Brown handed powerful lobbyists a better deal on pensons.
Paul Waugh, Evening Standard
12 February 2008, 2:23pm
Rich businessmen managed to persuade Gordon Brown to water down plans to curb their ‘fat cat’ pensions, it emerged today.
A secretive lobbying group, made up of the head of Britain’s most powerful corporations, used breakfast meetings at Downing Street to steer government policy.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show the heads of BP, Unilever, HSBC Shell and British American Tobacco, have used their private access to protect the pensions of the ultra-rich and influence other policies. The exclusive club, known as the multi-national chairmen’s group, consisted of fewer than 10 executives.
Downing Street has been forced to release the prime ministerial documents after a two-year battle. They show the executives also wanted Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, to lobby President Bush to treat corporations more favourably in return for supporting the invasion of Iraq.
Mr Brown first refused to water down his proposals but nine businessmen in the group sought to go over the Chancellor’s head at a meeting with Mr Blair on 2 September 2003.
Before the meeting, Geoff Norris, Mr Blair’s special adviser on business, had briefed him, writing: ‘The group … would like to discuss with the Prime Minister whether there was any prospect of movement on this issue …’
Executives at the meeting, including Lord Browne, then of BP, Arun Sarin of Vodafone, Sir John Bond, then of HSBC, and Sir Christopher Hogg, then of GlaxoSmithKline, said the proposals would drive businessmen away from Britain.
The lobbying, allied with protests from other business groups, forced Mr Brown to rethink. Within months, he had loosened the proposed cap on pension pots. The extra tax will be payable only on pension savings over £1.8m and will not come in until 2010.
The delayed start date allows more time to re-arrange finances. Mr Brown also cut the tax rate from 60% to 55%.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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