The lessons of Atlantic Bridge

It's summer 2009. President Obama's healthcare reforms are in trouble and our NHS is caught in the crossfire. A group of US congressmen are rubbishing so-called socialised healthcare. Outraged by the smears, Andy Burnham, the health secretary, demands David Cameron withdraw invitations to the Tory conference in Manchester and cancel a reception for the congressmen's organisation, the Atlantic Bridge.

As a political blogger, I set out to discover more and was taken aback when I found that Atlantic Bridge was a registered charity, managed by Adam Werritty, who I would later learn was Liam Fox's under-the-radar adviser. My complaint to the Charity Commission led to the cancellation of that Manchester reception and, two years later, to the charity's closure. Digging deeper I realised that I had stumbled across a political scandal that would expose a network of rightwing politicians and lobbyists.

We now know that Werritty was indirectly funded by a group of businessmen including Michael Hintze who, the Financial Times claims, has "tens of millions" invested in defence companies through his hedge fund CQS. While the FT found no evidence that Hintze profited from funding Werritty or the Atlantic Bridge, it appears that Hintze is part of a new generation of businessmen whose motivation is not money, of which they have plenty, but influence. Funding organisations such as the Atlantic Bridge through elaborate, often opaque mechanisms, could be nudging us towards a neoconservative utopia.

Many of these individuals had watched the rise of America's neoconservatives with envy. They were keen to import an agenda of small government freed from the burdens of a welfare state, and to bring ultra-free markets and libertarianism to Britain. Fortunately for them, the neocons were keen to export, and the special relationship and close cultural ties made the UK a perfect candidate for expansion. Yet there would be opposition from one-nation Tories and others in the party who lacked the stomach for such brutal libertarianism. Ideas would need to be introduced gradually.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/16/lessons-atlantic-bridge-questioning

Confusion up on them, death, destruction and despair.