{"id":29927,"date":"2013-03-11T13:42:52","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T12:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=29927"},"modified":"2013-03-13T10:53:13","modified_gmt":"2013-03-13T09:53:13","slug":"one-third-of-ministers-linked-to-the-corrupt-finance-energy-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/one-third-of-ministers-linked-to-the-corrupt-finance-energy-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"32% Of Ministers Linked To Corrupt ‘Finance-Energy Complex’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mick Meaney
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"David-Cameron\"<\/p>\n

New research by anti-poverty campaign group,\u00a0the World Development Movement\u00a0(WDM),\u00a0has revealed that 32% of\u00a0ministers in the UK government, including top cabinet ministers, are linked to UK finance and energy companies\u00a0fuelling climate change.<\/p>\n

The WDM has has condemned what it calls the \u2018finance-energy complex\u2019 at the heart of government, which links big finance, oil and coal companies like Shell or Tullow Oil,\u00a0to UK\u00a0ministers at the very top of the government including;\u00a0David Cameron, William Hague,\u00a0George Osborne, Michael Gove, Oliver Letwin and Vince Cable.<\/p>\n

The WDM discovered that:<\/p>\n

The nexus is not limited to members of the government.
\nHigh level executives of big private sector financial
\ninstitutions are routinely appointed to serve on important
\ngovernment committees. Some of these also serve on the
\nboards of energy companies or are involved in financing or
\nlobbying for them. The House of Lords is also home to scores
\nof individuals with links to either big finance or big energy.
\nAn investigation has recently revealed that a sixth of Lords
\nhave remunerated links to the financial sector.<\/p>\n

Journalists and other investigators have uncovered the
\nscale of lobbying and revolving doors that exist between
\nthe world of banks, hedge funds and stockbrokers and the
\ncorridors of power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that:<\/p>\n

Big finance and big energy are intricately linked. Between
\n2010 and 2012, the UK\u2019s five biggest banks underwrote
\n\u00a395.5 billion in corporate bonds for fossil fuel companies
\nand another \u00a374.5 billion in new share issues.<\/p>\n

All five have\u00a0people on their boards of directors with links to the fossil\u00a0fuel industry. In turn the top four oil and gas and the top\u00a0four coal mining companies all have board members with\u00a0backgrounds in finance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to\u00a0the research<\/a>, the value of fossil fuel shares on the London Stock\u00a0Exchange is \u00a3900 billion \u2014 higher than the GDP of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

Top five UK banks\u2019 underwrote \u00a3170 billion in bonds\u00a0and share issues for fossil fuel companies 2010-12 \u2014\u00a0more than 11 times the amount the UK contributed in\u00a0climate finance for developing countries.<\/p>\n

Among the\u00a0revelations, the report also reveals that foreign secretary William Hague, who used to work for Shell, helped Tullow Oil to get out of paying a \u00a3175 million tax bill in Uganda. Mr Hague actually made a personal phone call to the Ugandan president on Tullow Oil\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

They also\u00a0discovered\u00a0that David Cameron received a \u00a310,000 donation from\u00a0Jonathan Green, from the hedge fund GLG Partners, a frequent investor in fossil fuels and the major investor in oil startup Lothian, and also has dealt in shares of numerous fossil fuel companies including; Victoria Oil & Gas, RusPetro, Max\u00a0Petroleum and Churchill Mining.<\/p>\n

The report goes on to say:<\/p>\n

Mark Foster Brown worked as a trader at hedge fund Altima
\nPartners and donated \u00a310,000 to Cameron\u2019s leadership
\nbid.<\/p>\n

Like GLG, Altima deals in fossil fuel shares, including\u00a0Cadogan Petroleum and Lonrho plc,29 which is a multi-sector\u00a0company involved in building port terminals in Africa \u201cto\u00a0support the oil and gas industry\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other prominent finance sector donors to Cameron\u2019s\u00a0leadership campaign include James Lyle (formerly of\u00a0Tiger Investments and Millgate Capital), Michael Spencer\u00a0(derivatives trader at Dresdener Bank, formerly Natwest and\u00a0Standard Chartered) and Robert Fleming (founder of the\u00a0Robert Fleming merchant bank).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It also revealed a brief history of the British governments affair\u00a0with finance and energy companies:<\/p>\n

Many past ministers left\u00a0government to fall straight into jobs in big finance or\u00a0big oil. Here are some examples of former government\u00a0ministers who have gone on to lucrative careers in\u00a0finance or energy:<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Tony Blair (former prime minister): JP Morgan, Zurich, UI\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Energy Corporation and others.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Peter Mandelson (various senior posts): Lazard\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>investment bank.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Mark Malloch Brown (former energy and development\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>minister): consultant to Vitol and oil exploration\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>company Southwest energy.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Shriti Vadera (former DfID minister): BHP Billiton.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Michael Foster (former DfID minister): Society of British\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em>Gas Industries.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research by anti-poverty campaign group, the World Development Movement (WDM), has revealed that 32% of ministers in the UK government, including top cabinet ministers, are linked to UK finance and energy companies fuelling climate change. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,17,18,1615],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-29927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-politics","9":"category-latest-news","10":"category-uk-news","11":"tag-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}