the experience for it”. Yes I do. I have had one of the biggest experiences in the laundering of terrorist money and funny money that anyone has had in the City. I have handled billions of pounds of terrorist money.

Not into my pocket. My biggest terrorist client was the IRA and I am pleased to say that I managed to write off more than £1 billion of its money. I have also had extensive connections with north African terrorists, but that was of a far nastier nature, and I do not want to talk about that because it is still a security issue. I hasten to add that it is no good getting the police in, because I shall immediately call the Bank of England as my defence witness, given that it put me in to deal with these problems.

The point is that when I was in the course of doing this strange activity, I had an interesting set of phone numbers and references that I could go to for help when I needed it. So people in the City have known that if they want to check out anything that looks at all odd, they can come to me and I can press a few phone numbers to obtain a reference. The City firm came to me and asked whether I could get a reference and a clearance on foundation X. For 20 weeks, I have been endeavouring to do that. I have come to the absolute conclusion that foundation X is completely genuine and sincere and that it directly wishes to make the United Kingdom one of the principal points that it will use to disseminate its extraordinarily great wealth into the world at this present moment, as part of an attempt to seek the recovery of the global economy.

The total value of the Vatican bank reserves would claim to be more than the entire value of gold ever mined in the history of the world. My point on all of this is that we have not proven any of this. Foundation X is saying at this moment that it is prepared to put up the entire £5 billion for the funding of the three Is recreation; the British Government can have the entire independent management and control of it-foundation X does not want anything to do with it; there will be no interest charged; and, by the way, if the British Government would like it as well, if it will help, it will be prepared to put up money for funding hospitals, schools, the building of Crossrail immediately with £17 billion transfer by Christmas, if requested, and all these other things. These things can be done, if wished, but a senior member of the Government has to accept the invitation to a phone call to the chairman of foundation X-and then we can get into business. This is too big an issue. I am just an ageing, obsessive old Peer and I am easily dispensable, but getting to the truth is not. We need to know what really is happening here. We must find out the truth of this situation.

Don’t believe it happened? Check Hansard, the official record of the Commons and Lords. Click here, and search for Column 1538.

Is this guy completely insane? Or is there really a shadowy organisation that’s offering the UK Government incredible amounts of money?

Roderick_Femm · November 3, 2010, 6:41pm

Two things spring to mind:

Is this guy admitting a crime, in the laundering of money for the IRA and for “north African terrorists”? And is he saying that the Bank of England was knowingly complicit in that crime (or worse)?

Second, what “eminent City firm” (as I understand it, “City firm” would refer to a financial firm like a bank, headquartered in the financial district of London) would use the term “megabucks”? Are they so Americanized as that?

(Third, what is FSA?)

I am fascinated, and await further developments.
Roddy

Whack-a-Mole · November 3, 2010, 6:55pm

It is the Financial Services Authority.

It is akin to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States except in the United Kingdom.

Capitaine_Zombie · November 3, 2010, 7:01pm

It would help if you’d put in your sources for those long “Lord James of Blackheath” (man, peerage really sounds like getting into a superhero team and choosing your own kickass name) quotes you provided.

Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party · November 3, 2010, 7:19pm

I did.

Yeah, what I was thinking too.

Megabucks is a widely understood and used expression. City firm refers to some bank or financial company in the City of London, yes. FSA is the financial regulator in the UK.

Baron_Greenback · November 3, 2010, 7:20pm

The mysterious foundation is probably these bizarre pranksters:

Although god knows what he’s going on about with the terrorist money laundering.

Robot_Arm · November 3, 2010, 7:33pm

I was about to say that £5 billion didn’t sound like very much, but that’s a British billion (1,000,000 x 1,000,000) not an American billion (1,000 x 1,000,000), correct?

Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party · November 3, 2010, 7:36pm

Actually, probably an American billion. He goes on to mention the possibility of a £17 billion gift for a rail link, as well as other possibilities further into his speech.

Whack-a-Mole · November 3, 2010, 7:47pm

Pretty sure even Brits don’t use the British billion anymore.

Baron_Greenback · November 3, 2010, 7:56pm

The Treasury stopped using it at some point in the 1970s, I think.

Barkis_is_Willin · November 3, 2010, 9:00pm

Indeed, the OITC does claim to be the largest single owner of gold and platinum bullion in the world. Whoever it is, Lord James and others seem to be taking them seriously.

aldiboronti · November 3, 2010, 9:25pm

Which is reason enough for not taking Lord James seriously.

Baron_Greenback · November 3, 2010, 9:33pm

I suspect Lord James might be “getting on a bit”, and the other Lords are being kind.

davidm · November 3, 2010, 9:35pm

The OITC Website: http://www.unoitc.org

Their domain registration info: Whois Lookup Captcha

I checked out 1133 Connecticut Avenue, 20036 on Google Earth. It looks like a “Filene’s Basement”. Searching Google for “Filene’s Basement 20036” gives me this page: filene's basement 20046 - Google Search

Which does show that that is the address of a “Filene’s Basement”.

John_Bredin · November 3, 2010, 9:51pm

1133 Connecticut Ave. is a mid-sized office building with a Filene’s Basement on the first floor. Googling the address seems to show a variety of law, PR, consulting, and finance firms with a sprinkling of medical offices.

Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party · November 3, 2010, 10:17pm

Video of the session in the Lords. Skip forward to 2hr 34mins.

lisiate · November 3, 2010, 10:29pm

Charlie Stross has a good discussion of it here. The general consensus seems to be something along the lines of ‘questionably sane Lord (see the Goering and kangaroo song link in the thread) duped by internet fraudsters’.

I’m fascniated by the IRA and North African money laundering backstories though.

davidm · November 3, 2010, 11:48pm

Exactly. That address seems to be some kind of front.

DeptfordX · November 4, 2010, 1:11am

Re: Billion.

Yep, the old imperial figure for a billion was archaic 20 years ago. If you see ‘One Billion’ being mentioned anywhere in a British context these days it’s the American value, 1000 million.

Claverhouse · November 4, 2010, 1:56am

Not at all.

There was: but now I am so heartsick and embarrassed by this furore, I have decided instead to give the money to UNICEF provided it is used solely to establish restaurants for hungry cats.