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Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

thelondoneconomic.com

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Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#51

Post by olddustytrail »

rayiner wrote: post #13
toyg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the structural problem with the likes of Sunak being in government: maybe it's all legitimate business, but because of his role it looks bad, and there is no real way to prove it one way or the other. 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.

[flagged]

It's astonishing that you think that ordinary people in first world countries are "unsuccessful".

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#52

Post by hristov »

krona wrote: post #19
bparsons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still a conflict of interest. In most non-corrupt countries, the politician would have to disclose and recuse themselves of any decision impacting the interested party.

> It is still a conflict of interest. His wife isn't in government, and AFAIK Sunak owns no part of Infosys.

If his wife owns part of Infosys, he essentially owns it too. Married couples tend to share their assets. Furthermore, his wife is a citizen of India, infosys is domiciled in india and indian courts tend to split marital assets in the middle in the case of a divorce.

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#54

Post by cowpig »

Apparently many of the commenters here are not familiar with the concept of a blind trust[0] or of people in positions of power recusing themselves from decisions in which they have a conflict of interest[1].

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.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_trust

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#55

Post by OJFord »

'A company founded by his father in law' is not '[his] family firm', the article doesn't improve from there.

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.

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#56

Post by eldavojohn »

mattzito wrote: post #4

This feels like a nothingburger: - 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 o…

So you're effectively arguing that quid pro quo isn't quid pro quo if you can't prove the counterfactual (that this contract would have happened without drilling rights)?

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?

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#57

Post by tgv »

tomp wrote: post #24
samwillis wrote: post #6

As much as I don't trust the current and recent crop of senior UK government politicians, this is a editorialised title. 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 mu…

> Fundamentally though, a billionaire should not be a political leader, too much opportunity of corruption or the appearance of it. 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 T…

So something like robber barons never happened? They were so rich, they didn't need to conspire.

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#58

Post by localplume »

gumballindie wrote: post #3

They also reinstated IR35 regulation that favours his wife’s Infosys outsourcing firm. The UK is such a dysfunctional country that I wouldnt be surprised if the government would simply decriminalise corruption and influence peddling in particular. 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 e…

[dead]

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#59

Post by richbell »

schnable wrote: post #20
samwillis wrote: post #6

As much as I don't trust the current and recent crop of senior UK government politicians, this is a editorialised title. 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 mu…

Is a billionaire really more likely to be corrupt? The marginal value of money is much lower for them. It's much more interesting when people of modest wealth enter politics and become wealthy while in office, or shortly after leaving.

> The marginal value of money is much lower for them.

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.

Re: Sunak’s family firm signed deal with BP before opening new North Sea licences

#60

Post by Valodim »

olddustytrail wrote: post #51
rayiner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's astonishing that you think that ordinary people in first world countries are "unsuccessful".

It seems fair to compare to folks from the same country in this context, no?
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