Robert Halfon, a former minister and select committee chair, labeled oil company bosses “the new oligarchs”.
He said: “The oil bosses are earning multi-million-pound salaries and getting multi-million-pound bonuses. They are in essence, in my view, the new oligarchs.”
So stupid he seems to have made his career in the wrong political party all these years.
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) ‘rule by few’; from ὀλίγος (olígos) ‘few’, and ἄρχω (arkho) ‘to rule or to command’) is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people.
Oligarchy has nothing to do with money. The top of the Nomenclatura in the USSR were oligarchs, without much money.
The oil CEOs have very little power. These days, with the love for everything green, they tend to almost have negative power. If they have any power, it will be in places like Nigeria, not the West.
They are simply rich people.
yes, Chester, and that is the point…
If they had any real power a mere blustering politician wouldn’t be gunning for their money, but be cosying up to them making puppy noises.
in the wrong political party
You think?
Not an idiot at all; a designated public enemy is a common way to shift blame and attention because it works.
Definitely preferable to admitting you f***** the economy, society, energy industry etc and have no ideas beyond staying in power. Given the path of the country and Tory party, expect more enemies to be appointed in future.
I’ve yet to hear any of the oil companies take the seemingly reasonable position of, ‘yup, by all means tax us exceptionally now, but we’ll be back for exceptional help when we lose money in the future’.
Surely this sort of deal cuts both ways doesn’t it ?
“Polling finds that giving everyone other people’s money is ‘wildly popular’ with the public. Who knew.
@Worzel
Remember UK Govt helping BP when Obama was strangling them? Or helping them in 2020 & 2021 when Gov’t crashed economy?
Me neither
Bow Group chap talking semse
Cost-of-living crisis: ‘We need to trim public spending’ says Bow Group Research Fellow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgQzOUAUto
Yes. Massive reduction in public sector starting with sacking all the 2020-2022 new hire NHS staff and all foreign aid – that’s short term fix. Reduce Taxes from next Monday. Deregulate, de-H&S, de-Green-Crap, permit fracking from Monday…
The argument about “Privatising profits and socialising losses” certainly works for the banking/finance industry, but less so for the oil industry where the key metric is margin over the barrel.
I don’t remember the oil companies being given a helping hand from UK government when the oil price was in the toilet for extended periods over the last few decades. Then it was about trimming the sails, mass redundancies, oil rigs mothballed and exploration of new fields abandoned or put on hold.
So yes, if we’re going to talk about windfall profits it needs to be determined how much of that was the oil companies doing their jobs well and opportunistically generating profits rather than just profits falling into their lap because they are involved in oil and gas at the right time.
*Disclaimer* – I worked as a consultant to numerous energy companies (oil, gas and power) from the late 1990’s through until 2015.
@Pcar
You forgot: Scrap HS2.
@Chris
Damn. Bad me. Thanks Scrap ‘Northern Powerhouse’ state planning & spending too. BBC Manchester has been a disasrous money pit
At least Johnson’s bridge to NI has vanished, I wonder why?