As Owl’s readers know, our MP has a (currently) dormant business (Eaglesham Investments Ltd) with controversial peer Lord Greg Barker, who is mixed up with Russian oligarch Oleg Derepaska – and with him his Trump campaign pal Paul Manafort:

https://eastdevonwatch.org/2019/02/03/more-again-on-swires-pal-lord-barker/

Now Lord Barker has hit the headlines again (page 10 of the Sunday Telegraph to be precise). He is to be questioned (again) by MPs over his dealings on behalf of Deripaska in the US and UK. Deripaska is said to be a very close ally of Vladimir Putin.

A prominent Vladimir Putin critic, Bill Browder, said last week:

“It’s remarkable … a member of the House of Lords is allowed to be paid by a Russian to lobby against sanctions for that Russian”.

Source: Sunday Telegraph

The Telegraph article continues with (yet another) attempted justification of his highly-criticised conduct by Barker.

Oh, Hugo – why can’t you get some NICE friends and business colleagues?

You have already swanned around the arms-buying capitals of the world (Saudi Arabia, Colombia to name but two);

You get paid a consultancy fee to advise on Latin American matters: and

You get a salary from the Conservative Middle East Council (see Register of Interests),

which is hard enough for your constituents to swallow, without this!