One of Britain’s richest men has banned heating in his mansion this winter in a bid to make Russian warmonger Vladimir Putin poorer.
Billionaire John Caudwell will switch off the radiators in all but one room of his sprawling Staffordshire estate to “make Putin a few dollars worse off”.
The 70-year-old Phones4u magnate, worth £1.58billion, says he will happily shiver and we should do the same.
He said: “I know we’re in a fuel crisis and everyone is worried but we should all be using energy less and I’m going to practise what I preach. I’m going to heat one room where we’ll live and 98% of the house will stay cold.
“Putin’s war is being funded by the fuel industry and anything I can do to make him a few dollars worse off I will.”
The dad-of-six, who was born into abject poverty in Stoke in the 50s, said: “When I was a child we didn’t have any heating, there was ice on the inside of the windows and we had just a couple of pieces of coal to burn in one room.
“We used to put warm clothes on. I’m not saying we should all go back to living like that but there are things we can do.
“It’s almost impossible to comprehend how Putin and the Kremlin regime can go and slaughter innocent people. Something has to be done to stop them and we can all do our bit.”
John and his partner Modesta Vžesniauskaite, 38, an ex-Lithuanian Olympic cyclist who is mum to Leo, nine, and one-year-old William, took in a Ukrainian family in February when the conflict broke out.
He said: “We chose a mother and her eight-year-old son whose father stayed at home to fight.”
The family were given a self-contained apartment on the estate, a car for
independence and a place for the boy at the same private school as John’s son.
He said: “They are building their own lives. But the first few months were very difficult. The mum was very emotional all the time and would just keep breaking down in tears.
“Sometimes it was because she feared for her husband back home in the forces and wondered if he was dead or alive. And other times she was overwhelmed with gratitude for our kindness.
“We need to get more medical aid to Ukraine and help them with ambulances and supplies.”
John, who sold Phones4u for £1.5bn in 2006 before it collapsed in 2014, has been criticised for his philanthropy towards Ukrainians as British families struggle during the cost of living crisis.
But he said he was horrified Putin could invade and kill innocent people and take their homes.
John, who is releasing his rags-to-riches autobiography Love, Pain & Money, The Making of A Billionaire, below, slammed PM Liz Truss for snubbing his offer of free help to get the UK economy back on track.
He said: “All I see is mistakes being made that would never have happened with my help. In Britain we could have the Silicon Valley of the environment and could promote all environmentally friendly technologies and spark a brain drain from other countries into our country.”
