Tuesday
Jun112013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Lilley is new chair of ECC
Jun 11, 2013 Climate: Parliament Congratulations to Peter Lilley, who has been appointed chairman of the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee.
Peter Lilley is the new Chair of the DECC - first meeting today at 9am - open to the public at 10am (Thatcher Room)
Update on Jun 11, 2013 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Leo Hickman tweets that the appointment is temporary. Presumably until Yeo has cleared his name.
Snigger.
Update on Jun 11, 2013 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Or perhaps it's temporary while the commitee as a whole elects a new chairman.
Update on Jun 11, 2013 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Barry Gardiner has just tweeted that Sir Robert Smith (a LibDem) has been elected chairman.
How confusing.
Reader Comments (71)
Here we go again...
Robert Smith MP, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine
voted strongly for the policy
Stop climate change....
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=40645&dmp=1030
Another climate change alarmist.
@omnologos
Your tale of the Ediacaran animals is instructive, but it involves a fairly abstruse branch of science with little impact on people outside the specialist field. Unfortunately, AGW is a much more widely and deeply entrenched dogma, since it has become part of the mainstream and is taught to children from a very early age. And many of the "recognized experts" in the case of AGW are politically motivated ideologues who view those opposing the consensus as politically motived ideologues.
This Sir Robert? Who voted very strongly for "climate change" legislation?
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/robert_smith/west_aberdeenshire_and_kincardine
Not much succour there!
johanna
"Few genuinely rich people..."
But would we want to be represented by such people? The ones we've got are detached enough!
johanna
Yes, I knew about the blind trusts; they have cropped up with regard to UK politicians in recent years. I simply didn't want to complicate the post.
Your other point is well taken. This is the direct effect of government inflation both at national and local level. A snapshot of the House of Commons — members, occupations, activity as well as government departments, ministers (number of) — for the month of June 50, 60 and 80 years ago (I exclude 1943; there were other things going on!) would be very instructive.
Small businessmen probably didn't go into parliament then, but they did go into local government. And, yes, I know we can't turn the clock back 80 years but are we any better governed now with the plethora of laws (many contradictory) and professional parliamentarians who know nothing except politics?
The majority now are people who a) want to be politicians; b) follow the same path: school-university-political aide/think tank/junior civil servant-ministerial advisor-safe seat. Do we really want to be governed by people like that?
Funny. In the 30 seconds people thought it was Lilley, people with Hessian underpants, cardigans and a copy of the Guardian on their coffee table were tweeting about how many share options Lilley has in oil companies.
OK, I see, Peter Lilley's share interest in an oil company count against him, whereas Sir Robert Smith's interest in an engineering company that produces equipment for oil companies doesn't count against him.
I'm glad that's all clear.
Mike, I don't know what the profiles over time are for the UK parliament. But, I do know that the best and most successful Labor government of the last 50 years (the Hawke government) included in its Ministry an ex-shearer, a couple of farmers and former small time professionals/business people like suburban GPs and caterers. There is almost no-one in the entire parliamentary party today who is in those categories, let alone on the front bench. They are currently polling 30% of the vote. The other side is a bit more diverse, but the trend is in the same direction as far as composition goes.
The Spiked website has run some good articles over the last few years about the disconnect between the political class and those that they purport to represent.
I don't know what the solution is.
johanna: This data, which I think is common throughout the (so-called) West, and the non-ideological, evidence-based approach it presupposes, are both right on the mark for me. To take Wikipedia on Milton Friedman right out of context:
We need better hypotheses here. And, through paying attention to the evidence, better realism about human nature, rulers and voters alike.
Smith has a holding in Shell worth £66k - now that's a conflict of interest, surely!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10112675/Lobby-row-Tim-Yeo-replacement-Sir-Robert-Smith-has-66000-shares-in-Shell.html
@: Jun 11, 2013 at 5:31 PM | diogenes
Oil companies are very diverse.
Shell are very much into green energy.
Recently, they were campaigning against shale gas exploration in the UK. No doubt, shale gas exploration would be against their interests in green projects.
A little while back, but I wonder if Sir Robert took notice of the headlines at the time and sold has his Rio Tinto shares.
Blood money: the MPs cashing in on Zimbabwe's misery
Sunday 29 June 2008
Sir Robert Smith, Lib Dem MP for Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine, has shares in Rio Tinto and Shell.
Rio Tinto has a diamond mine at Murowa.
Labour MP John Mann said: "Politicians profiting from the blood of the Zimbabwean people need to consider their position. What this shows is that greed for money supersedes moral responsibility." Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb said: "It is a despicable attitude to put personal interests before the interests of the people of Zimbabwe."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blood-money-the-mps-cashing-in-on-zimbabwes-misery-856583.html
I'm a shareholder in Tethys, of which Lilley is a director. It has no interests in the UK, all are in the 'stans (Tajik, Kazakh and Uzbekh). It's a UK / Canadian company but has only just started generating a profit. Its Tajikstan holding - which could include rather a lot of gas - has been farmed out to Total and the Chinese national oil company, such that Tethys now owns a third of it. I have no idea where Tethys will pay its corporation taxes, but any profits will certainly not be at the expense of UK taxpayers,
And its Kazakh field is called 'Doris'. Splendid.
stun: Thank you for that hard data as we mull it all over. Doesn't sound at the same level of relevance as Yeo's interest in the Eurotunnel interconnector, does it now?
Or, as I mentioned on another thread= eco taxis.
Why do Conservatives hand over a chair to a party that disappeared in parts of the country in the May election ?
Robert Smith?
Cripes, I fear this is a hollow victory for realists, when Yeo is rated against Smith, Smith an EU fanatic and fundamentalist adherent, seated in the front pews in the church of the man made global warming - by comparison, Yeo is of the heterodoxy of scepticism.
This is no victory, the Libdumbs must be cock-a-hoop.
Britain, the nation - loses again.
Well done omnologos. The story of Reg Sprigg is little known, even in Australia. I met him in the early 70's at Arkaroola where I managed (after great time and expense) to snaffle a female who worked there. Married her a year later.
I think the notion that just because someone has shares in something it is a conflict of interest is way too simplistic. For example, most Australians indirectly benefit from the mining boom because of the shares their superannuation funds hold. Is that a conflict of interest? Is that a bad thing?
Further, the green lobby is currently on a campaign to pressure organisations like universities and super funds to divest from evil shareholdings such as those in conventional energy companies. This sort of blackmail is not a tactic that anyone should applaud.
It is one thing if people choose to invest their money with a view to "saving the planet". But, organisations that have a fiduciary duty (like super funds) should never allow themselves to compromise members' hard earned contributions because some pressure group doesn't like some company. Where does it end? They should be told to bugger off.
In the same way, I don't see why a politician holding shares (as long as they are declared) in a successful company should be regarded as corrupt - as long as he/she doesn't make decisions that affect that company too closely. Otherwise, we get back to the position that the only people who can hold office are ex-public servants and party jobsworths.
Grant
"to snaffle a female"
Is that a euphemism..? :-)
"I think Yeo's problem is that he (allegedly) sold influence. Deben's is that he misrepresented his interests to Parliament." BH
The other problem with Deben is that he is closely tied up, as President, with GLOBE International, an extra-parliamentary group of highly influential politicians, including Barry Gardiner as Vice-President, (http://www.globeinternational.org/index.php/blog/item/barry-gardiner-mp). GLOBE was referred to in this Register article from 2010, about Lord Oxburgh,
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/24/climategate_oxburgh_globe/). "GLOBE's worldwide secretary Elliott Morley and its British branch secretary David Chaytor were two of three MPs to face criminal charges last week. Brent MP Barry Gardiner, co-chairman of the GLOBE Dialogue on Land Use Change & Ecosystems claimed for a second home eight miles from Westminster, and worked the system for £200,000."
Advisory committee member Ian Johnson is a colleague of Lord Stern at IdeaCarbon and General Secretary of the Club of Rome, http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=946.
Their Chief Economist is Dr Sam Fankhauser, also a member of Deben's Climate Change Committee, colleague of Lord Stern at LSE Grantham, recent colleague of his at IdeaCarbon and a promoter of a Low Carbon economy:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/whosWho/Staff/SamFankhauser.aspx
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/fankhaus/
Check out the GLOBE website and browse through it to see the influence they have:
http://www.globeinternational.org/index.php/about-globe
It matters not what we see in public, behind the scenes these people are meeting constantly and pushing the cause.
But of course, that's just a conspiracy theory....