WE are firmly in “silly season” – and there have been few sillier news stories than the UK Government urging the over-50s to get on their bikes – and do Deliveroo as a side hustle.
Hailing the flexible working patterns of gig-economy jobs like the food delivery firm, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride told The Times on a visit to Deliveroo’s London HQ: “There are loads of great opportunities out there for people and it’s of course good for people to consider options they might not have otherwise thought of.”
'Cut the green crap'
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have been enraged after eco protesters scaled the Prime Minister’s Yorkshire home while he is sunning himself in California – said to be his first proper holiday in four years – and draped it in oil-black fabric.
One Tory backbencher told the Daily Express: “I’d say shoot them. They are lucky. If they’d done that to an American president what they did today then they probably would have been shot.”
The UK police didn’t shoot the suspects but five people were arrested by North Yorkshire Police and later released on bail.
The Tories’ links with the fossil fuel industry have also been thrust into the spotlight this week after the Government announced it planned to “max out” North Sea oil reserves – drawing fury from green campaigners.
Rishi Sunak visited Aberdeenshire on Monday to announce plans to issue hundreds of new exploration licences to oil and gas firms.
We explored the ties between polluting industries and the Conservatives – finding that the Tories had received millions of pounds in donations from climate deniers and those with interests in fossil fuels.
To pick just one, Sir Michael Hintze – made a peer by former PM Boris Johnson last year – was revealed to be a a major backer and donor to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), an organisation which denies climate science. The GWFP describes itself as a think tank whose aims are to challenge what it calls "extremely damaging and harmful policies" to mitigate global warming.
Hintze gave £2,771,718 to the Tories between 2011 and 2023. Hintze also gave over £1.9m to the Tories between 2002 and 2018 registered under Mr Michael Hintze and Michael Hintze, including donations to Boris Johnson’s local Tory branch in Uxbridge and South Ruislip ahead of the 2019 General Election.
It's still Scotland's oil
The Tories spent the early part of the week valiantly trying to argue that drilling for every last drop of North Sea oil wasn’t at odds with their professed green targets.
Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie, the MP for West Aberdeenshire, said there was “no contradiction” in the Government’s stated eco ambitions and its unslakable thirst for Scottish oil.
He said: “We need to max out our reserves in the North Sea, we need to have maximum economic recovery from the North Sea, to ensure our energy security, to ensure we are more energy independent, to, ultimately, ensure we’ve got lower bills for consumers and that’s why we’re issuing the licences – because if we don’t explore and we don’t find the oil and gas, then we can’t extract it.”
While Sunak takes some time away from No 10 – albeit armed with some ministerial red boxes to keep him ticking over in between rides on the Disney Land rollercoasters – the machinery of Government stumbles on.
The new policy would squeeze 906 new people in fourteen hotels and the total revised maximum capacity would be 1863.
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman said: “The complacent, cruel and inhumane hotels policy has been a disaster.”
The Prime Minister did sound like a man in need of a vacation, as his tech bro friends in Cali would say.
Tetchy Rishi needs a holiday
A prickly PM lashed out at BBC presenter Martin Geissler before his visit to Aberdeen when he was pulled up on his reliance on fossil fuel guzzling flights to get around the country.
Geissler asked Sunak if he would be arriving via private jet.
“I’ll be flying as I normally would and that is the most efficient use of my time”, Sunak said.
He continued: “But again I think actually that question brings to life a great debate here. If you or others think that the answer to climate change is getting people to ban everything that they’re doing, to stop people flying, to stop people going on holiday, I think that’s absolutely the wrong approach.”
Geissler replied that it was a “do as I say not as I do” approach but Sunak continued to insist he had the wrong idea as he defended his use of a private jet.
We can only hope the PM comes back from his holidays in a better mood than when he left.
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