US election 2012: Mitt Romney to attend London fundraising dinner hosted by Barclays boss Bob Diamond

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, will attend a fundraising dinner in London hosted by Bob Diamond, the Barclays boss whose bank was fined £290 million.

Mitt Romney to attend  $75,000-per-head London fundraising dinner hosted by Barclays boss Bob Diamond
Mitt Romney Credit: Photo: AP

Barack Obama’s fight to retain the keys to the White House is likely to depend on whether the American president can win more political donations than his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

Now, Romney is bringing the battle to this country. Mandrake can disclose that the former Massachusetts governor will attend a private fund-raising dinner in London next month.

The price of invitations dwarfs the amounts paid for such fund-raisers in British politics. Each guest must pay between $25,000 (£17,000) and $75,0000 (£50,000) for a seat at the dinner, which will be hosted by Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays.

On Wednesday, Diamond, who is from Massachusetts, announced that this year he would forgo his bonus — which was £2.7 million in 2011 — after Barclays was fined £290 million by the American authorities for attempting to manipulate the interbank borrowing rate Libor.

Guests at the dinner, which will take place at an unspecified venue in central London, have been told that they must provide a copy of an American passport.

The party sets the scene for a fight for the support of the most well-heeled Americans based here. To support Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch, and her husband, the public relations executive Matthew Freud, held a fund-raising party at their house in Notting Hill.

They co-hosted the event with Joanna Shields, the former boss of the social networking website Bebo. The shindig reportedly raised more than $400,000 (£268,000) in a single evening.

Obama did not attend, but telephoned during the party to thank the hosts. The Republican son of the former governor of Michigan George Romney needs to sell only six top-price seats at his dinner to raise more money than Obama’s soirée managed.