The Spectator’s Notes | 11 March 2006

As so often with people in public life, the career of David Mills is beyond satire. If an anti-Blair left-wing playwright invented him, critics would accuse him of improbability. Mr Mills seems to have done almost everything which traditional Labour supporters hate. He has made a career of advising people, including the loathed Silvio Berlusconi, on how to create offshore tax-shelters. He has given questionable court evidence for him, allegedly for money. He facilitated a £300 million sale of tanks by Ukraine to Pakistan. He administered a company in the Isle of Man. He lobbied to prevent the ban on tobacco advertising in motor racing because of his former directorship of Formula 1 Team Benetton. It would not surprise one to hear that he had arranged for General Augusto Pinochet to reside for tax purposes in the Cayman Islands, or flogged a few tactical nuclear warheads to Sir Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann.