Deripaska: 'I still like Mandelson'

The Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska is still friends with Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and feels the UK media was wrong to pick out Mandelson and shadow chancellor George Osborne when they attended a party on his yacht off the coast of Corfu. Osborne has always denied using the occasion to solicit a party donation out of Deripaska. "Why should it have changed?" he asks in an interview with Newsnight, saying of the meeting on the yacht. "I wasn't considering in those days whether they were British politicians. It was my summer holiday. We had a good dinner, there were many people and I'm surprised they picked on these poor guys and screwed them in the press." Of any suggestion that he was trying to curry favour with key UK politicians, he says: "I tried to stay away from Russian politicians – why should I move towards British politicians? I can't see that anyone from Britain would ask me – it's unbelievable." When asked if he gained from his friendship with Mandelson, who controlled European Union metal tariffs at the time, with Deripaska owning all the aluminium in Russia (in 2005, the EU commission relaxed import tariffs on aluminium foil), he says: "Benefited from friendship? It's not my business. Whatever I did in my life, I did myself." Deripaska, who is considering expanding his business interests into nuclear power stations, is said to be disappointed that the UK government didn't prop up the van maker LDV which used to be funded by the Russian's company GAZ. When the announcement was made, Mandelson didn't make it, leaving it to Ian Pearson, the junior business minister. Deripaska says: "You have a good company, good people and complex manufacturing. There are only a few left in Britain — engineering companies that can support production — and based on a wrong press, someone could push them out of business. Why?" He adds: "I'm not sure I will have any links with Britain in the future." source:www.publicservice.co.uk