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Indian
entrepreneur one of Brown's powerful backstage boys
WSN Network
London: When Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown stood up
before his Labour Party on Monday to make his first triumphal speech
as leader, a bespectacled Indian businessman in the audience could
hardly wait to be wowed.
The fact that he
was bowled over by Brown makes Mumbai-born millionaire, Gulam Noon,
one of 21st-century Britain’s most powerful backstage boys. It
ensures that Noon will continue to be a player in Brown’s Britain as
much as he was in Blair’s.
For 13 years,
Noon, the so called ‘curry king’ and Mumbai-boy-turned-sterling
multimillionaire, offered stout moral and monetary support to former
PM Tony Blair. In real terms, that was worth £470,000. But now that
Blair is gone, he tells, he is happy to be a ‘Brownite’ and to
demonstrate his support with hard cash.
“Labour is my
party. Of course I will help it with money for a (general) election.
They haven’t asked me yet but I am ready and willing when they do”,
he declares.
Noon, whose empire
supplies all the curry and korma needs of Britain’s five major food
retailers, including Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s, and is fast
expanding further afield in Europe as well, is emphatic that Indian
businessmen richly deserve the power and pelf that comes with
backing the governing party.
“We all came here,
some of us like me with nothing, we worked hard, we built up our
business, we had a fire in our belly. Indians are generally
law-abiding people. Izzat ka sawaal hai and we give back to the
country we live in. An £8-billion economy has been created by
Indians here. This is not about rich Indians exploiting Britain.
It’s about supporting a political choice”, he says.
But Noon admits,
“Undoubtedly, I was closer to Tony Blair”. As he lounges behind an
antique desk in the oldworld, 18th-century architectural gem of a
central London house that he uses as a private office, Noon, 71,
insists his apparently newfound fealty to Brown is neither new nor
opportunistic.
“I have always
been committed to the Labour Party. I am still committed to it. I
like the things they’ve done. They are very business-friendly, in
allowing us to work with unions after years when the unions were
barred by Thatcher. They brought in the minimum wage, which was
badly needed in the catering industry,” he said.
3
October, 2007
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