BP executive Nick Butler, who was one of the deputation to No 10 on the Wednesday after Blair’s declaration that the fuel crisis would be over within 24 hours, is also a member of the Fabian Society and friend of Mandelson. When oil prices were dropping in 1998, Mandelson said he would `not sit back and watch the decline of the UK oil and gas industry under the impact of a low world oil price’, and promptly set up a task force of oil executives to look into it. The task force is presumably redundant now. But the appointments go on:
- Blair brought in Shell chair Mark Moody-Stuart to chair the Renewable Energy task force because of his `valuable business expertise’ and `interest in promoting renewable technology’.
- BP’s group managing director Bryan Sanderson is chair of the Learning and Skills Council in charge of adult education. Blunkett said the appointment was `at the heart of our agenda to create a prosperous and inclusive society.’ He is also on the Industrial Development Advisory Board
- Blunkett also put Stella Earnshaw, outgoing regional finance head at Shell, back on the Funding Agency for Schools. Shell plays a leading role in the Lambeth Education Action Zone, apparently to introduce `radical ways of working’. BP is supposed to perform the same role in South West Essex Business and Education Partnership.
- Education Minister Estelle Morris recently spoke at an Esso `numeracy conference’. Charles Clarke, Home Office Minister, launched a school pack made by Esso and others, designed to get students to `understand the responsibilities of business in the community’, for which no doubt they are thankful.
- Former Shell executive John Hastie and former head of BP John Morgan were co-opted by George Robertson to help sort out the army. Blair then made them chair and member respectively of the Oil and Pipeline Agency which oversees the MoD’s bulk fuel transportation
- Bryan Grote, executive vice president of BP, is a member of the Public Services Productivity Panel which advises the likes of the NHS on how to `maximise value for money’.
This is government by the oil industry on behalf of the oil industry. Socialist Worker may complain that `New Labour won’t challenge the oil company bosses’, but the ruling class does not put Labour governments into power for that purpose. As we have said time and again, Labour is an active and committed partner to developments which are designed to give free rein to capitalist interests whilst shackling the working class and poor with an evermore oppressive regime. Multinationals, and especially the oil industry, expect to see their representatives at the heart of government, determining policy, ensuring that their interests are defended, on both a global and a national scale. This is the nature of government in the period of globalisation.
Robert Clough
FRFI 157 October / November 2000
