Telegraph’s chief political analyst quits over HSBC cover-up
The Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator has quit over the British newspaper’s coverage of HSBC’s Swiss tax-dodging scandal.
Peter Oborne resigned on Wednesday, claiming that the newspaper was contributing to efforts whitewashing the bank scandal in order to maintain profitable advertising contracts.
"You needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage," Oborne said. "Nothing on Monday, six slim paragraphs at the bottom left of page two on Tuesday, seven paragraphs deep in the business pages on Wednesday."
According to the cache of files leaked in the so-called SwissLeaks case, HSBC Switzerland helped clients in more than 200 countries evade taxes on accounts containing a total of $119 billion (104 billion euros).
According to The Guardian newspaper, HSBC had halted its advertising account with the newspaper during last week's negotiations over a series on the activities of HSBC’s Swiss private bank.
"HSBC did the same thing with the Telegraph," the state-run BBC quoted Oborne as saying. "There's a pattern developing here that when HSBC was being investigated, the advertising dries up."
Oborne claimed that the newspaper steered clear of major HSBC coverage after its advertising contracts were pulled by the bank when it published a series of stories about HSBC's branch in Jersey – an island in the English Channel which is a well-known tax haven.
"Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is 'the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend’,” he added.
Meanwhile, Swiss police raided HSBC’s Swiss offices in the city of Geneva, following the opening of an investigation on money laundering and tax fraud against the bank.
SRK/AS/MHB
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