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Ken Clarke & the tycoon who "broke" the bank

KEN Clarke was last night blasted over his links to a hedge-fund guru blamed for breaking the Bank of England in the Nineties.

The Shadow Business Secretary has joined a Canadian private equity fund with Jim Rogers, whose firm was held responsible for Black Wednesday.

And last month Rogers told investors to dump the Pound just a day after Clarke joined the Shadow Cabinet. He said: “I would urge you to sell any sterling you might have. It is finished . . . I would not put any money in the UK.” Now Clarke is facing demands to resign from the firm over claims he has a conflict of interest.

Clarke and Rogers joined the six-member board of Agcapita Partners in November.

Clarke returned to front-line politics two months later.

The private equity firm specialises in investing in farmland.

Clarke’s entry on the register of interests in the House of Commons states that he is paid as a “member of advisory board of Agcapita”. But it is his links with Rogers that have caused outrage among MPs.

He set up the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s. It was blamed for breaking the Pound in 1992 with a $10 billion bet that sterling would exit the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Labour MP Stephen Pound said: “It would be good if Ken did a soft-shoe shuffle and resigned.”

But a spokesman for Clarke said: “He has no recollection of ever having met Jim Rogers and sees nothing wrong with his role on the advisory board of Agcapita.”

 

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