Posturing MPs Sign Divest Parliament Pledge
By Paul Homewood
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have just signed Divest Parliament pledge.
This is how the website describes the campaign:
Our political leaders call for action on climate change but their pensions remain invested in fossil fuel companies whose business model is incompatible with international agreements to tackle climate change.
Divest Parliament works with MPs from across the political spectrum to call on their pension fund to halt and remove their investments in fossil fuels. By engaging with their own pension fund, MPs have the opportunity to show crucial leadership on climate change, responsible investment and the transition to a sustainable economy.
We ask that the Pension Fund quantifies, reviews and discloses the fund’s investments in carbon-intensive industries, engages in a dialogue with current and former MPs and publicly commits to phasing out fossil fuel investments over an appropriate time-scale. We suggest immediately freezing any new investment in the top 200 largest fossil fuel companies, and divesting from fossil fuel public equities and corporate bonds over 5 years.
If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage, and our MPs have a crucial role to play in challenging the political power of an industry that continues to profit from the climate chaos it creates.
https://gofossilfree.org/uk/divest-parliament-about/
There is a supreme irony here. The MPs’ Pension Fund is guaranteed by taxpayers’ money.
MPs make a fixed contribution, but as a final salary scheme, it is the Exchequer which not only part funds the scheme, but also has to finance any shortfall.
If divesting certain assets results in destruction of asset value, or reduced income, it is the good old taxpayer who will have to stump up.
If Corbyn and his fellow posturers are serious, let them accept personal liability for any losses. Better still, if they do not like the way the scheme is run, let them simply opt out of it and make their own pension arrangements.
But there is a much more fundamental issue here, and that is the fact that the UK is still almost wholly reliant on fossil fuels.
Inland Energy Consumption – Mtoe
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-december-2017
Last year fossil fuels accounted for 81.5% of primary energy consumption. Furthermore, although coal consumption has fallen in recent years, the need for gas and oil has remained strong.
What on earth does this cretinous bunch of MPs think the country will do, when they have chased fossil fuel companies out of existence?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
It’s just another futile symbolic action. Force pension funds out of oil companies? No problem, there is plenty of capital out there, in countries that cares not one hoot for the climate threat, to fill the gaps.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Jeremy Corbyn should listen to his much more intelligent brother (not to mention Piers being a brilliant physicist). Jeremy must realise that his brother knows what he is talking about, so his signing of this ridiculous pledge must be just political pandering to his socialist supporters. No wonder these hypocritical politicians are so hated.
— and today I read in the Guardian website that we are heading soon for a mini ice age because of solar magnetic activity. We are going to need all the heat we can get if it is true. (Who knows – maybe just “fake news”).
Wow, how did that get through the Guardian gauleiters?
Gerry
Doubtless spun to be the fault of humanity.
The mini ice age story is on Sky News.
The possibility (if not certainty) of us returning to ice age is not new but it is not politically correct to talk about it of course.There are two reasons for believing this story, the first is the fact that our current full (pleistocene) ice age has already lasted as long as many and more than a few previous ice ages and is therefore suspected to be close to its end. In addition observers of solar cycles have been telling us that we are due a solar minimum very soon (the mini ice age). It is possible that the mini ice age could tip us back into the big one 🙂
addled brain strikes again!
Our current Holocene warm period in the current Pleistocene ice age has already lasted as long as or longer than many previous warm periods and is therefore expected to be close to its end.
Many apologies.
The Ice Age scare comes round regular as clockwork every sixty years or so as the North Atlantic Oscillation flips to a negative phase.
Then, around 30 years after that, the NAO goes positive and shortly thereafter we’re back to Global Warming.
And so on…
Divest Parliament aims to help MPs protect their finances.
Nothing more , nothing less than looking after number one. As their pensions ( very generous ones at that , voted for themselves by themselves!) currently depend on good fossil fuel prices, and their current policies are likely to lower the future price of these fuels, they are simply looking after themselves.
Nothing new there.
Funny, some of the highest paying blue collar or hourly wage jobs are in the fossil fuel industry or those which are energy intensive. The third world should thank the UK government for sending jobs their way.
Before any MP signs the pledge, they must first pledge to immediately stop using or benefitting from all fossil fuels.
Can’t wait for them to suffer hypothermia, in darkness.
Very good point, Joe P. If my MP signs I shall be putting exactly that point to him.
Exactly. How can you continue to use a product yet call for the investment required to provide that product be stopped? Utter hypocrisy and virtue-signalling.
Stop using petrol and electricity and gas, then tell us to divest.
I was pleased to see that my MP was not on the list otherwise he would be getting a short sharp reminder of who pays his pension, and a link to this website. I note that of all the ‘MPs’ a few are from the upper house (Deben, of course has signed) but only TWO are actually Conservative MPs.
This reveals the paucity of thought inherent in 100 MPs and raises many legal questions, not least of which being the conflict of interest involved and the legal responsibilities of the pension providers.
If these MPs wish to make a point then they should opt out of the scheme and provide themselves with their own pensions without feeding off the taxpayers.
‘If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage…’
So what are they going to invest in now? Renewables? Then they can wreck the lives of millions who can’t avoid to heat their houses in winter.
I feel a crowdfunding opportunity for setting up a truly pious energy retailer is obvious here.
Anybody signing up to this has a very smart meter installed at their home(s) and place of work.
Electrons will only be supplied when actual sun is up, windmills are turning and optionally digesters are farting.
Several tiered piety tariffs would be offered – but all will reflect actual costs.
sorted
Virtue signaling sans virtue.
Lefturd decadence . . . they attack that which keeps them alive.
Joe Public,
“Before any MP signs the pledge, they must first pledge to immediately stop using or benefitting from all fossil fuels.
Can’t wait for them to suffer hypothermia, in darkness.”
A generation ago the current Canadian Prime Minister’s father, Pierre Trudeau, introduced his infamous National Energy Policy, which required that Western Canada’s oil was sold to the rest of Canada at way below world prices. This resulted in the near destruction of Canada’s oil industry. Can I interest you in some bumper stickers from that era:
“Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark”
I spot a bumper-sticker market for:
“Let the Keep-it-in-the-Grounders and Fossil-Fuel-Divesters freeze in the dark”
Just when you think they can’t get any worse, the Westminster muppet show delivers more virtue signalling green and crap ideas to the sheep. In the same moment as Milipeed’s vehicle, the 2008 betrayal act transports the nation – to fossil fuel zeroed oblivion and freezing the population to death: no coal = no heat and guaranteed supply = no Britain.
Merry Christmas? NO, **** the lot of them.
“Last year fossil fuels accounted for 81.5% of primary energy consumption.”
Any MP who signs this pledge should lead by example and only use 18.5% of their normal electriciy usage. That should shut them up, spouting crap, for most of the time.
Poor old Jeremy Corbyn, if he does as he preaches and withdraws from using all Fossil Fuels, he will have to walk from Islington to the House of Commons, unless he greases his bike using animal fats. How is he going to cook all those organic vegetables he has grown on his allotment when he can only use renewable electricity? Raw Turnips can’t be very exciting. No more oil based plastic in his house, so out goes TV’s, Radios, Phones, Fridge, Washing Machine, Vacuum and just about anything useful.
A silly scenario I know, but modern life is fossil fuel based and if the 100 MPs think that forcing the MPs Pension Fund to divest is anything other than virtue signalling then they are even more stupid then I already know they are.
I often think that our politicians cannot betray us any more, and damn me, up pops another bent politician. I reckon it will not stop until we run out of money to pay for their too good lifestyle. They are just a band of thieves, quite willing to betray their Country to foreign despots for a share of the loot.
Divest? Fossil fuels alone are keeping us warm at present. How many old people do they wish to kill this and succeeding winters?
Fossil fuels do not “wreck the planet”. Socialist politicians wreck it, especially for the poor.
Fossil fuels do not cause “climate chaos”.
The IPCC states, “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”
Will they also divest from plastic bottle makers?
Will they divest from Supermarket packaging producers?
Will they divest from Utilities who charge three times the market rate for electric than they should because they take taxpayer subsidy to do so.
Will they divest from food production, agriculture and agri-chemical stocks – as they produce more so-called greenhouse gases than the fossil fuel industry.
Will they divest from biomass companies since they produce more particulates and CO2 than burning coal would.
Will they divest solar and wind companies who are taking subsidies from poor taxpayers and achieving nothing?
Posing fake ignorant lunatics.
Pure virtue signaling and nothing more. The ability to control social agenda through propaganda has become our new politics. News has gone to mushrooming people from informing them.