FORMER TORY DONOR BACK IN THE UK

The former Conservative party donor Asil Nadir (the former Polly Peck tycoon) has voluntarily returned to UK. Whatever his motives for returning, after he fled the UK to North Cyprus some 17 years ago to evade a potential trial for fraud, his timing is quite interesting. Nadir who was charged with fraud and 66 counts of theft when he was chief executive of Polly Peck, a business empire which traded in products as diverse as groceries and electronics. It has been alleged that he (once Mr's Thatcher's golden boy) secretly transferred £34m out of the company, leading to its collapse.

Now With Turkey in the process of trying to negotiate it's entry into the European Union, a number of loose ends need to be tided up, two biggie's include the on-going problem of Cyprus, along with Turkey's continued oppression and persecution of the Kurdish people. The former is particularly important to Greece and also to Cyprus (the non-Turkish occupied portion that is) as the Cypriot Republic is also an EU member.

While David ('Call me Dave') Cameron and his predecessors Brown and Blair would have liked to ignore or brush under the carpet so to speak the plight of the Kurds, there are plenty of voices within the EU who won't that happen. I digress the real motivation for Mr Nadir's return may lie in the fact that Turkey, anxious to smooth a path into the EU is bringing pressure on nominally independent Turkish Cyprus to cease to be a safe haven for criminals, embezzlers and other unsavoury characters, whose presence is an embarrassment to the Turkish Government on the mainland. 

Additionally, the election of a Conservative (well a largely Conservative) Government may have been interpreted by Mr Nadir, as an indication that he might receive a slightly warmer and more friendly reception now, rather than ending up being extradited by the increasingly co-operative Turkish Cypriot Republic, where he has been hiding for the last 17 years. I wonder how long it will be before he graces the door of Downing Street? If I was Mr Cameron, I think would stay in Cornwall and leave that one to Mr Clegg...