Did somebody just try to buy the British government?

Hansard is the official printed transcript of the proceedings of the houses of parliament — in other words, the working log of the British government.

It is an authoritative primary source, and records every speech made in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Interestingly, it also records words spoken under parliamentary privilege.

So when an eminent member of the House of Lords stands up six hours into a debate and blows the gaff on a shadowy foreign Foundation making a bid to buy the British state, and this is recorded in Hansard, one tends to sit up and take notice. And one takes even more notice when His Lordship tip-toes around actually naming the Foundation in question, especially after the throw-away about money-laundering for the IRA on behalf of the Bank of England. Parliamentary privilege only stretches so far, it seems, and Foundation X is beyond its reach. I'm going to quote at length below the cut — if you want to read the original, search for "1 Nov 2010 : Column 1538" which is where things begin to tip-toe into Robert Ludlum territory.

Here's a question: if a respected Tory fixer and peer carefully detailed an enormous and far-reaching conspiracy, what would the reaction of the public be?

That's what seems to have happened on Monday in the House of Lords, anyway: read from column 1538 in Hansard, the official record of such things. In that transcript, Lord James of Blackheath spells out how a shadowy 'Foundation X' offered to pay off the government's multi-billion-pound debts, with no strings attached. He goes into how he personally (and, apparently, proudly) laundered more than £1bn in IRA funds:

Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, "We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate". I had the biggest put down of my life from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde when I told him this story.

Don’t believe for a minute that the likes of Rand Paul are bringing a whole new level of nutty to upper-house politics, in contrast to staid and boring countries like the UK. Via Joseph Cotterill and Charlie Stross, here’s an astonishing speech made in the Mother of Parliaments by David James, a/k/a Baron James of Blackheath.

After opening with reminiscences of seeing “Brigadoon” in the West End, James explains that:

Britain needs “investment in industry”, to the tune of about £5 billion.
He’s going to “raise a subject that I should not raise and which is going to be one which I think is now time to put on a higher awareness”.
There is “a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country”, which he refers to as Foundation X.

It's quite the most extraordinary speech I think I've ever come across. It was given by Lord James of Blackheath, a respected industrialist and a former senior adviser to the Conservative party.

James was speaking in the Lords debate on the spending review. You might expect him to touch on the issue of government waste, which he is known for politically. Not a bit of it.

James's speech begins with Brigadoon, moves on to money laundering billions of pounds of terrorist money and ends with the claim that he has been contacted about a mysterious "Foundation X" that wishes to invest £5bn in the United Kingdom, with an extra £17bn for hospitals, schools and Crossrail by Christmas, and who have met with a cabinet minister to discuss their investment. Intriguing, isn't it?

So here's the skinny.

Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.

The UK government will not take up the apparent offer of billions of interest-free pounds from a mysterious organisation called Foundation X, a Treasury spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Friday.

The existence of the offer was detailed on Monday in the House of Lords by Lord James of Blackheath, who said the foundation was willing to pump at least £22bn into government coffers by Christmas. According to the spokesperson, Treasury commercial secretary Lord Sassoon has "looked into Lord James of Blackheath's proposal, and has decided not to pursue the matter any further".

"At no point has Lord Sassoon, or any Treasury officials, held any meetings with Lord James of Blackheath or any organisation that he mentions on this subject," the spokesperson added.