Name: Sexy Fish.
Age: Two years.
Appearance: Glam.
I’m a little troubled by the name. Don’t worry. It’s just a posh restaurant, owned by the same people as the Ivy and Le Caprice. This has nothing to do with finding fish attractive, except to look at and eat in a pan-Asian fashion.
Good. What does it have something to do with? A new political scandal involving Uber.
The taxi app? That’s right. It also involves George Osborne and David Cameron.
The millionaire aristocrats who bet the entire country’s future on a referendum in order to defend their personal power? Yes, them. It seems their close allies were lobbying for Uber.
Why would a prime minister and chancellor be lobbying people? Isn’t it usually the other way around? Yes, but the mayor, not the prime minister, oversees London’s transport policy. In September 2015, that happened to be Boris Johnson, who threatened to impose various restrictions on Uber before he changed his mind in January after meetings with Cameron’s people, and following a public consultation.
Why shouldn’t Cameron get his people to give Johnson some advice? No reason. Although Rachel Whetstone, the godmother of his late son, Ivan, and the wife of his former strategist Steve Hilton, had just joined Uber as a senior vice-president. And maybe Cameron and Osborne (who now works one day a week for BlackRock, one of Uber’s big investors) talked to Whetstone about it in December 2015, when they attended her lavish party at …
Sexy Fish? Bingo! And when asked last March to release any emails it held between Cameron’s aide Daniel Korski and Transport for London (TfL) or the mayor’s office, Downing Street denied that it had any. But a separate Freedom of Information request to TfL discovered several, which show that a number of contacts and meetings about Uber did happen. Anyway, it has secured Sexy Fish a reputation as one of Britain’s famous political restaurants.
There are others? Oh, yes. Remember Granita?
That fancy place in Islington where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown supposedly struck a deal to make Blair Labour leader? Exactly. Or Gandhi’s in Kennington, south London, where Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt also supposedly plotted to oust Gordon Brown.
Maybe politicians should stop plotting in restaurants, given how that tends to turn out? Very wise.
Do say: “Why would Gandhi’s name itself after a man famous for his hunger strikes?”
Don’t say: “I’ll have the slippery eel salad, please.”