Bunhill: Fair weather friend

SOME cynical folk were cruel enough to point out that the first time Michael Green, chairman of Carlton Communications, contributed to Conservative coffers was in the year he bid for (and was awarded) the lucrative ITV franchise to broadcast to Londoners.

Surely, says Bunhill, Green's conversion to Toryism was not such a transitory affair? Alas, the newly filed accounts of Tangent Industries, his privately owned company, suggest otherwise. Donations to Smith Square fell back to zero in the year to 31 March, from pounds 15,000 the previous year.

It was not for want of the readies: Tangent, which owns property and other investments including distribution businesses, made profits before tax of pounds 828,000. Not a bad hand for the bridge-playing Green.

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