MEMORANDUM – CONFIDENTIAL

From: Philip Green
To: David Cameron (cc: Nick Clegg)
Subject: Government spending review.

Many thanks for appointing me to head the government spending review. As you will appreciate, given the occasional sniping from the press regarding my business structure and my wife’s residence status, I was keen that we all understand exactly where we stand vis-à-vis our professional relationship. 

As agreed, I personally am not being paid. However, the recently-formed offshore company, PG’s Tips Ltd, the shares in which are wholly owned by my wife, will be invoicing the Government for my services. And Mrs G might be drawing the occasional dividend when the mooring fees become due.

Having got that sorted, I thought that as good a place as any to start my review would be at the top. Government is, as Francis Maude said, ‘a huge complex organisation’, but is it properly organised on a commercial basis? There are a ‘cabinet’ and ‘departments’ – I understand the idea, my department stores sell cabinets – but what’s the corporate structure?

My first PG tip is that you incorporate: UK Parliament Limited becomes the holding company, and this will own other trading subsidiaries such as Commons Ltd, Lords Ltd, Foreign Office Ltd, Home Office Ltd, etc, etc. Of course, the exact shareholding structure will need some thought, but I know some people who can advise on this.

Broadly speaking, I would suggest these should ultimately be owned via offshore companies. I also recommend that your wives hold the shares (I see Mrs Clegg is already a non-dom; this always helps with tax planning), and they should move abroad, preferably before we get this whole thing off the ground. Monaco, of course, I can personally recommend, but I hear Andorra has its charms, although off the top of my head ...

Anyway, if you don’t like Andorra I’m sure there are plenty of other places. I just had a quick look in the index of my Readers’ Digest Billionaires’ Atlas. It lists only the countries in which we are really interested. I see Belize is next on the list. Now Lord Ashcroft says ... [The first page of the memo ended here – Ed.]

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