Beware of the dogs

RICHARD Caring once threatened, jokingly, to set his dogs on me and Dan Carrier. The multimillionaire was angry that we had doorstepped him at his Hampstead mansion (mansion doesn’t do it justice) with questions about his role in the redevelopment plans for Camden Market. The story was eventually written as a ‘David and Goliath’ contest, revealing to objectors to the overhaul how they didn’t really know the sheer wealth they were up against. Mr Caring has since withdrawn from Camden market and the Teddy Sagi buy-up has been relentless, but whenever he pops up in the news I remember the day he personally called the New Journal and told me he had a ‘roomful of lawyers’ ready to sue about a mistake we had made in detailing the plans.

It was resolved in the end with a correction on one of the points and a follow-up interview with him in which he explained his position, which sort-of funnily enough was what we had sought when we headed up to his home in the first place. Mr Caring noted our description of his guard dogs as ‘two barking Alsations and a golden retriever’ in the original piece, and signed off with the joke about releasing the hounds on the CNJ if we ever knocked again.

These days, Mr Caring is a little more well known and a little more free with media interviews. He’s in today’s Times, talking openly about his political viewpoint. A long time ago he was a Labour supporter, but he has since thrown himself behind David Cameron. Is there much of chance of changing sides again? On Jeremy Corbyn, the owner of The Ivy and Annabel’s said: “He’s the best thing that could have happened to the country. It’s perfect – he’s completely unelectable.”