Over to our on-the-spot (he’s somewhere green) correspondent for a quick rundown of all the facts you need to know about Rishi Sunak’s new North Sea oil and gas drilling contracts:
(I thought you might enjoy this before I get festive about Sunak with an article about how upset the Tories have got about a photoshopped image of him handing over a badly-poured pint of beer – contrasted with the fact that they created a mechanism for pumping out lies about themselves. Coming soon!)
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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:
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”:
Rishi Sunak's family's business Infosys boasts of its 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.”https://t.co/JGWQiIGljspic.twitter.com/VPiKDthqar
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?
The Tory donors with links to fossil fuel interests and climate denial – see the list https://t.co/mtnrzjU8h5 Worth looking at
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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This is fine: Rishi Sunak will burn down not only your house but your country and planet if he thinks he can get something out of it.
Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government has announced around 100 new contracts to extract oil and gas – polluting fossil fuels that cause global warming – from the North Sea.
He has claimed – unconvincingly – that this is in line with plans to make the UK a “net zero” polluter – one that does not contribute to global warming – by the year 2050, saying that the nation will still rely on fossil fuels for some of its energy needs for many decades to come, and it is less harmful to source it domestically than import it from abroad.
He is deliberately missing the point – of course – that if the UK doesn’t mine these substances and instead invests in more renewable energy, there would be no need to buy polluting crap from any other countries.
But logic isn’t his strong point. After all, this policy is based on his party’s sliver of success in the July by-elections, when its candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip narrowly kept that constituency out of Keir Starmer’s hands.
The win has been pinned on opposition to the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) that charges owners of polluting cars to travel in central London. In fact, it was probably a statement on Keir Starmer’s inability to lead a political party but, as Starmer won’t face that possibility, both parties have been attacking the ULEZ instead.
Well I didn't see that coming: that the next election is going to be about the Tories staking out claims for more oil, cars going faster, dirty cars carrying on pumping out fumes in cities, killing people…And the mandate for this is: 'we hung on in Uxbridge'? Is that it?
— Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 (@MichaelRosenYes) July 31, 2023
Yes.
There is now a big Tory campaign to claim that they are on the side of motorists while Starmer’s party is not. This involves attacking the Opposition party’s transport plans and claiming that it sides with media-maligned environmental campaigners like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil (on the basis of a single donation from a supporter of the latter group):
✅ The Welsh Conservatives would reverse Labour's barmy road building ban, scrap their blanket 20mph speed limits and say no to congestion charges.
🥀 Meanwhile, Labour are in bed with Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
It’s a typical Tory tactic: divide and rule. They want to convince you that Starmer’s party is financially dependent on people who have already been vilified as crazies for their attempts to inform us about the genuinely insane pollution policies of the current Tory government. And who do the Tories depend on, financially?
The idea is to keep us from asking what is probably the only pertinent question about this affair:
Why are the Tories giving massive new oil and gas drilling contracts to the same giant energy companies that have been massively ripping off their customers to make obscene amounts of profit?
Only today, I notice that BP has announced £2 billionin profit, to go alongside British Gas’s nearly £1 billion. That is money that could have been revitalising the UK’s economy instead, but Sunak and his cronies have no interest in that.
Put it all together and it’s a massive political endorsement for global warming. And it’s utterly insane.
This Site has already reported on the wildfires sweeping across other parts of the globe. As the situation worsens – as it undoubtedly will with national governments blindly extending their reliance on fossil fuels and the companies that provide them – crops will fail.
We will run out of food and have to buy substandard cast-offs from other countries that will also be struggling.
And I have also mentioned scientists’ expectation that the flow of the Gulf Stream, that warms the UK, will be halted, meaning much colder winters and hotter summers. We don’t have the required infrastructure for either.
So it is no surprise that people who actually, genuinely understand the issues are using the social media to post messages like this:
Please screen-grab this tweet and keep it handy when food prices soar , water-wars break out , your house burns down , your business is washed away , polar bears are extinct or in a few years time when a desperate and angry young person asks you who was responsible for killing… https://t.co/BlD9BBi8dG
Oh, and by the way, regarding the last part of Chris Packham’s tweet: it won’t even be Rishi Sunak, or Keir Starmer, who will be responsible.
If you vote either of them into power so that they can enact these disastrous policies, then responsibility for killing the world rests on you.
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I’ll cut to the core: Liz Truss’s energy price cap plan preserves commercial profits at the expense of the public.
She’s putting you in debt so the shareholders of firms like Shell can profit.
That’s the gist of this clip:
But is this what follows the reason?
So, Truss worked for Shell and has received a donation from a wife of a BP executive, and now she is giving money to them and charging us in order to do it.
And did you notice the claim in the top video that Truss is now in thrall to the European Research Group MPs? Watch this:
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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