“Lord Cashpoint” and me
I’ve been thinking about this post, the way you might if someone with whom you were once acquainted found himself in the news: “Very quiet man, kept himself to himself.” Lord Levy would probably have preferred to have kept himself to himself, but Michael Levy (or “ML” as he then was known), wasn’t the quiet and retiring type even when I worked for him, years before he became Baron Levy of Mill Hill; long before the Jerusalem Post dubbed him “the notional leader of British Jewry”; before he started raising cash for prime ministers. From humble beginnings, Levy became a powerful music impresario, a millionaire who got rich on the backs of Alvin Stardust, Matchbox and Bad Manners. Before the people who run companies were called CEOs, he ran Britain’s most successful independent record label. At a time when singles actually meant something, Magnet Records owned 8 percent of the UK singles market. He was reviled, feared and envied by music business competitors, musicians and managers, but until recently he’s been best known for doing a lot of good work for charidee. “There are people in boats in the middle of the sea/Crying and dying like Jews/Do you like tennis?”, Levy’s discovery Chris Rea once sang in a song called Tennis. But if at the time someone had suggested that, as a result of becoming the PM’s tennis partner, “ML” would one day be involved in diplomatic talks with Yasser Arafat as “Middle East Peace Process Envoy”, and that his name would trigger more Google News Alerts than many pop stars’, you’d have thought they were taking the piss. More… Update 13 July: Levy arrested in honours inquiry
Update 16 July: Call to Sack Levy as envoy
My arrest was sensationalist nonsense, says Levy
Update 18 July: A level-headed guide to the Levy affair
Update 17 August: Levy’s reputation “diminished” by slo-mo road-crossing footage
Update 21 September: Police question Lord Levy again
posted by Chris Bell at 3:34 PM
1 Comments:
Ooops, your mate's just been arrested, Chris... nice story though... PS: Isn't it time we arrested Tony Farking Blair too? I believe so....
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home