Top Corbynista Shadow Cabinet member Dawn Butler lived it up on a £14,000 nine-day junket to Los Angeles paid for by a Blairite guru whose company was incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Butler, who has gained something of a reputation for enjoying the high life since taking a job in Jeremy Corbyn’s top team, jetted off to LA last month, where she mingled with the stars on the red carpet at the GLAAD Awards.

Dawn was taken to LA by Anthony Watson, who readers will remember is a hardcore Blairite who bankrolled Owen Smith’s campaign to remove Jezza. As Guido has previously reported, Watson’s company Uphold Inc was originally registered in the Caymans. Here are Butler and Watson photographed at the glitzy LA awards bash. Not sure what the Corbynistas will make of Dawn partying in LA paid for by an arch Corbyn-sceptic.

The event took place at the Beverly Hills Hilton, where a room fetches up to $530 a night. Well, it beats an evening in Brent…

Butler has declared the purpose of the visit as a “Women and Equalities LGBT fact finding visit“. For some strange reason, she decided not to mention any of the facts she found, or indeed anything about her nine day trip at all, on any of her social media accounts. Guido would have thought it was at least Instagram worthy. For the many, not the few…

Owen Smith has accepted almost £70,000 worth of donations from a businessman whose company was incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Smith took £67,550 from financial services guru Anthony Watson to help pay the rent for his campaign office. As Guido has previously revealed, Watson’s company Uphold Inc was originally registered in the Caymans. He took charge of the firm in April 2015, when it went by the name Bitreserve. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents seen by Guido show that Bitreserve’s jurisdiction of incorporation was the Caymans. Its address is a PO box.

The largest donor to the Owen Smith campaign runs a company incorporated in the tax-free Caymans…

Following Guido’s revelation that the firm run by Labour’s new business tsar was incorporated in the Caymans, the FT’s Jim Pickard has asked Angela Eagle for a comment on her “ethical” business adviser. Eagle replied that Anthony Watson’s company “pays taxes in all the jurisdictions in which it operates”. What is the corporate tax rate in the Cayman Islands? Zero percent. Ian Cameron’s Panama fund paid taxes in all the jurisdictions in which it operated, and Labour said that was morally disgusting…

The financial services firm run by Labour’s new business tsar was incorporated in the Cayman Islands, Guido can reveal. Anthony Watson is the flamboyant president and chief operating officer of Uphold Inc, an online financial services company headquartered in California. Earlier this year he was appointed by the Shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle to chair Labour’s Business and Enterprise Advisory Council. Eagle said at the time: “Both Anthony and I are determined to lay the foundations for a shared capitalism… It’s great that Anthony has agreed to chair this group which will help forge a new vision for a dynamic industrial strategy, because he has the fresh ideas and a proven track record of putting innovation and ethics at the heart of business practices.”. Well, how’s that whole “shared capitalism” and ethics thing working out?

Watson took charge of his financial services company in April 2015, when it went by the name Bitreserve. This is from their website:

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents seen by Guido show that Bitreserve’s jurisdiction of incorporation was the Caymans. Its address is a PO box.

What does Angela Eagle think about the ethics of her top business adviser running a company incorporated in the tax-free Caymans? 

Meet Anthony Watson, the flamboyant, sharply-dressed former Nike boss who has just been recruited by Angela Eagle as Labour’s new “we’re not anti-business, honest” tsar. Coincidentally this is just after donating £10,000 to Angela Eagle’s deputy leadership campaign. The FT reports that Watson will meet with Labour representatives quarterly to “help recalibrate Labour’s relationship with the business community”. While his company Uphold is based in South Carolina, the briefing stresses that Watson is “based in London”. Which is odd, because according to his Facebook profile he lives in L.A.

No wonder he is only available to meet quarterly. You’d have thought Labour would have learned their lesson from these US-based advisers who jet in, send a tweet, and then fly back to the States…