Revealed: Philip Hammond becomes Saudi advisor
▻https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/philip-hammond-becomes-saudi-advisor
On Monday, the committee which oversees business appointments for former ministers (ACOBA), revealed in a set of documents that Hammond is taking up a job with the government of Saudi Arabia.
According to the documents, Steerpike can disclose the former Chancellor will be a paid, part time advisor to the Kingdom’s Finance Minister as the country prepares to host the G20 Leaders’ summit in November. Hammond reportedly told the committee that the role would mean ‘engaging’ with G20 countries, including the UK, on behalf of the Kingdom.
It appears that the former Chancellor, who in September said the Tory party is no longer ‘tolerant’ and has been infected with ‘ideological puritanism that brooks no dissent’ has no problem working with a regime that regularly persecutes government critics, tortures and beheads the accused, and is suspected of brutally killing the journalist and critic of the regime Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Hammond has had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia for several years. In 2015 when Foreign Secretary, he came under fire for accepting a watch worth nearly £2,000 from a Saudi businessman, despite a ban on ministers accepting expensive gifts. And in July last year, Hammond visited the country as Chancellor, to promote economic and social reform. On the trip, paid for by the taxpayer, he met the Minister of Finance who would later offer him a job.
