A Profile of Tony Blair's Money Man, Lord Levy

[Errigal]

From accounts clerk to ‘cash for honours’
09/03/2007
Bernard Josephs
This story is from The Jewish Chronicle – the website of The Jewish Chronicle Newspaper:


A DINNER in Wimbledon, South-West London, in 1993 was the place where one of the most significant relationships in Labour Party history began.

It was hosted by QC Eldred Tabachnik, soon to be Board of Deputies president and a Labour supporter who had shared chambers with Tony Blair.

Using this connection, he had invited Mr Blair, then Shadow Home Secretary, to meet some potential Labour donors. Among them was Michael Levy, who had made his name in the music industry and was becoming an influential figure within the Jewish community.

Speaking about the dinner for the first time, Mr Tabachnik told the JC: “Blair wanted to raise funds for the party so I used him as the carrot to attract the donors. I think this was the initial meeting between Blair and Levy. I knew they would get on well.

“Blair has a likeable personality and it was clear even at that early stage that [he and] Levy would develop a warm and open relationship. Blair saw him as one who would contribute a lot to the party. Michael is an able and effective communicator.”

Another early meeting was in 1994, at a London dinner party hosted by Israel envoy Gideon Meir.

As the Blair-Levy friendship developed, the two became tennis partners and Levy turned his talents to boosting the Labour coffers in advance of its landslide 1997 election victory.

His star rose further when he was ennobled as Baron Levy of Mill Hill and, while continuing his fundraising for the party, was appointed Tony Blair’s personal envoy to the Middle East.

But it was not a painless procession to the corridors of power from East London, where his immigrant parents lived modestly, close to Hackney’s Walford Road Synagogue where his father Samuel was shammas.

Michael Levy’s first job was as an articled clerk in the City offices of chartered accountants, Lubbock Fine. Smartly dressed and eager to please, the 16-year-old was “absolutely brilliant and immediately on the ball”, recalled retired partner David Levy (no relation). “He had a very keen mind, he was competitive and he always had his eye on the end result. He became a very able chartered accountant and we have kept in contact ever since.”

Despite his humble background, the young employee always wore sharp clothes and, having bought his first car, maintained it “immaculately”.

He set up M Levy and Co in 1966, and in 1973 launched Magnet Records, enjoying a string of hits with artists including Chris Rea and Alvin Stardust. The label was bought for around £10 million by Warner Brothers Records in 1988.

His high-profile political activities have been met with suspicion, jealousy and more than a hint of antisemitism. Nicknamed “Lord Cashpoint” for using his fabled gladhanding abilities to prise money from the wealthy, it was his largely self-financed globe-trotting on behalf of the Prime Minister that attracted the most vitriol.

Asked in a JC interview whether it was his perceived role as one of “Tony’s cronies” or his Jewish involvements that sparked the sneers, he replied: “I don’t know. My roots have always been Labour and being a leader of our community is a badge I wear with immense pride.”

A particularly stinging remark was made in 2002 by Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, who said that the Saudi and Jordanian royal families had told him the peer was “not terribly welcome in their countries and that he was received only out of friendship for Tony Blair”. Lord Levy termed the comment a “betrayal.”

Other critics highlighted his support of Israel, his home in exclusive Herzliya and his close ties with the Israeli Labour Party. How, they asked, could he be seen as an impartial broker representing the Prime Minister in the Middle East? In fact, he fell out with Ariel Sharon, walking out of a meeting with the then Israeli Prime Minister.

Yet despite difficulties with Whitehall officials and reportedly frosty relations with Robin Cook and Jack Straw, there were undoubted successes. High on the list were talks with Syria’s President Assad in Damascus and the brokering of discussions between Yasir Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

“I always travel with officials of the Foreign Office and I always work closely with ambassadors of the countries I’m visiting,” Lord Levy once told the JC. “Many ambassadors have been very grateful to me for opening doors.”

Even Mr Cook responded to a 2002 attack on Lord Levy by praising his “great skill and diplomatic charm”. And as the peer contemplates stepping down as envoy when Tony Blair leaves Downing Street, other Labour MPs have acknowledged his contribution.

Liverpool MP Louise Ellman, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, expressed “tremendous respect” and regretted that he had attracted “a lot of jealousy”. In the wider world, he is described as “an inspirational president” of Community Service Volunteers. Said a CSV spokesman: “He is passionate about volunteers and can invariably find a link with any volunteer or trainee he meets through his family, work or other passions.”

As one impressed onlooker recounted: “When he is raising funds and someone makes him an offer, he smiles and says: ‘You can do better than that.’ He keeps going until he gets the figure he wants and expects.”

Mill Hill minister Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet confided that whereas “the world sees the pubic persona of a very successful fundraiser, mediator, and philanthropist, in my weekly shiur with Lord Levy, I also get to see a man with deep religious and moral convictions, whose Jewish identity forms the hallmark of his life. He would probably have made a great rabbi”.

As well as well-publicised charitable work, the rabbi spoke of numerous instances where he has stepped in to help in a totally unassuming manner.

He said: “He asked for my permission that he spend some time during the services on Rosh Hashanah to raise money for the new Mill Hill Synagogue building project. He raised over a million in pledges before we hit musaf!”


[I have no idea what "musaf" is].

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