Money, money, money: Green Tory MPs are looking to board the green gravy train
By Paul Homewood
Tory MPs are already war-gaming what follows the election. Defeat seems certain, but then what? There will be an almighty tussle in which up to 200 colleagues scramble for a handful of the same sort of jobs: consultancies, directorships and advisory gigs. In these Tory Hunger Games, the clever thing to do is to start taking the best jobs now.
Chris Skidmore, for example, is not hanging about. His 14 years in parliament involved a three-month stint as interim energy minister, after which he wrote a book about net zero. The green job offers came thick and fast. He was made a professor of practice in net zero policy at Bath University and bagged two £80,000-a-year advisory gigs, all while collecting his full-time MP’s salary representing constituents in Kingswood. Only politics can turn someone without any formal qualifications into a professor and consultant.
Skidmore started his lucrative new life while he was still tied to his old one. After Rishi Sunak suggested an autumn election, he stood down from his seat, ostensibly over the decision to drill in the North Sea. Kings-wood faces a pointless £250,000 by-election before the seat is abolished by the constituency boundary changes later this year.
Skidmore is not the only MP who has turned himself into a green king of the private sector. Take Alok Sharma, the former business secretary, who has also vented outrage about the North Sea drilling decision. Sunak, he proclaimed, is guilty of ‘chopping and changing’ climate policies, reinforcing ‘the unfortunate perception about the UK rolling back from climate action’. He didn’t say why he disagreed with the government’s logic that it is cleaner and greener to use what’s left in the North Sea than to import Liquefied Natural Gas from Qatar and America.
Only a cynic who witnessed the tears Sharma shed as COP26 president would doubt the sincerity of his fury. But it’s worth noting that his eco-earnings now dwarf his humble salary as a backbencher. After standing down from the COP presidency 14 months ago, he too announced plans to quit parliament. Like Skidmore, Sharma did not wait until the election to start bagging second jobs. Since September, he has been advising the Swedish bank SEB on ‘geo-political and economic trends, green finance, carbon transition and strategic issues’. The price of his expertise is £1,000 an hour.
On the speaking circuit, he’s billed as an expert on ‘sustainable investing’ and the ‘energy transition’. He has so far earned £95,000 extolling their virtues for the likes of UBS and JP Morgan, travelling to places as far afield as Abu Dhabi and Sydney. Sir Alok’s online profile makes two references to his knighthood, but no mention of the fact that he is still a serving member of parliament for Reading West.
Since David Cameron was elected on his ‘vote blue, go green’ slogan, a third of all former energy ministers have cashed in on their purported eco-expertise. Perhaps the record for speediness was set by Claire Perry O’Neill, a former aide to George Osborne, who ended up in parliament and the cabinet. After she was ousted as COP president in favour of Sharma in early 2020, it took her just six days to file documents to set up her eponymous consultancy firm. Last year, the company boasted net assets of £244,000.
Chris Huhne, the former Lib Dem MP for Eastleigh and secretary of state for energy and climate change at the start of the co-alition government, has reinvented himself as a major player in the UK biogas energy sector. Prior to returning to parliament in 2017, Ed Davey, Huhne’s successor and the current Lib Dem leader, advised MHP Communications when it boasted EDF Energy on its books. Greg Barker, a junior minister under Huhne and Davey, went to work for the oligarch Oleg Deripaska at his firm EN+ as it prepared for the green transition; Nick Hurd, one-time climate change minister in Theresa May’s government, now advises investment firms Pollination and i(x) Net Zero. The millionaire Zac Goldsmith is fortunate enough not to need such means of employment.
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They cannot even lie in bed straight.
I’m surprised it is only a third of all former energy ministers who have cashed in. Of course not one of them has any expertise in the field of energy.
As with all things in politics, it’s not what you know but who you know. Their contacts in the civil service will be enough
And their clients have an even smaller grasp of the subject than they have managed to glean from a skim read of their departmental briefing papers, especially the section at the back about how to waffle your way past awkward questions.
Probably worth checking how many receive financial “support” from Zac Goldsmith or others of similar persuasion.
On to the next Trough!
It’s amazing and breathtaking that such a network of remuneration fabricated out of nothing can mushroom in such a short time.
Slightly O/T but over on the Climate Disinformation Channel (a.k.a. the Grauniad) Silly Jilly has been exhibiting her own stupidity.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/11/worlds-renewable-energy-capacity-grew-at-record-pace-in-2023
Despite 2022 global generating capacity of 1,400GW Hydro, 1,177GW Solar and 900GW Wind, apparently an increase of just 507GW represents a 50% total capacity increase!?!
The graphic is equally amusing showing that, according to the Graun, wind turbine capacity in 2022 decreased from its 2021 figure only to miraculously increase again in 2023. I wonder who exactly tore down all that capacity only to put it back up again?
As can be seen by silly Jilly’s lack of understanding of basic SI units and not knowing the difference between capacity and generation, the article reads like gibberish…..or more likely intentional DISINFORMATION.
I have contacted the Graun for their comments but, as they banned me from commenting years ago, I doubt they will respond.
Coming over the Horizon to an election Booth near you: the G&T Party ( Green&Tax Party )
To repeat my comment on another thread: my MP wrote to me and said CO2 was a pollutant. I have written and asked for clarification but…crickets.
A contaminant is something that isn’t normally there; a pollutant is a contaminant that does harm. So in their book, the extra CO2 is a contaminant, and its putative warming does harm.
Max, knowing how thick some MPs are I wouldn’t be surprised if they took that logic further (warming harms) and wanted to get rid of CO2 altogether. Of course, we’d die – but probably freeze to death before that.
Chris Huhne is a convicted criminal after pleading guilty to perverting the cause of justice over a speeding offence, bringing down his ex wife with him. Enough said
And within six weeks of getting out of the nick landed a six figure salary for a few hours a week as some Drax functionary dealing with the import of wood chips from the US…
You or I would have problems getting a job as a toilet cleaner with a pedigree like that.
The filth look after their own.
It’s a big well filled trough of green money and Huhne has the snout to fit.
I’ve got three points I would like to take on Chris Huhne but… oh it appears someone already has!
Don’t forget Charles Hendry who went from Energy Minister to Chair of Forewind (the original developer of Dogger Bank wind) in record time.
Amber Rudd is a non-exec Director at Centrica and a trustee of The Climate Group.
Bring back Harold Wilson’s selective employment tax, but apply it to all green jobs, plus all DEI and ESG jobs. And raise the rate to 100%.
“And raise the rate to 100%.”
No make it the equivalent of whatever is above minimum wage as that would expose what are clearly delayed brides masquerading as jobs.
I now wonder why I got such poor advice as a young student. Not one advisor suggested I should become a politician. Can I sue?
Crown Immunity
Easy starter for ten… Arts and Appliances…. From which gov-funded organisation has the following within its constitution?
‘Monitoring of fundraising activities and protecting people in vulnerable circumstances
– We have processes in place, endorsed by our board of trustees, which govern our fundraising
activities. In addition we have comprehensive compliance and quality control frameworks that we use
to monitor adherence to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), the behaviour of agencies,
their staff and our in-house teams and fundraisers, and the conversations they have on our behalf,
with both supporters and members of the public. This includes thorough due diligence and audit,
regular training sessions, shadowing and mystery shopping, site visits, call listening, quality control
calls, and monitoring of outcomes, complaints and remedial actions. Our aim is to ensure that our
supporters feel informed, genuinely thanked and inspired by all interaction we have with them.’?
King’s College Christ, Baxter-Values Thorpe… ‘Chessington!?’
No, a picture round, …
https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-12/WWF-UK%20Annual%20Report%20and%20Financial%20Statements%202020-21_web.pdf , funded via £Millions of taxed dosh.