Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences
thelondoneconomic.com
thelondoneconomic.com
- Infosys already had a $100m/year contract with BP
- the new contract is 1.5b over 10 years, so a significant increase, but as part of the contract infosys becomes the primary IT partner for BP, therefore not an unimaginable increase
- Infosys's customers include Shell, Aramco, Chevron, and others. They're one of the top IT services company for the energy industry, so this isn't an outlandish customer for them to have
- Infosys's revenue in 2021 was $12b, making this contract ~1% of their annual revenue. The net increase over their previous contract is .4%
In short, this looks like a fairly standard contract from a provider that was already heavily represented in the industry and has an existing substantial investment with the customer - and one that doesn't materially impact the trajectory of the company. Other than the timing of the events, there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest inappropriate actions on anyone's part.
An honourable person would recuse himself from situations where even the suggestion of impropriety is possible. Sunak should not have been PM to start with.
False dilemma.
I remember there being a desire to build a concrete plant near my house when I grew up. When the council running the town had to put the meeting in the largest room they had, and people started poking through the whitewashing... it went away.
If I was a member of that zoning panel, I'd still not want it there. But if it is the best spot for the town... I am in conflict of interest.
These type of conflicts happen ALL the time.
People will never be lily white, and have no conflicts. And from what people are saying on the size of the deal, etc.. .it may have been in the works before he became PM. These type of deals don't happen over night.
People will never be squeaky clean, but from the highest office in the land one must expect better than whiffs of dodgy multi-billion deals. If one can't possibly shake that whiff, s/he shouldn't be in that office.
If you're in a position of power, you're going to have relationships where there might be the appearance of impropriety for anything - and you may not even know there would be the suggestion of impropriety until after the fact.
Infosys has 40 clients w/ greater than $100m/year contracts, which they don't enumerate individually, but from skimming the internet, it looks like oil and gas, banking, manufacturing, and tech companies all potentially fit into that bucket - so should he recuse himself from everything that is related to any of those industries?
Before he was married into Infosys, he was a banker and presumably has lots of relationships with these large companies regardless - should he recuse himself from anything that might touch any of those large companies? Not a rhetorical question, I'm trying to understand what the criteria is.
Care you expand more? I thought (granted, without any evidence) he's poised better compared to his predecessors. Better in what way? Well, not a clown; lasted more than 45 days -- neither of which, I admit, is not high praise.
So, I thought he was maybe a decent chap. I'd be interested in any pointers au contraire.
Regardless, I agree on the recusal part: Caesar's wife must be above all suspicion.
The end of Truss should have meant an election, we're all killing time to ensure MPs collect a few more paychecks. The project has been cancelled but the contractors are still here.
What does that mean?
His wife isn't in government, and AFAIK Sunak owns no part of Infosys.
What she makes is as his as hers.
For the purposes of public office or even a CEO at a publicly traded company, the appearance of a conflict is no difference than a material conflict.
It is pretty clear that Sunak is toast and that the people around him simply don't care anymore.
> A firm founded by Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law signed a billion-dollar deal with BP two months before the prime minister opened hundreds of new licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea.
That angle doesn’t make sense if you realize that the firm is an IT company, not a company that is involved in oil and gas extraction.
I'm pretty sure lotsofpulp's underlying question is, how would that - or any divestment - work when it's the PM's father-in-law which has the shares and is chairman emeritus?
Are all relatives within distance X supposed to divest? And if not, you can't become PM? Hopefully they all like you enough!
You might as well argue steal whatever I like because it's a tiny percentage of GDP.
And from a practical standpoint, any honest politician should want to avoid it, if nothing else to avoid arguing about bullshit from a defensive stance. So there is very much an argument that smoke needs careful fire investigation.
The next step down the this road, of course, is arguing that people are above reproach precisely because of their position. "When the President does it, it's not illegal", etc. Corrupting a government is a process, if you look at other corrupt countries, comparisons are an easy way to sort of spot, "you are here."
Doesn't that seem ... stupid? To put the onus on the people who have no access to any communications or details about what looks like corruption? It's my opinion that without forcing them to do everything in the open and prove to us that there is no quid pro quo, you're going to end up with Soviet USSR style government real fast.
I'm sure this is "business as usual" but ... maybe it shouldn't be?
By your line of logic, if Elizabeth Warren votes for something that benefits Harvard, that’s improper without any evidence that Harvard is giving her something in return.
Doesn't matter if it only impacts a relatively small portion of his family's immense wealth. The level of tolerance for that should be zero.
The latter is illegal but barely enforced. I predict that if the situation continues the country will simply implode.
The left will no doubt blame Brexit, but the left is equally incompetent to the ruling right (if not more, since their go to solution is even higher tax hikes).
The switch from FPTP to a proportional ranked voting system needs to happen for its democracy to be sustain itself in the future.
Proportional voting doesn’t change that.
> Proportional voting doesn’t change that.
Yes, it does. That is, proportional electoral systems increase the diversity of viable and represented parties, so if “the opposition” is bad in an FPTP system with the narrow set of parties it supports (can be as small as two, but regional dynamics will sometimes make it more nationally), proportional representation very much is a solution.
There are 11 parties represented (12 that have won seats, but Sinn Fein is Sinn Fein), not counting independents, in the House of Commons.
> The switch from FPTP to a proportional ranked voting system needs to happen for its democracy to be sustain itself in the future.
Don’t disagree with this, though.
The company, Infosys is his father in laws (his wife does have shares), and as far as I can see there is no link between this IT contract and North Sea oil rights. But maybe I'm wrong and it a simple bribe, but I doubt it.
Fundamentally though, a billionaire should not be a political leader, too much opportunity of corruption or the appearance of it.
Its not bribery, by any means, but I think its definitely noteworthy that these pressures / considerations may be involved
Another way to look at it is that they're _more likely_ to be corrupt because they have an insatiable appetite to amass as much money as possible. They're "wired differently" from the average person.
Anyone who is a billionaire has enough money that they could cease working and live in extravagant wealth the rest of their life.
Quite the contrary, the richer a person is, the harder they are to corrupt (both in theory - need more money to sway them - as in practice - much cheaper to corrupt someone else), and the less they care about being corrupted (they can afford to follow their principles, e.g. Musk buying Twitter even though it doesn’t make financial sense, or Gates giving his wealth away).
That is quite a lot view of non-rich citizens. A lot have morals as baseline for corruption, beyond the cash / assets we hold.
Perhaps by outside forces, but what about corrupt practices that furthers their own private interests in exclusion of the e.g. country they're leading?
to a certain point
obviously if the only thing a person cares about is "more money" (which, in a billionaire's case, is self-evident), you can assume they'll do _anything_ for _even a little bit_ of money
see: extremely wealthy people never tipping
Everyone says "everyone has a price" but we have examples of normal people being given the opportunity to have way more power and giving it up for the greater good (for example, smedly butler who was supposed to become some sort of supreme leader in a fascist plot, but turned the conspirators in instead, and basically got no reward for doing so, and the conspirators largely went unpunished)
The public at large see a rich person with an opportunity to grow their wealth through politics. You may well be right, and that is the (original) concept behind the House of Lords, but as with everything in politics its appearance that matters.
Also it's not always about them being corrupted, it can be them as the corrupting force.
I would say: beware of the principles of those who wield power and have little common cause with you.
At government level, it tends to be less obvious. I often wonder about how the honest people in government carry on, being close to the action (maybe like working for an aid agency and having to accept that X percentage of the aid is going to be diverted along the way).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66340991
Edit: in the same vein, I see "War is a racket" has been submitted today.
Also it's probably a reach to claim that an Indian IT outsourcing bodyshop made the UK drill for oil and natural gas in the North Sea.
Basically, working in positions of governmental power should not have any kind of financial interest in anything they have power over, otherwise it will muddy their ability to govern in a way that is the best interest of the public.
I'm a bit disturbed that this is not common, accepted knowledge.
Sunak's wife is the daughter of the Infosys founder. According to Wikipedia:
> She holds a 0.93-per-cent stake in Infosys, along with shares in several other British businesses
> The CEO of one of Infosys' other major clients, Shell, also joined Rishi Sunak's new business council two weeks ago.
Gasp, CEO of one of biggest oil companies joined a Prime Minister's business council...call the cops! Again, Infosys had already worked with Shell for a long time.
Have a look at other articles on this website...it's an outrage blog designed to extract money by playing with people's emotions and intellect. The kind of "journalists" that deserve to be permanently laid off.
Whoever heard of 'The London Economic' anyway? Seems like a digital tabloid. Flagged because of above, and I can't see what decent discussion can possibly be had between the inevitable political flaming.
(clearly talking about the states here... my exposure to illicit payments to government officials in the UK is limited.)