‘Jews were scapegoats’ in Guinness scandal, claims peer

Lord Mandelson has backed a call for a public inquiry into the Guinness scandal, arguing that the Jewish businessmen jailed over the affair were scapegoats.

In 1990, Ernest Saunders, Tony Parnes, Sir Jack Lyons and Gerald Ronson were found guilty of criminal offences in inflating the value of Guinness shares and all, except Sir Jack, were jailed.

Lord Mandelson made the claim in the foreword of a new book by Iranian Jewish businessman Lord Alliance.

The former business secretary wrote: “The plot to push up Guinness shares in the closing days of the bid for Distillers was orchestrated by leading City figures who were allowed to go free, showing once again how the British establishment can protect its own”.

Lord Alliance, who claimed that he was almost jailed as well, has called for an independent government commission to “look at this black episode in Britain’s financial history – that to this day rankles in my community”.

He says he initially planned to spend £2.5million on Guinness shares, but pulled out.

Lord Alliance, who made his fortune in the textile industry, believes that the affair was motivated by antisemitism. He has claimed that before the scandal was made public, a Conservative minister told a party donor, “we’re going to go after the Jews”.

Lord Alliance said: “Of the four people tried and sentenced, three were Jews and the other, Ernest Saunders, had a half-Jewish father [which was good enough for both the judge and jury]”.

Charges against merchant banker Lord Spens and other “blue bloods” were dropped, Lord Alliance pointed out.

He added: “The systematic cover-up of the role played by some of the City’s most ‘respectable’ stockbrokers and merchant bankers, who were happy to take the profits when times were good and let Jews go to jail for them when they had turned sour”.