It should come as no surprise to anybody that the oil and gas contracts Rishi Sunak announced in the middle of a global boiling crisis come with a suggestion of corruption.

Remember Infosys, the firm owned by Sunak’s father-in-law, in which his wife Akshata Murty has 38.9 million shares? The information on my screen says they’re estimated to be worth £89 million but that is likely to increase hugely now.

You see, Infosys has just “won” (it says here) a $1.5 billion contract with BP – one of the energy firms that will profit from those North Sea oil and gas contracts. People are suggesting that there’s something fishy about it all, and it isn’t just the water:

Now, with Infosys having secured its deal and having now done his deal, Sunak is off on his holibobs – apparently his first in four years:

You may not be aware of this, but Sunak recently launched what’s he’s calling a Business Council, allegedly to “turbocharge economic growth”.

Here’s a bit of information about it:

Infosys already has ties with Shell, as part of a partnership with “two of the top five integrated oil and gas companies, three of the top four oilfield services providers, and five of the top 10 upstream enterprises across the oil and gas landscape”:

The Byline Times article – from July 19 last year – warned us about Sunak’s ties with the fossil fuel industry:

Infosys’ intimate partnerships with regional as well as global oil and gas giants represent a potential conflict of interest for Rishi Sunak.

According to the UK Ministerial Code, ministers are required to fully disclose and explain the business interests of their spouses and families “which might give rise to a conflict” with the duties of Government.

Despite Sunak ostensibly committing to the Government’s net zero goals – now deemed unlawful by the High Court for not going far enough – he also said in the televised debate … that Britain must not move “too hard and too fast” on climate action.

His victory [in the Conservative leadership contest that was ongoing at the time] could represent a win for firms like Shell, which said it expected to revise upwards the value of oil and gas assets it had previously written down, triggering a jump in share prices.

When Sunak eventually released a list of his business interests – correct me if I’m wrong – the connections between his wife’s family firm and the oil companies that have just won very large and valuable contracts were not mentioned.

Scottish news organisation The National has also – just – published a list of fossil fuel polluters and climate change deniers that donate money to the Conservative Party. Have some of these won contracts in Sunak’s recent bonanza?

Taking it in the round, it seems unlikely that Sunak had the interests of the eco-system in mind when he was considering the possibility of new oil and gas contracts in the North Sea.

Indeed, it seems unlikely that he considered the well-being of anything other than his own financial affairs and those of his family.

It seems to This Writer that this entire situation – the contracts, the Business Council, the donations to the Tory Party – requires scrutiny, and by somebody entirely independent of Sunak and his Tories.

Can anybody recommend a mechanism by which this can be secured?

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