{"id":30479,"date":"2013-03-20T15:54:47","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T14:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=30479"},"modified":"2013-03-20T19:43:43","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T18:43:43","slug":"uk-budget-protects-the-interests-of-corrupt-energy-corps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/uk-budget-protects-the-interests-of-corrupt-energy-corps\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Budget Protects Corrupt Energy Corps"},"content":{"rendered":"

RINF Alternative News<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"osborneflag\"<\/p>\n

Surprise surprise, as the mainstream media subserviently\u00a0celebrates\u00a0the announcement that a pint of beer will now be 1p cheaper, what is seemingly\u00a0an act of misdirection,\u00a0George Osborne – responsible for\u00a0the UK budget, has gotten away with it again.<\/p>\n

As the Chancellor of the Exchequer used\u00a0his Budget to cut corporation tax by 1% to 20%, Osborne also introduced new\u00a0measures\u00a0that will help his powerful friends in the energy sector.<\/p>\n

Osborne announced the introduction of a\u00a0generous field allowance, alongside tax relief, for the development of shale gas in the UK.\u00a0As you would expect, this has not received the headlines that it deserves.<\/p>\n

Hydraulic fracturing, or\u00a0\u201cfracking\u201d, is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside.\u00a0Up to\u00a0600 chemicals\u00a0are used in fracking fluid, including known carcinogens and toxins.<\/p>\n

In the US, there have been over\u00a01,000\u00a0documented cases of water contamination next to areas of gas drilling as well as cases of\u00a0sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage\u00a0due to ingested contaminated water.<\/p>\n

So let’s take a closer look and connect the dots.<\/p>\n

It transpires that George Osborne has some very close and personal links to the\u00a0fossil\u00a0fuel industry. In fact, his father-in-law, Lord Howell of Guildford,\u00a0is a\u00a0lobbyist and\u00a0president of the British Institute\u00a0for Energy Economics.<\/p>\n

Lord Howell was the Secretary of State for Energy\u00a0under\u00a0Margaret Thatcher,\u00a0he has also served as\u00a0Minister of State\u00a0in the\u00a0Foreign Office\u00a0in\u00a0David Cameron’s government, under\u00a0William Hague\u00a0as\u00a0Foreign Secretary.<\/p>\n

George Osborne married his daughter, Frances, in\u00a01998.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the Institute for Energy Economics\u00a0is funded by\u00a0Shell and BP, and boasts both these companies, alongside the BG Group, as its corporate members, while the Energy Department is one of its eight sponsors.<\/p>\n

The connections don’t end there.<\/p>\n

Osborne has met\u00a0representatives of the fossil\u00a0fuel industry multiple times since becoming chancellor, and has received tens of thousands of pounds in donations from Michael Hintze, the\u00a0Chief Executive Officer and Senior Investment Officer for\u00a0CQS Asset\u00a0Management.<\/p>\n

The company oversees funds that invest in fossil fuels and is responsible for billions of pounds flowing into the\u00a0energy sector.<\/p>\n

Osborne is also a\u00a0beneficiary of donations in kind from\u00a0audit firms KPMG\u00a0and Deloitte, both of which have\u00a0specialist oil and gas departments.<\/p>\n

It becomes clear that even if we just barely scratch the surface, connections emerge between the government and corporations at the very top of politics, and hints toward a system that is so corrupt that decision-making, more often than not, is only for the benefit of the very few, irrespective of how\u00a0detrimental the impact of those choices are to the very people who\u00a0place these criminals in power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surprise surprise, as the mainstream media subserviently celebrates the announcement that a pint of beer will now be 1p cheaper, what is seemingly an act of misdirection, George Osborne has gotten away with it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,17,18,1615],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-30479","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\/30479","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=30479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}