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Allegedly, Romanians saw an American oil tycoon enjoying easy access to nice cars and other possessions and thought, in so many words, "Why can't that be me?"

The former Topshop boss launched the case after a Labour peer said in the House of Lords that the tycoon had used a court order to stop the Telegraph publishing a story about the allegations.

Some tycoons have crafted named benefices: the Broad and David Geffen foundations, for example.

However, the festive mood between the pair had substantially chilled by the new year, with no donation transpiring and, instead, a call from the tech tycoon for Farage to be replaced as party leader.

The founders of these micronations — in the 2000s quite a few dot-com tycoons — were usually men of means, steeped in Ayn Rand and Thomas Hobbes.