If celebrity speakers aren't worth anywhere near that, what are banks and multinationals and industry events bribing ex-sports coaches and actors for?
And of course even the politicians get paid by a lot of entities that aren't obvious beneficiaries. Boris Johnson might be as sleazy as former PMs get, but I'm really struggling to understand any quid pro quo with the Indian newspaper or Portuguese TV channel that both paid him north of $250k for a single keynote, and I don't think he ever had much influence on insurance brokers in Colorado either
Regardless, on those examples you gave, I don't think it was a Portuguese TV channel, I think it was a global CNN summit which happened in Lisbon (but please correct me if I'm wrong).
Also, The Hindustan Times (which is the Indian newspaper I think you're referring to) is also not exactly a small media outlet with a circulation more than double that of the Times of London (based on the most recent numbers for The Times in 2020).
Additionally, a significant number of British citizens have family ties with India, and are likely to continue to follow English language news in India, so it's not simply 'some foreign newspaper'.
Sheesh. Not even worth debating.
