CUCKOOLAND: WHERE THE RICH OWN THE TRUTH
By Tom Burgis
William Collins, Rs 599
"What we are witnessing is the privatisation of reality." These words at the end of Tom Burgis’s book sum up a world in which right and wrong, truth and falsehood, are no longer shared values or principles but are simply disconnected from what most of us would still want to consider 'reality'.
The dystopia of the privatisation of reality is not a fiction, but a process occurring at present, one which Burgis exposes here. It deals with a world where the very, very rich can summon up legal means to impose their version of events, attack journalists in court, and force retractions from MPs. There are many instances of journalists being sued by rich individuals; Burgis himself was sued by "three Central Asian tycoons" for his previous book, Kleptopia. Burgis looks at the career of the businessman, philanthropist, and Conservative Party donor, Mohamed Amersi, almost as a case study. He attempts to understand "how he made the money with which he was now purchasing access to the most powerful people in the UK." The book is framed by an interview given to Burgis by Amersi in which he justifies his business role as a mergers and acquisitions adviser in global telecommunications — in his own words, his job is "to optimise transaction structures". Burgis tracks down Amersi’s role in the development of telecoms in Uzbekistan and in Nepal. He spells out his position as a Conservative Party donor, as the initiator of a Conservative 'Friends of the Middle East and North Africa' organisation, as a man who has access to the most powerful politicians in Britain via exclusive clubs, and as a man who donates to Oxford colleges — Burgis writes with relish about his appearance at an event in Oxford to discuss corruption. He also tells the story of lawsuits initiated by Amersi, of law firms which specialise in the shutting down of dissenting voices, of judges who evaluate whether Amersi should litigate against a former MP who has allegedly damaged his reputation: "The court must not detach itself from reality."
At times, the book reads like a thriller, with twists of plot, unexpected connections, and suspense. It also reads like a real-life version of the television series, Succession, as when Amersi is about to meet Prince Charles in Scotland. But above all, it is a remarkably courageous, careful, and well-researched inquiry into the links between politics and business in today’s Britain. It demonstrates the importance of the rule of law in a system where the mega-rich have the power to silence journalists and MPs in court.
Cuckooland might well be the object of further litigation. As Amersi put it to Burgis: "I’m telling you what I’m telling you. You want to believe it, you believe it. You don’t want to believe it, you’ll be sued if you misrepresent it, full stop."
