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

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 10:31 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #71

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…

Isn’t it better for billionaires to be political leaders than career bureaucrats, academics, or bartenders?

Post by tzs » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #9

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…

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.

Post by Abel54 » Wed, Aug 02, 2023, 1:43 PM UTC

Abel54 wrote: post #68

Thanks for sharing.

Post by toyg » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 8:27 AM UTC

mattzito wrote: post #48

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.

I'm not from the UK, so I don't have a deep understanding of the dynamics of politics there, but it seems like avoiding all situations where even the suggestion of impropriety is impractical for just about everybody who might be in a position to be PM. 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…