Xann Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 Quote Shell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years, company filings reveal. The oil giants, which have an annual global footprint of greenhouse gases more than five times bigger than Britain’s, are benefiting from billions of pounds of tax breaks and reliefs for oil and gas production. Shell and BP paid no corporation tax or production levies on North Sea oil operations between 2018 and 2020, and claimed tax reliefs of nearly £400m, according to annual “payments to governments” reports analysed by the Observer. Over the same three-year period, they paid shareholders more than £44bn in dividends. Grauniad Quote Nafeez Ahmed reveals that Alok Sharma, the British MP appointed head of the UN climate summit, received donations from a businessman behind a billion dollar oil and shipping company The UK’s President of COP26 has received donations from a business tycoon behind a billion-dollar oil drilling and shipping company, Byline Times can exclusively reveal. Alok Sharma, who was appointed head of COP26 – the latest UN climate summit to be held in Glasgow in the coming days – in January 2021, has been the Conservative MP for Reading West since 2010. According to data in the parliamentary register of financial interests, Sharma received a total of £10,000 from Dr Ravi Kumar Mehrotra, the executive chairman of Foresight Group International. Foresight Group is a billion-dollar, UK-based global conglomerate with interests in offshore and onshore oil drilling, port and gas infrastructure, and shipping. It also works closely with partners involved in climate science denial and pro-carbon lobbying, including oil giant ExxonMobil. The company’s chairman also has links to individuals involved in the Trump-Russia affair. The funds came in the form of two political donations of £5,000 in January 2020 and £5,000 in June 2017. Data from the Electoral Commission, seen by Byline Times, confirms that Dr Mehrotra also made three other donations to the Conservative Party – in November 2019, May 2017 and September 2008 – totalling £10,000. With operations spread across the UK, United Arab Emirates, China, India and Singapore, the Foresight Group operates oil tankers for the fossil fuel giant Exxon Mobil, which is one of the world’s biggest funders of climate science denial. Foresight runs oil rigs for the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. The UAE is a member of OPEC, which has recently been found to have attempted to water-down a forthcoming climate science assessment being prepared by scientists at the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Byline Times 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 1 hour ago, desensitized43 said: I think because a lot of the polling done now suggests if that referendum were held tomorrow knowing what we know now they all suggest a very different result means that artificially weighting your respondents to the result of that referendum immediately gives you a skewed outcome. Its like saying I’m going to weight my respondents based on the voting % from the election of 1997. You’ll get a load more labour people, less tories and thus a completely wrong outcome even though a lot of that original % for labour have either died off or changed to another side. It’s a really bonkers methodology. The question has to be asked - when are the media, polling organisations and the public going to stop being defined by a crazy day in 2016 and look at the here and now? It doesn't matter how people say they would vote in a hypothetical future european referendum, because there is no such referendum and this is a poll about voting intention in a general election. The reason for including someone's vote in 2016 in the weightings is because it is another check that you have an appropriate electoral composition - we know that leave voters were somewhat under-polled in the run-up to the 2016 vote, perhaps because some of the demographic factors that made someone more likely to vote leave made them harder to capture by poll, especially by online poll. It's not the only, or most important, way to do this, which is why it's only one of seven different weightings. It's not really like using voting perception from 1997, because 5 years is a lot less time and a lot more relevant than 24 years. It won't be justifiable to use the 2016 referendum as a weighting forever, and at a guess I imagine they'll drop it after the next election. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said: It doesn't matter how people say they would vote in a hypothetical future european referendum, because there is no such referendum and this is a poll about voting intention in a general election. The reason for including someone's vote in 2016 in the weightings is because it is another check that you have an appropriate electoral composition - we know that leave voters were somewhat under-polled in the run-up to the 2016 vote, perhaps because some of the demographic factors that made someone more likely to vote leave made them harder to capture by poll, especially by online poll. It's not the only, or most important, way to do this, which is why it's only one of seven different weightings. It's not really like using voting perception from 1997, because 5 years is a lot less time and a lot more relevant than 24 years. It won't be justifiable to use the 2016 referendum as a weighting forever, and at a guess I imagine they'll drop it after the next election. Does it? It means you have appropriate electoral composition from a date in mid 2016 but the farther away you get from mid 2016 the less relevant that becomes. You say they’ll drop it after the next election because it’s not relevant any more but it’s already irrelevant right now. Regardless, I’m not sure they will drop it. They’ll continue to reinforce this perception that the country is still 52-48 because it suits an agenda that all this horrible nasty stuff that’s happening is exactly what you all voted for and is completely legitimate and normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 5 minutes ago, desensitized43 said: Does it? It means you have appropriate electoral composition from a date in mid 2016 but the farther away you get from mid 2016 the less relevant that becomes. You say they’ll drop it after the next election because it’s not relevant any more but it’s already irrelevant right now. Regardless, I’m not sure they will drop it. They’ll continue to reinforce this perception that the country is still 52-48 because it suits an agenda that all this horrible nasty stuff that’s happening is exactly what you all voted for and is completely legitimate and normal. If you believe that YouGov are pushing 'an agenda that all this horrible nasty stuff that's happening is exactly what you all voted for and is completely legitimate and normal' then I doubt anything I will say will convince you otherwise, but I just don't agree with that premise, so we will have to agree to disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 What defines a pile on? Stinks of 'things we don't like can put you in prison'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister_a Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 20 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said: What defines a pile on? Stinks of 'things we don't like can put you in prison'. I guess it's dependent on whether the solution is better than the problem. Like someone once said, if you don't believe in cancel culture, do a twitter search for 'Find out where they work' Having said that, criminalising people for criticising bad decisions isn't really a good plan either. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said: What defines a pile on? Stinks of 'things we don't like can put you in prison'. It's a pile on if Owen Jones does it, but not if any other blue tick politics journalists do it. Happy to help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Looks like the online version of avoiding a difficult question by saying “I don’t like the tone of your question so will not answer it”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted November 1, 2021 Moderator Share Posted November 1, 2021 So the key then will be to make your pile on so large that prosecuting all thirty odd thousand of you will be too much of a pain for the CPS to take on? Or does it mean that Pritti can just pick out the faces she doesn't like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 *Strongly* recommend that somebody with a Times subscription actually reads the article in question, because it would not be anything like the first time that 'Politics For Ali' said something much stronger in the tweet than is actually in the article. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Looks like Boris and co have managed to screw up our “special relationship” with the USA too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 16 minutes ago, Genie said: Looks like Boris and co have managed to screw up our “special relationship” with the USA too. I mean, I think he’s got a point. The French helped with Independence didn’t they? It’s just a statement of calendar based fact. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rds1983 Posted November 1, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted November 1, 2021 1 hour ago, Genie said: Looks like Boris and co have managed to screw up our “special relationship” with the USA too. Give it time and they'll hate the French again. Gotta sell those Freedom Fries somehow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 Just now, Rds1983 said: Give it time and they'll hate the French again. Gotta sell those Freedom Fries somehow! Ah there’s no accounting for someone wanting to finish Daddies war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rds1983 Posted November 1, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted November 1, 2021 5 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Ah there’s no accounting for someone wanting to finish Daddies war. Remind me, how did that work out on the end? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 56 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Good to see Attenborough looking out for Johnsons health by wearing a mask whilst Johnson couldn't give a shit about anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 sex pest MP reinstated to tory party. Quote Mr Roberts was stripped of the whip after an independent Parliament panel found he broke the sexual misconduct policy by making repeated and unwanted advances Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted November 1, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted November 1, 2021 As pointed out by a number of people, that BBC article somewhat downplays his 'sex pest' credentials. The original details had him far more sinisterly harassing the staff member, including propositioning them when alone in a car with them and further pushing it in a 1-1 meeting he arranged with them, and acting like a jealous scorned lover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 (edited) 37 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: sex pest MP reinstated to tory party. Probably realised they risked alienating one of their core demographics. Would be like Labour kicking someone out for liking the unions. Or the Lib Dems adopting a no-sandles policy. Edited November 1, 2021 by ml1dch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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