The Hatchards Podcast Oliver Bullough on Butlers, British Tax Criminals, and Bertie Wooster
Apr 5, 2022
37:22
What is a butler?
In his new book "Butler to the World," Oliver Bullough describes a butler as a person that was educated at all the right schools, cultivated all the right connections, and relies on centuries of learned experience in the service of wealthy individuals.
Sound familiar? Through its offshore territories, endless loopholes, and hands-off approach to its financial sector, Bullough powerfully argues that Britain has spent the better part of a century occupying the role of Jeeves, only not to Bertie Wooster, but to global criminal organisations ranging from the drug cartel to the Putin regime.
In this vital conversation, Bullough poses what is perhaps the most pertinent question facing the nation since the collapse of the empire: if we were to leave the butlering business once and for all, what would our new role be?
To keep things light, we also contemplate all of the good P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves could have done in the world had he not wasted his talents on being a fixer for half-wits and drunken aristocrats.
In his new book "Butler to the World," Oliver Bullough describes a butler as a person that was educated at all the right schools, cultivated all the right connections, and relies on centuries of learned experience in the service of wealthy individuals.
Sound familiar? Through its offshore territories, endless loopholes, and hands-off approach to its financial sector, Bullough powerfully argues that Britain has spent the better part of a century occupying the role of Jeeves, only not to Bertie Wooster, but to global criminal organisations ranging from the drug cartel to the Putin regime.
In this vital conversation, Bullough poses what is perhaps the most pertinent question facing the nation since the collapse of the empire: if we were to leave the butlering business once and for all, what would our new role be?
To keep things light, we also contemplate all of the good P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves could have done in the world had he not wasted his talents on being a fixer for half-wits and drunken aristocrats.