Guardian – Gazing across the Great Room of the Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane, where Monday night’s Tory winter ball was held, some were struck by the peculiar behaviour of one of the fundraising event’s guests.
Head down, Subaskaran Allirajah, the founder of Lycamobile, who had paid for two union flag-bedecked tables, spent much of the evening focused on his mobile phone, his attention only reluctantly drawn away from his screen when the bidding started for an Anthony Dufort bronze statue of Margaret Thatcher. Enormous cheers erupted from those around Allirajah as he won the maquette for £210,000.
