Can we presume that the current PM knew about this or will he have been kept in the dark? Surely as Home Secretary, Braverman would have known?
RISHI Sunak accepted cash from fossil fuel investors in his race for No10, it emerged as questions escalated over the Prime Minister’s commitment to tackling climate change. Mr Sunak accepted donations totalling £141,000 this year from supporters with oil and gas ties. Many of the payments were for his failed Ready4Rishi summer leadership bid against Liz Truss. He also accepted the use of carbon-spewing private jets for campaign meet-and-greets. After taking over from Ms Truss this week the new PM said he will be “too busy” to go to next month’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt – which it is believed his predecessor had planned to attend. He has reportedly upheld her advice to the King not to go, and has axed COP president Alok Sharma’s seat in Cabinet. Climate tsar Mr Sharma has accused Mr Sunak of undermining Britain’s position as a world leader on green issues for refusing to go. Mr Sharma, who was President of last year’s Cop26 in Glasgow, believes the Tories will be punished at the next election if they swerve environmental problems. He will still lead the UK team at the climate conference in Eygpt next week. Speaking to the Sunday Times today Mr Sharma said: “I am pretty disappointed that the Prime Minister is not going.” Lib Dem climate spokesman Wera Hobhouse said: “It seems Rishi Sunak’s road to Downing Street was bankrolled by donors with links to fossil fuels. No wonder he’s failing to take climate change and the transition to net zero seriously. “Sunak is trashing the UK’s reputation as a leader in tackling climate change. His failure to attend COP shows a disregard for the need to protect the planet.” Over a quarter of the £530,000 donated to Mr Sunak this year was bankrolled by companies and individuals with links to oil, gas and aviation, analysis reveals. It includes £15,000 from ex-Tory treasurer Lord Michael Farmer, a hedge fund trader with shareholdings in Royal Dutch Shell and BP and who also gave Mr Sunak the use of a private jet for his campaign – a benefit-in-kind of £23,470. Tory grandee Michael Spencer gave £25,000 to Ready4Rishi. His holding company, IPLG, has a 40% stake in Cluff Energy Africa, which prospects for oil in West Africa. Sir Mick Davis, ex-boss of mining firm Xstrata, gave Mr Sunak £25,000. Hedge fund manager James Diner offered a private plane for a trip worth £5,100. And two businessmen linked to a wealth management fund that invests in the oil and gas sectors made donations of £30,000. There is no suggestion Mr Sunak did anything wrong in accepting the donations, which were in line with the ministerial code. But the fossil fuel links clash with the Tories’ vow to reach net-zero by 2050. Shadow Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said: “Sunak is on the side of big oil and gas companies, not the British people. We’ve seen it time and again, including him refusing a proper windfall tax on the rocketing profits of these energy giants. A PM choosing to protect profits of big oil and gas firms will never tackle the energy bills and climate crises we face, and will never deliver the energy independence we need.” The Conservative Party has directly received £1.3million in donations from companies with fossil fuel links and climate change sceptic organisations between December 2019 and October 2021. Mr Sunak’s voting record on climate issues was the worst of all this summer’s leadership contenders. The ex-Goldman Sachs analyst has “almost always” voted against measures to curb climate change, according to TheyWorkFor You. As Chancellor his budget statements barely mentioned the issue. In February, he reportedly asked then-Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to fast-track approval of six new oil and gas fields in the North Sea. And in April, Mr Sunak was said to have blocked plans for hundreds of millions of pounds to be spent on making homes more energy efficient. The Sunday Mirror revealed in August how Mr Sunak was accused of a conflict of interest over his wife’s links to Shell. Akshata Murty owns a £690m stake in her dad’s firm Infosys, which signed a deal with the oil giant last year. Her spokesman has said she “has no involvement in the operational decisions” of the firm. A spokesman for the Government said: “We are fully committed to the legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Just a reminder that Ukraine is still fighting off the fascists. Here's a good guide to why they will win: an excellent speech well worth the five minutes it will take to read. https://kyivindependent.com/opinion/illia-ponomarenko-ukraine-has-proved-that-hard-choices-pay-off Vin
I wonder if this is him basically being bounced into attending by the King. Interesting if so. Not least because I imagine lots of largely pro-monarchy Tories will likely grumble about it
Well exactly. Whatever your views on the monarchy, Charles has always been a campaigner in environmental issues, and he isn’t going to be pushed around by a lightweight like Sunak.
He’s made (in my obviously biased opinion) a surprisingly high number of unforced errors so far when he really didn’t need to. Suggesting he is weaker than they are trying to pretend - Braverman being brought back is the big on that show weakness. He had a golden opportunity to say his hands were tied and to put in whomever the swivel eyed loons’ second favourite is - Not attending the COP27. Hell, it’s not like you even need to pretend to commit to anything significant. Any u-turn will make him look stupid - An anti abortion women’s minister. Whatever your views on it are do we really want to literally just echo all of America’s culture war stuff - Keeping or bringing back some utter lightweights in the cabinet like Coffey and Shapps. But I guess their talent bench isn’t that broad. But surely Coffey isn’t even in the top 300 of Tory MPs. Bringing back Raab seems daft as well. He didn’t exactly have a blank record what with the Afghanistan stuff And that’s before we even get to whatever travesty he tries with the economy due to being ideologically committed to spending cuts when there just isn’t the same scope for them as there was under the first austerity. That came of the back of more than a decade of decent funding by Labour. This is after 12 years of chronic under funding. And when people are already struggling. Also stubbornly ignoring other measure to get money - windfall taxes, pursuing the money fraudulently stolen in the contracts given out during covid etc I guess it was inevitable as they are pretty much all useless and corrupt but at least give it a go! The staggering thing is how many people out there are convinced he just needs a chance and that the cuts are necessary.
And just like that, the truth comes out. And everyone that called me a conspiracy theorist for saying that the world’d governments manipulated the media narratives… can no longer deny it.
