Lord Levy

Alastair Campbell: what Brits really thought about Netanyahu

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:16:24 +0000

Benjamin Netanyahu is an "armour-plated bull****ter" – or so was the view of Britain’s Foreign Office in 1998.

Alastair Campbell, the former Labour party spin doctor, has revealed that this was what “some of the Foreign Office guys” thought of Mr Netanyahu at the time of Tony Blair’s first official visit to Israel in April 1998.

At the time Mr Netanyahu was serving his first term as prime minister of Israel.

Mr Campbell, whose second volume of diaries about his career is published this week, also revealed what Mr Netanyahu’s main opposition – Ehud Barak of Israel’s Labour Party – thought of his rival.

According to Mr Campbell, Mr Barak told the British visitors at a meeting that “he was pessimistic because Bibi was a total bull****ter.”

But Mr Campbell also said that it was felt that Mr Barak, who this week created shockwaves by breaking with Labour to form a new political faction, “was…not everything he had been cracked up to be”.

Other revelations include the claim that Mr Blair was concerned his car had been bugged by the Israelis during the trip, and that Mr Blair’s envoy to the Middle East, Lord Levy, had an expletive deleted knack for appearing in official photographs.

Double trouble

Simon Rocker — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:22:47 +0100

Lord Levy must be having a poor grass-court season.

A fortnight ago he found the Shabbat sermon of Rabbi Julian Shindler – standing in for Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet at Mill Hill – was not to his liking.

Rabbi Shindler kicked off by discussing how "all men have sexual fantasies".

For Lord Levy it was all too much - amid much tut-tutting, he upped and left.

The former Labour Party fundraiser followed it up last Shabbat by abandoning a lunch at Woodside Park Synagogue.

Answering questions as the event's guest speaker, he disliked questioning about the Middle East and duly disappeared.

Thirteen years of fiery Lords debates are clearly no rival for Shabbat shul visits.

Be proud of your roots, says Lord Levy

Craig Silver — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:14:56 +0000

Lord Levy urged King Solomon High pupils to be proud of their roots and to “never hide the fact you are Jewish” when he addressed the Redbridge school’s prize day last Thursday.

The Jewish Care president and former Labour Party chief fundraiser told his audience: “I am very proud to be at the House of Lords but I am even prouder to go to synagogue and be around my own people.”

He added: “We have some fantastic schools in Anglo-Jewry and one I am very proud of is King Solomon. I think students are very lucky to have a good secular education combined with Jewish education.”

Head girl Lucy Schwartz, 17, said pupils were inspired by comments of the peer, who, with Lady Levy, presented the prizes.

JLC needs young voices, says Levy

Leon Symons — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:19:15 +0000

Lord Levy has called for new young community leaders to be brought on to the Jewish Leadership Council.

Lord Levy, who is president of Jewish Care and JFS School, made his plea as he stepped down after three years on the JLC’s executive. He is a founder of the organisation and remains a member of the main board.
Property company owner Leo Noé, at the heart of the property world’s biggest takeover this year, has been voted on to the executive.

Lord Levy said: “I am delighted that the executive has a new member in Leo Noé. I decided to stand down, even though I was nominated again, because I believe the executive should welcome new, young people into the fold.

“The JLC is an organisation that has a role to play in the community and it is important that our best people are both encouraged and helped to take on positions of responsibility. I am delighted to continue as a trustee of the JLC.”

The other change in the executive is the election of Dr Simon Hochhauser, president of the United Synagogue, who takes over from Mike Grabiner, former chair of the Movement for Reform Judaism. The other members are Sir Trevor Chinn, Mick Davis, Nigel Layton and Gerald Ronson.

Lord Levy still has security protection

Anshel Pfeffer — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:52:33 +0100

Sixteen months after ending his role as the Prime Minister's envoy to the Middle East, Lord Levy continues to have security protection. He was last week seen travelling to synagogue accompanied by a bodyguard.

Cabinet ministers and senior government officials do not normally continue having official protection after they leave their positions, with the exception of the Prime Minister and, during the "Troubles", former Northern Ireland Secretaries.

Lord Levy was Tony Blair's envoy to the Middle East for nine years but ended his role last June when Mr Blair resigned.

The JC understands that Lord Levy's protection is provided by the Community Security Trust following a joint threat assessment with the Home Office. The original decision to supply protection was based not only on his diplomatic position but on antisemitic comments directed towards him due to his involvement in Labour Party funding and the cash-for-honours inquiry. The bodyguards are normally supplied by the CST.

Lord Levy refused to comment, as did the CST. The Home Office said: "We never comment on matters of security."

Levy: ‘Miliband has no chance’

Leon Symons and Candice Krieger — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:33:04 +0100

Former Labour fundraiser and Middle East envoy Lord Levy this week dismissed Foreign Secretary David Miliband as a possible Labour leader.

Lord Levy told an audience on Sunday that Mr Miliband "doesn't have the gravitas or the stature to be a great leader of the Labour Party. But talk to me in five or 10 years' time and it might be different."

Lord Levy was in conversation with journalist, author and JC columnist Jonathan Freedland at the first Hackney Limmud event.

After talking about his childhood years in the area, he was asked by Mr Freedland what he thought of Gordon Brown.

Lord Levy replied: "It's very sad when someone wants something so desperately and when they get it they are unable to achieve what they want."

The political scene today was focused on presentation and "Gordon Brown is falling down on every front. I am sad because I don't want Labour to lose the next election. Have they screwed up on certain things? Yes, they have."

He said the party "needed to get its act together" to have any chance of winning the next election.

He concluded: "I don't see someone [in the party] who has that strength of appeal" to be a great leader.
Meanwhile, the Labour peer has teamed up with Stanley Fink, the former boss of Man Group, to make a comeback into the business world.

Lord Levy is to become chairman of International Standard Asset Management (ISAM), a London-based firm that trades in commodities. Mr Fink, who retired from Man Group plc - one of the world's leading alternative investment groups - in July after 21 years, will be chief executive. The move marks Lord Levy's first high-profile role since being cleared of any wrong-doing in the "cash for honours" inquiry in July 2007.
An accountant by profession, Lord Levy has built and sold several successful companies, notably the £10-million sale of Magnet Records to Warner Bros in 1988. "I am delighted to be involved with ISAM, and to be in business and work closely with Stanley Fink and all the team," he said this week.

Mr Fink, who will be responsible for the operational management, said he was "excited by the chance to build something significant at ISAM."

Jewish Care raises record £3.5m

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:14:14 +0100

Jewish Care fundraisers are celebrating a record £3.57 million pledged at the charity’s campaign dinner at Grosvenor House on Tuesday.

The generosity of the 900 guests delighted campaign chairman Steven Lewis, who said that “in such financially challenging times, the community’s ability to understand the importance of what we do and offer their overwhelming support is truly outstanding”. The previous record was last year’s £2.9 million.

At the dinner, Jewish Care president Lord Levy acknowledged the community’s “incredible support” for its work. He also praised the “spectacular job” done by Alison Goldberg, who had succeeded Dame Gail Ronson as chair of the dinner.

Veteran actor and director Lord Attenborough was guest speaker, telling his audience: “Perhaps I am Jewish by adoption.

“I admire so much the many battles that you [Jews] have fought, not only morally but physically.”

He recalled that his parents had taken in two Jewish sisters they had brought over from Berlin before the Kindertransports began. His mother had stressed “the love we have to find for two little girls who are without love. We must give them even more love than we are capable of giving you.”

Musical entertainment was supplied by former M People frontwoman Heather Small.

£2.2 care project launched

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Eighty Jewish Care supporters gathered in Edgware on Wednesday to mark the start of a £2.2 million mental health resource project.

The foundation stone for the Martin Cohen Centre for Wellbeing was laid by Marcia Feldman, the driving force behind the scheme.

It will herald a significant change in the charity’s delivery of services for those with mental health needs, moving away from the traditional model of a day care centre and offering a wide range of treatments and therapies.

Lord Levy and Marcia Feldman at the foundation stone ceremony

“There should not be any stigma attached to mental health,” Mrs Feldman maintained. “We must continue to raise awareness of these issues and the help that is available.”

At a lunch nearby, Jewish Care president Lord Levy praised Mrs Feldman’s vision and tenacity, noting the centre was named in memory of “a wonderful man”.

Review: A Question Of Honour

Vernon Bogdanor — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

By Lord Michael Levy
Simon & Schuster, £18.99

In July 2006, Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fund-raiser and personal envoy to the Middle East, was enjoying a birthday lunch with his family when he was told by his solicitor to report to Colindale police station, in North London, where he was going to be arrested. A Question of Honour describes in graphic detail the purgatory he and his family endured for over a year before he was released without charge.

High profile: Lord Levy and Gordon Brown up close in 2007

Levy was suspected of having solicited money for Labour by promising honours in return. New Labour, if it wanted to escape being in hock to the trades unions, had to rely, like the Conservatives, on handouts from millionaires. But after the year 2000, when the parties were required to make public all donations over £5,000, many were deterred from giving.

Therefore, the parties began to solicit loans which, at the time, did not need to be declared. Of 12 individuals who gave loans to Labour before the 2005 general election, seven were made peers.

Yet only one person has ever been convicted of selling honours, and that was in the 1920s. The reason is not far to seek. For, unless someone puts an offer in writing, it is impossible to prove a connection between the cheque and an honour.

There is certainly no evidence that Levy promised “honours for cash”, nor that the seven were honoured primarily because of the loans that they had made. Still, the story is not very edifying, and Levy is right to say that the answer lies in the public funding of political parties.

Levy himself was certainly well qualified for the Lords. He was not only an extraordinarily generous donor to a wide range of charities, but, after selling his music business, he devoted much of his life to charitable work. Few of his critics can claim as much.

His book is not just concerned with cash-for-peerages, however. There is also much fascinating material on the Middle East. According to Levy, a peace agreement between Israel and Syria was tantalisingly close in the year 2000, and was frustrated solely by Ehud Barak’s unwillingness to commit himself publicly to restoration of the 1967 borders, though perfectly prepared to argue for it in private.

Levy sees himself as a serious player, and probably exaggerates his influence — except in the case of honours, where he is anxious to minimise it. Yet he was perhaps more crony than politician. Prime Ministers need cronies, men prepared to listen sympathetically while they blow off steam about their colleagues. Tony Blair was no exception.

Though leader of a party dedicated to improving the lot of the poor, Blair much preferred the company of the rich. “What is your religion?” Undershaft, the arms manufacturer, is asked in Shaw’s Major Barbara. “I am a millionaire, that is my religion,” he replies. It seems for a time to have become the religion of the Labour Party as well.

The main lesson which Levy draws from his experiences is “that if you look for good qualities in people you almost always find them”. He is nice about everyone — Tony Blair, George Bush, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad, even the police inspectors who question him. There is just one exception: Gordon Brown, who, so Levy insinuates, without offering the slightest evidence, was involved in cash-for-honours.

Yet Brown does not court the rich, nor has he ever been accused of sleaze or of making dubious appointments to peerages.

Lord Levy did a lot for Labour. But Labour also did a lot for him, giving him a peerage and a public profile. It is a pity that he has chosen to disfigure his essay in vindication with spiteful allegations against its current leader, allegations that are bound to damage the party he claims to love.

Vernon Bogdanor is Professor of Government at Oxford University

Lord Levy: how I survived

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Lord Levy, the man at the heart of the cash-for-peerages investigation, and who is said to have saved Tony Blair from being in hock to the trades union movement, finally told his story this week, after nearly two years of silence.

In A Question of Honour: Inside New Labour and the True Story of the Cash for Peerages Scandal, Lord Levy revealed his hurt and pain at being “left to hang out to dry” by the Downing Street establishment when the Metropolitan Police investigation began in 2006. But he also told the JC this week of his “sadness” at the way some members of the Anglo-Jewish community “could not contain their envy and glee” during his ordeal, in which he was arrested three times before the police decided he had no case to answer.

In a wide-ranging interview, Lord Levy, formerly the Labour Party’s chief fundraiser and then for eight years Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal envoy to the Middle East, spoke with emotion about those who supported him and his family during the police inquiry, in which it was claimed — wrongly — that the peer had offered honours to people whom he approached for funds for the
Labour Party.

“My friends,” he said, “behaved in the most fantastic way. No one could ask for more.” But underlining the hard truth behind last week’s JC column by Geoffrey Alderman, in which he describes “some Jews of my acquaintance visibly gloating” after the peer’s first arrest, Lord Levy acknowledged that “I suppose I was not shocked — but this did not dilute the hurt.”

Nevertheless, Lord Levy was insistent that antisemitism did not play a part in the decision to arrest him, and described in his book, written with the help of former JC editor Ned Temko, how he had remonstrated with Mill Hill rabbi Yitzchak Schochet for suggesting it. He also disclosed some of the background to his years as Tony Blair’s Middle East envoy and declared that far from it being a disadvantage to be a Jew in the Arab world, it was often a positive bonus.

Exclusive interview