Town accuses Clinton's 'fixers'

Fiachra Gibbons
Monday May 28, 2001
The Guardian

Hay-on-Wye paid $150,000 (£105,000) for an unforgettable night with Bill Clinton, but woke yesterday morning feeling slightly sullied.

The memory preying most on the liberal conscience of this bijou Welsh borders community was not the size of the former president's fee for his speech, nor the £2,395 plus VAT for a table at a dinner afterwards at the local primary school, but the rumoured demands of his entourage of fixers, agents and personal managers.

With Mr Clinton struggling to pay the $11m (£7.7m) legal bills he has run up defending himself against Kenneth Starr's inquiry into the Lewinksy affair, one cottage distiller claimed he was asked for £50,000 for a presidential endorsement of Danzy Jones Wysgi Licor, his "old style mellow" Welsh whisky liqueur.

Ben Jones, a former art lecturer, said he couldn't believe his luck when a man organising the president's trip to the Hay books festival telephoned him three weeks ago and told him Mr Clinton was "keen to drop in" on his farmyard distillery in Abergavenny.

"He told me Mr Clinton likes to taste local produce where ever he goes, particularly whiskies," Mr Jones said. "He told me that 'Of course you realise the ex-president has to earn a living, and that when they were talking to a distillery in Ireland a figure of £50,000 was mentioned.' I told him I couldn't afford anything like that unless my wife had something stuffed away in the mattress. I heard no more from him after that."

Mr Clinton's American agents refused to comment on the specific allegation last night but were adamant that the former president - who was still signing autographs for banquet staff at 2am on Sunday - "only accepted honorariums for speaking engagements".

However, Hay's director, Peter Florence, said Hay was not a literary festival but "one of ideas" and he had no doubt Mr Clinton was worth every cent.

-- Anonymous, May 27, 2001