Welcome to Londongrad, home of tax-dodging robots, super-rich cellists and bust-loving billionaires

Take a magical mystery tour of Moscow-on-Thames

In 1994, John Major’s government introduced the “golden visa” scheme, granting fast-track entry to the UK to those who had £1 million to ‘invest’ here (the amount was later raised to £2 million). In 2008 the scheme was relaunched as the Tier 1 investor visa.

If you were a Russian oligarch looking to get access to London’s deregulated financial markets, get your offspring into public school, or maybe buy a football club, an unused tube station or a newspaper, then £2m was a very small price to pay. Money poured in to areas like the Square Mile and West London and lawyers, estate agents and accountants lined their pockets while studiously looking the other way

At least 2,581 Russian citizens have been granted ‘golden visas’ since the program relaunched in 2008.

Last week, in what has to be one of the longest lags between the horse bolting and the barn door closing ever recorded, Priti Patel scrapped Tier 1 investor visas. She called the move a “renewed crackdown on illicit finance and frau…