‘What they [the wealthy] really want to do when they have amassed colossal wealth in Britain, what they like to do, is buy the biggest possible house they can, with the most colossal grouse moor they can find and then try in some desperate way to perpetuate it’ – Boris Johnson, 2013.
On Monday morning, it was revealed that grouse shooting is to be made exempt from the ‘rule of six’ recently imposed by the government. Yes, yes, the Tories are extraordinarily corrupt. The real question now is: who placed the call to Boris on Friday afternoon?
Luckily, there are fewer than 150 people in Britain who own a grouse moor. Given that the Electoral Commission keeps a record of Tory party donors, a little cross-referencing goes a long way for the diligent hack. So, who forced the government to swift, immediate action? Who is our éminence grouse?
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jeremy herrmann, 51
This publicity-shy hedge fund manager is the former captain of the English fly-fishing team, and if you forgive a rather easy metaphor, it seems he might well have Boris on his hook (sorry). In 2014, the Prime Minister was seen visiting his estate in Northumberland. Alas, the weather was so poor, Boris ‘had to settle for shooting clay pigeons’. Part of a power couple with wife Edwina, a lobbyist and former colleague of David Cameron.
Acreage: 26,000. Donation (via his wife): £25,000 to Boris’s 2008 mayoral campaign, and more than £140,000 to Tories. Odds: 11/2.
david ross, 55
Like most tycoons who haul themselves up by their bootstraps, this guy started small: as the heir to the largest commercial fishing fleet in the country. After quadrupling his money at Carphone Warehouse, this horny-handed son of the toil lives the life of Riley (Rossy?) across lavish homes throughout Europe. At the 2017 Black and White Ball, he offered a 200-bird day. Which means shooting 200 birds in a day. As the unofficial holiday-sponsor for the Prime Minister, here we have our dark horse.
Acreage: 12,000. Donation: £250,000 in the 2019 General Election and a trip to Mustique. Odds: 7/2.
