Picture it, if Scotland’s Cambo oil field is drilled, we can sit in our pants in our toasty homes, unencumbered by crippling fuel poverty.
Billions in taxes from Shell will rain down on the poor of this land, as united we cry: “ Putin, shove your oil back up your pipe.”
This is the dream, Shell and its PR cronies will be selling us now the energy giant is “reconsidering” its decision to pull out of the Cambo oilfield development off Shetland.
I say dream but, of course, I mean lie. Think Pinocchio if his nose could be seen from space.
Shell has also resubmitted plans to drill the North Sea’s Jackdaw field, named fittingly after the thieving git of the bird world.
Yep, COP26 is over, the TV crews have gone home and Shell can drop the pretence and get back on the hunt for liquid gold.
And there can be no better point in time to “reconsider” striking up the big polluters of Cambo and Jackdaw than when a war is raging in Europe.
Nothing plays into the hands of big corporations like war, the perfect opportunity for disaster capitalists to swoop in, exploit collective panic and turn it into profits.
So here we are, six million people in the UK in fuel poverty and along comes the bogey man Putin to carry all the blame.
The Russian invasion has pushed up global oil prices but we had a chittering population surviving off food banks long before the invasion of Ukraine.
In Britain, about four per cent of gas and eight per cent of oil comes from Russia, far lower than any of our European neighbours. And we are not as dependent on Russia as we are being made to believe.
And Cambo is not about plugging our energy gap.
Shell declared £14.5billion in profits for 2021 on the same day in February as Ofgem increased the energy price cap by 54 per cent.
The ability to reduce fuel bills already lies in the hands of the energy firms but a polar bear will be dancing in George Square before that happens. Shell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for years.
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 £400million.
The UK has some of the lowest oil tax rates in the world and we are paying some of the highest fuel bills in the world.
Neither Cambo nor Jackdaw would produce oil for years and Cambo holds heavy crude oil which is virtually unusable in the UK.
With 80 per cent of the oil extracted in the UK exported, the benefit to the UK of drilling Cambo is negligible.
The only way to reduce our dependence on corporate, Russian and Saudi dictators is through solutions such as renewables and insulation.
In Glasgow, Queens Cross housing association refurbished blocks of 1960s high rises and made them so environmentally friendly, energy demand was slashed by 80 per cent.
The project cost £16million but that’s nothing to the cost of flattening the buildings and starting again, and some tenants haven’t switched on their heating for years.
Solutions are already available and need to be rolled out not just to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and save the planet but to take away the debilitating cruelty of fuel poverty suffered by millions in the UK.
There is a Russian saying “I ran from the wolf but ran into a bear”.
And if we change our thinking we can be released from the grip of Putin without tightening the stranglehold of greedy energy giants.
P&O, fire and rehire and a sinking feeling
The management of P&O ferries must know they are lower than a pimple on a snake’s belly when the Tories are condemning them.
But look past the mock outrage of Tory ministers threatening prosecution and remember this is a party which celebrates callous treatment of workers by “market forces”.
Hundreds of companies across Britain have been allowed to execute the same policy of fire and rehire, just not so crudely.
This obscene money-grabbing tactic has been used for years and the same Tories now condemning P&O could have stopped this vile practice years ago.
A year ago – better late than never – Labour MP Barry Gardiner drafted a Stop Fire and Rehire Bill, which would have penalised employers who failed to negotiate with their workforce.
It would have allowed P&O workers to secure an injunction to reverse the sackings but the Tory Government blocked the Bill.
The biggest mistake P&O ferries made was to fire its employees by video while firms like British Gas, Tesco and British Airways were polite enough to ruin workers’ lives to their faces.
Can’t shake off shame
Kate and Wills can shake their maracas all they want on their Caribbean tour but they can’t distract from the brutality of 300 years of colonial rule.
A letter signed by Jamaican leaders said the Royals’ predecessors “perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind” and that they weren’t welcome.
Unless they have an apology and reparations for the UK’s part in slavery, the Royals should get back on the plane.
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