Doug Graham: LOMBARD

You may be aware that LOMBARD is an acronym. It became popular in 1980s London to describe a certain kind of plonker. It means Lots of Money But A Real Dirtbag.

Never was a bunch of dirtbags better named.  See what I mean: ‘Ex-ministers charged over failed finance firm.’  The name of the company? Lombard Finance. 

Name of one of the directors?  Douglas Montrose Graham.  Lots of Your Money, And A Real Dirtbag.

    “Former National minister Sir Douglas Graham and former Labour minister Bill Jeffries face penalties of up to $500,000 each for misleading investors in Lombard Finance.
    “The Securities Commission is also continuing to investigate the laying of criminal charges.
    “Graham was trusted with setting New Zealand's laws as Justice Minister, as was Jeffries. They later traded on that trust to get people to put their money into Lombard.
    Lombard collapsed, and now the two former ministers face the courts.”

It’s a sad story for hundreds of investors who chose for themselves a brighter future, gambling it on the honesty, integrity and acumen of Sir Douglas Douglas Graham of Lombard Finance.  Like National voters in 2008, however, they were deluded.  They were betting on a pompous arse who has never earned an honest dollar in his life.

Whose entire wealth has come out of the pockets of unwilling taxpayers and deluded investors—deluded by qualities the man never, ever had.

A man who gained access to the trough through the safe seat of Remuera--one of the selection board confiding upon his selection for the seat that National could win there if it put “a donkey” up as a candidate--"and that's just what we've done this year."

Who made his nut as Minister in Charge of Treaty Capitulations taking millions of dollars out of the pockets of New Zealand taxpayers to give to tribalists for things those taxpayers didn’t do. 

Who as Minister of Apartheid, after giving millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to Ngai Tahu, insisted: “The sooner we realise there are laws for one & laws for another, the better."

Who as Minister of Injustice insisted that defendants have their assets confiscated by the state, even before they’d been found guilty.

Who retired from politics to write his memoirs in Italy—and sucked down a sinecure from the taxpayer to pay for it.

Who came out of retirement to tell taxpayers “You better keep paying your taxes,” to keep him in his retirement in the style to which a lifetime of troughing had made him accustomed.

Who has been in the trough his whole life.

Who clearly had no intention of changing that even in his retirement, however he had to do it, and whichever pockets he had to fleece to do it.

Never could schadenfreude have come to a more deserving dirtbag. The only tragedy is that hundreds of investors had to lose their life savings to make it happen.