While those around the various EU referendum Leave campaigns, and especially those at Leave EU, continue to stonewall attempts to discover where all that money came from to pay for their campaign in 2016, and indeed how the principals became sufficiently well-off to live in the style to which they have become accustomed, what can be ascertained is where some of the money went, whatever its source.
This brings us to Arron Banks’ sidekick Andy Wigmore. “Wiggy” was formerly involved in the communications industry, which, one has to assume, means PR and other kinds of spinning. He appears to have done rather well out of it, so well, in fact, that his UK property portfolio is positively heaving with premium investments that have a nominal value of several millions. So let’s go Through The Keyhole and check them out.
The main Wiggy dwelling is in London, in an area which mere mortals describe as Kensington, but estate agents like to pretend is in Holland Park, because houses cost lots more money there. We will not be handing out addresses, but can say that Zoopla has this assessment: “This 3 bed freehold terraced house is located at [redacted], London [postcode redacted] and has an estimated current value of £2,284,000”.
That’s quite a return on Wiggy’s initial investment of just over £800,000 in 2002. And there is rather more to this property than meets the eye: he’s joined the London Basement Fiends™ and excavated underneath this exclusive mews property. Zelo Street has seen the application to RBKC to “Fit out new basement and refurbish and remodel existing dwelling”. Whether planning permission was granted is not yet known.
So the money, one has to assume, is still rolling in. It’s also rolling in in sufficient amounts to fund school fees for the kids. The reassuringly expensive centres of learning involved will not be named. But they are reassuringly expensive: no mixing with the hoi polloi for the family Wigmore. And then there is the obligatory House In The Country™.
Once again, we won’t be publishing addresses, but can say - as Wiggy has publicised it himself - that what he calls “Chez Wigmore” is in or near the exclusive Oxfordshire village of Little Tew. Zelo Street has seen the estate agent particulars for another, perhaps larger, property in the same area, and the price was not marked, or not prominently so. This means that if one has to ask the price, one can’t afford it.
Does being a PR spinner pay that well? Enough to buy and later substantially extend a mews property in a more upmarket part of Kensington? Enough to pay tens of thousands a year in school fees? Enough to buy and maintain a country property in the kind of area that puts one in the same social set as Young Dave and his pal Rebekah?
Strange how those of what one might think to be modest means, given their profession, manage to live in such gilded surroundings. Perhaps Wiggy just saved his pennies wisely and dropped lucky. Or perhaps there was some extra dosh from being involved with the Belize High Commission. Perhaps those nice people at the Observer will check that out.
And so ends this impromptu edition of Through The Keyhole. More on Wiggy later.
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