James Goldsmith

But not to worry, plenty more rapacious capitalists where that came from.

One of which was an Anglo-French corporate raider named Sir James Goldsmith, or Jimmy Goldsmith.

He made his pile buying land and stripping companies for parts and sought to unleash market forces on the world, and was a key financial backer of both Thatcher and Reagan.

His New York-

...

in the 1800s and stuff we went over the last episode.

So Jimmy Goldsmith, uh, his New York mansion was an embassy of sorts for this aggressive capitalist ideology, where the inevitable bed- uh, uh, where the inevitable bedfellows of immense wealth and political strategy came together.

And it is here in the early 70s, playing piano with great virtuosity in this guy's foyer, where we find a young kid called Jeffrey Epstein.

But fundamentally, British politics is fracturing into like, you know, general elections, which were basically 650 mini, you know, mini general elections with generally one or two, max three competitive candidates, we're seeing lots of four and five party seats.

And this kind of money and this kind of on the ground intelligence and being able to be campaigning from early on is actually, could potentially be really far more effective than at any other time in British politics, where sometimes money, you know, look at Jimmy Goldsmith, referendum party, um but even then he mightn't have won any seats but he actually put the issue on the agenda in some ways uh he you know he had the last laugh and so you know i kind of think it's it's easy to say that this money is going to be actually really bad for reform and similarly it's easy to see that say that it'll voters will see it and they won't like and plenty of those plenty of voters won't like it but plenty of voters don't actually see a difference between kirsten we're getting a free pair of glasses and a party getting 72 million from crypto billionaires i don't really understand that but that's just the way it is um so yeah i kind of i think unfortunately this is it's a reason parties want to do this is because it is almost certainly a net positive despite the negatives

Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times.

Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks and lists can easily begin to overrun your life.

No, I just don't think people realise the long-term consequences.

If you really want to read of somebody who did understand the long-term consequences, Sir James Goldsmith in back of the early 1990s.

If you read his two books at the time, one was called The... response which is actually from memory the better of the two because he actually goes for economic theory and i think the first one's called the trap which is a bit of more good old-fashioned polemic but his kind of uh thesis which drools very heavily on keen's is observations from the great depression is uh you're open up to the world of international trade which is fabulous but unfortunately the real world doesn't operate like the textbook and a bunch of economists said it did And you've got a bunch of countries out there that want to run export surpluses, and you've got people that are prepared to absorb it.

We are the second biggest absorber of current account or export surpluses in the world.

You're, you're right, we have unlimited donations, but we spend far less than America does, doesn't it? And no one thus far has been able to buy our democracy.

I'll give you the example in 1997, Jimmy Goldsmith spent about four million pounds trying to get Referendum Party MPs elected, and he failed.

Isn't the fact that our democracy's seen these challenges before, it's survived, it's doing fine?

fine?I think 72 million is a big step change.

... into the '90s and before.

So we do know that money buys influence.

Um, what Jimmy Goldsmith was doing, I think it was trying to, to buy a, a direction of travel, which one could say he actually succeeded in doing many years later because we did vote for Brexit.

Okay.

Surrounding by her nearest and dearest, the couple's big day was celebrated by Jemima's sister-in-law, Jemima Jones, who posted a photo from the event with her husband, the bride's brother, Ben Goldsmith.

According to the media reports, Jemima, the filmmaker, daughter of Sir James Goldsmith and Lady Annabel Goldsmith, is said to have been dating her new husband for a year after meeting through their roles as an executive producer on a number of films and documentaries.

Goldsmith is known for her work producing a number of Emmy-nominated shows, including Goldsmith's

500 orders a month was manageable.

But if you go a little further back to before we actually had mandatory reporting of donations, probably the largest ever donation was even bigger than this.

This was, um, Sir James Goldsmith in the 1990s.

He was bankrolling the Referendum Party.

He gave, we think, about forty million pounds, which in today's money would be about eighty million.