In June 2021, Tom Burgis, then a Financial Times reporter, contacted me with a series of questions about my personal and business background. It is clear from his letter, published here, that he was working in close collaboration with Ms Leslie as he drew heavily on material from her memos. I responded in detail and my 32-page response is published here. Also available here is my full transcript of my interview where shockingly as a reporter working at a leading financial newspaper, his understanding of finance, business transactions and the difference between legal and beneficial ownerships was non-existent!
Burgis contacted me again in July 2021, requesting clarification on a couple of points and Cater-Ruck responded on my behalf. Both letters are published here.
Burgis subsequently published an article about me, reproduced here, to which I responded in a letter to the Financial Times, also reproduced here. A second article was published in August 2021, reproduced here.
In November 2021, Burgis wrote to me again in relation to my historic business interests and donations to the Conservative Party. Carter-Ruck responded fully on my behalf and the correspondence is reproduced here. In December 2022, the Financial Times published an article about my legal case against Ms Leslie.
In February 2022, Carter-Ruck wrote to the editor of the Financial Times to complain about Burgis’ conduct after he sent me a barrage of WhatsApp messages, reproduced here, making further allegations about my business interests. They also set out my responses to his further inquiries. They highlighted that Burgis appeared to be acting in collusion with the MPs David Davis and Liam Byrne, who had made defamatory claims about me under the cloak of parliamentary privilege.
After further reports were published by the Financial Times, Carter-Ruck wrote to the editor again, requesting that numerous inaccuracies were corrected. The correspondence is reproduced in full, as are my responses to the pre-publication enquiries.
A review of the correspondence with the Financial Times shows how slack editorial policing was and this is something which this venerable medium should correct and its editor and owners commit to reinstating higher professional standards; otherwise the newspaper will be seen as another tabloid.
Burgis left the Financial Times and subsequently sent me a 62-page letter, saying he was writing a book about corruption, political funding and free speech. He accused me of repeatedly lying during my professional career, using threats to prevent legitimate scrutiny of my past, laundering my image and bullying Ms Leslie. I replied very fully, rebutting his allegations and in the interests of transparency the correspondence is reproduced here in full.
In a further effort to ensure Burgis’ reporting was fair and balanced, I gave him a lengthy interview at Carter-Ruck’s offices. Burgis quoted from it selectively in his book Cuckooland so here I have published the entire 195-page interview transcript, allowing readers to judge the facts for themselves. I have only removed my expletives; I admit I was angry at his questioning and used strong language, which I regret. To help understand my frustration, and in the spirit of transparency, I am also making available the audio recording of the interview so listeners can be privy to his disingenuous lines of questioning, his complete incompetence, lack of integrity and abuse of freedom of press.
Also attached is a detailed spreadsheet highlighting all the misrepresentations and misleading statements made by Burgis in Cuckooland. This sets out what he was told, the documents he was allowed to inspect and documents he was allowed to take away and shows how he used the material in his book. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
Documents provided: