Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough review – oligarch’s paradise

Deadman’s Bay on Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands. Photograph: Brooke Darling/Getty Images

I t is hard to imagine a more timely book than Oliver Bullough’s damning account of Britain’s role in facilitating oligarchs and criminals in their acquisition of billions of pounds’ worth of ill-gotten gains.

The UK’s bankers, lawyers and wealth managers have become so reliant on Russia’s dirty money that, in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, it is proving politically and economically painful to cut the umbilical cords channelling cash from Moscow into the City.