The link between the Conservative Party and the bankers who broke the system is still strong.

Jeremy Isaacs remains one of the Tories bigger donors. Since 2010 he has given the Tories £426,000.

In 2008 Isaacs was the chief executive officer of Lehman Brothers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia — he left it, one of the world’s largest investment banks, just a week before it collapsed.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers was the start of the financial crisis. The bank had made money on a huge amount of bad loans, particularly “subprime mortgages.”

Lehman had inflated a vast bubble of bad debt that burst. Its collapse triggered a crisis that led to the failures of banks in every nation.

After the Lehman collapse, governments In Britain, Europe and the rest of the world had to bail out banks to stop the whole system crashing. Taxpayers bore the bad debts and fines, and the resulting “austerity” led to the years of economic stagnation which still affect us now.

So Isaacs was involved in the bank failure at the start and the centre of years of international misery.

The official report into Lehman’s collapse, known as the Valukas Report, shows that Isaacs claimed the firm was doing OK and could reject some offers of investment before the crash. He emailed Dick Fuld, Lehman’s boss in January 2008, and said: “We were in a different position to many of our competitors, we have a strong balance sheet and did not need capital.”

But this turned out to be a complete misjudgement. By September 2008 Lehman was bankrupt, kicking off the economic crisis.  

Even as the company collapsed Lehman’s “remuneration committee” authorised a £3,75 million pay-off to Isaacs. While we have economic stagnation, the Sunday Times Rich List estimates Isaacs has a £170m fortune.

None of this has stopped him wanting to fund the Tories or the Tories wanting to take his money.

Tom Tugendhat has been the Tory MP for Tonbridge and Malling since May 2015. He’s an “up and coming” MP. He sits on the board of “Onward,” a think tank supposed to revitalise Tory thought.

Tugendhat is seen by Conservative enthusiasts as a bit of a “rising star” who can shape the Tories’ future and generate new ideas for the party.

What will those new ideas be? Well, the new register of MPs’ interests shows ex-Lehman banker Isaacs gave £12,500 to support Tugendhat and help fund his office.

The new ideas will be funded by a man who helped the free market rip a hole in all our lives with a terrible financial crisis. So the new ideas will probably be the same as the old ideas: let the free market run free, and make sure ordinary folk pick up the bill.

Just to show that the Tory-City links circle is a small, closed world, Tugendhat’s uncle was Tory Lord Christopher Tugendhat. Isaacs recruited Baron Tugendhat to work for Lehman between 2001 and 2007, first as the million-pound a year chairman of Lehman Brothers Europe, then as the chair of Lehman’s European Advisory Board. He was in post when the bank built up its unsustainable postion, but left before this lead to a collapse.

Theresa May and Philip Green: the links

What exactly was Carillion boss Philip Green’s relation with Theresa May? The Cabinet Office don’t want to say.

Green was the chairman of Carillion from 2014 to 2018. According to the Commons Joint Committee report on Carillion, Green “oversaw low levels of investment, declining cashflow, rising debt and a growing pension deficit” at Carillion, “yet his board agreed year-on-year dividend increases and a rise in remuneration for his executive board colleagues from £1.8 million to £3 million.”

The MPs say his statements were “delusional” or those of a “cheerleader” and he was “responsible and culpable” for Carillion’s collapse.

So it’s easy to see why May doesn’t want to discuss her relationship with Green. But unfortunately Green was appointed as David Cameron’s  “Corporate Responsibility Adviser” in 2012.

According to the Cabinet Office official line, when May “came to office, she reviewed a number of appointments in December 2016 and chose to discontinue his appointment.” May became Prime Minister in July 2016, so Green was her adviser for at least some of the time.  

I asked the Cabinet Office for any records of May’s review, which led to Green getting the elbow. They said that because the review included a “thorough and wide-ranging consideration of the individual merits of both the positions and the individual’s appointment to them,” they had to keep the details of May’s review of Green confidential and could not release them.  

In order that the review of Green and any subsequent review is held “in a free, frank and open-minded manner,” the Cabinet Office has decided the papers on the Green review must be kept secret, even from a Freedom of Information request.

Had the Cabinet Office realised there was something wrong with Green in December 2016, even while the government were still giving contracts to Carillion? They don’t want to say.

Four months after my original Freedom of Information request and after pressing them further, the Cabinet Office did give one new bit of information — when Green was sacked as an adviser to May.

They say that: “Mr Green was informed verbally in January 2017 that his appointment was to come to an end by a member of the then Government Relations team of the Prime Minister’s office.”

So it seems that their earlier statement, that May chose to sack Green in December 2016 may be true, but Green was not actually sacked until January 2017.

Solomon Hughes writes every Friday in the Morning Star. Follow him on Twitter @SolHughesWriter.