In his native Iceland, Jon Olafsson is a controversial figure. Born into poverty, he left school at 16 and went into the music business before shaking up the island’s sleepy broadcasting world with the launch of its first commercial television channel, gaining the reputation of a maverick outsider.

But in 2003 he sold his business, Northern Lights Communications, and moved to the UK, complaining that he had become the target of a politically inspired vendetta in his home country.