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Tycoon traded citizenship for peerage

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In his time of public embarrassment, if not disgrace, fallen newspaper magnate Conrad Black is winning scant sympathy from his fellow Canadians.

Although Mr Black is living in Toronto, he long ago turned his back on his homeland, dismissing Canadians as 'whining, political conformist welfare addicts'.

Not surprisingly, he is not immensely popular.

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For a time, Mr Black's financial success seemed to know no limits. In one of his boldest moves, he set out to create a national newspaper, the National Post, which was the mirror of his own politics and attitudes - deeply conservative, relentlessly critical of Canada's Liberal government, and fiercely pro-American.

Mr Black ran into trouble in 2000 when the British Conservative Party nominated him to the House of Lords. The then Canadian prime minister, Jean Chretien got his revenge by blocking Mr Black's peerage on the grounds that Canadian citizens could not have foreign titles.

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Mr Black at first challenged the government decision in court but his case was thrown out. He then protested that whether he was a member of the House of Lords was of no particular interest, but then renounced his Canadian citizenship and became Lord Black of Crossharbour.

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