Balcombe MP Francis Maude
Balcombe MP Francis Maude appointed Lord Browne, a director of Cuadrilla Resource Holdings Ltd, to the Cabinet Office in June 2010.
The Cuadrilla executive ‘works closely‘ with the cabinet office board, chaired by Maude, in his role as ‘lead non-executive’.
On appointing Browne, Maude said: “his experience will be a real benefit to make Whitehall work in a more businesslike manner”.
In January Maude visited Balcombe to talk to consitutents concerned about hydraulic fracturing in the village. Those who attended described the MP as ‘non-committal’.
At the meeting, Maude failed to disclose his association with a senior member of the Cuadrilla management team, nor their close working relationship.
Browne joined Cuadrilla four months before his appointment to government. In one of his many roles he acts as Managing Director of Riverstone LLC – in February 2010 Riverstone invested 27m in Cuadrilla and Browne and two other Riverstone executives joined the Cuadrilla board. He was instrumental in hiring the current head of UK operations, Mark Miller.
Cuadrilla director Lord Browne
gasdrillinginbalcombe 
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The conservative party doesn’t give a damn about any of you, nor do any of the other main parties.
don’t bother to vote, very MP has been bought by the industry, or can be bought.
Do a Gandhi as much as you can and whenever you can. Despite the smears you already have the moral high ground
Snouts in the trough.
Sounds a bit like Parish Councillor Simon Greenwood on whose land the drilling is taking place.
Reblogged this on Keithpp's Blog and commented:
Snouts in the trough.
Sounds a bit like Parish Councillor Simon Greenwood on whose land the drilling is taking place.
Is there a current petition open? The one you are linking to is closed!
Perhaps the voters of Balcombe should reflect on who they vote for next time. They and many in the south east of England inflicted this Tory led government on the rest of the country. Most of the effects of this government have been felt on non affluent areas further north, in non Tory voting areas. Now there’s a protest and NIMBYism because a procedure with considerable financial gains potential for several high ranking Tories is happening in their back yard. Did they protest against the bedroom tax, the privatisation of the NHS, assaults on benefits? I’d say in general these people are now reaping what they sowed.
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Code of Conduct for Members of the House
Click to access code.pdf
7. In the conduct of their parliamentary duties, Members of the House shall base their actions on consideration of the public interest, and shall resolve any conflict between their personal interest and the public interest at once, and in favour of the public interest
8. Members of the House:
(a) must comply with the Code of Conduct;
(b) should act always on their personal honour; 4 CODE OF CONDUCT AND GUIDE TO THE CODE OF CONDUCT
(c) must never accept or agree to accept any financial inducement as an incentive or reward for exercising parliamentary influence;
(d) must not seek to profit from membership of the House by accepting or agreeing to accept payment or other incentive or reward in return for providing parliamentary advice or services.
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As always follow the money from the PoliTicks to the Corporate parasites.
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So Francis Maude (in the Cabinet), appoints Lord Browne (Cuadrilla director) into a government position. George Osborne (in the Cabinet) announces extra low tax rate on shale fracking companies like, er, Cuadrilla.
Did I hear anyone mention the words ‘corrupt’ and ‘cronyism’ by any chance?
Ah well, voters of Balcombe, you know what you must do. Why would you vote for a bloke who appears to be doing his level best to destroy you local environment and suck up to the fracking industry? Reckon there might be a non-executive directorship or consultancy in it for him in the longer term – ie, what you peeps have had the good sense to vote him out of office?
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The Deep Blue Horizon accident happened last year and it was not under his watch. He retired from BP years before the accident so it is not appropriate to blame someone just because of simple ‘guilty by association’. He should nevertheless has declare his interest in Cuadrilla but Muade probably knew it already.
In regards of shale gas drilling, British Geology Survey already has concluded in their study that fracking is pretty safe in term of water contamination and earth quake. EPA also agree there are currently adequate regulation and procedure to protect the environment from fracking in Europe.
Sorry Tommie but pretty safe just doesn’t quite do it for me.
There are so many dangerous aspects of shale gas mining that must be considered. Most docs I have read simply say no problems providing best practices are adhered to but we know better. By the way lord Browne also oversaw the Royal Society of Engineering fracking report…..he has a finger in every pie. Money money money.
British Geology Survey, now I wonder who sponcered that????
http://frack-off.org.uk/government-advisors-sponsored-by-fracking-industry/
BP had a history of accidents and spillages under Browne. Browne was on the BP board from September 1991 until 1 May 2007, having held senior management roles in America since the mid 1980s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browne,_Baron_Browne_of_Madingley#Career_at_BP
It was generally recognised that BP had a lax attitude to servicing and maintenance under his stewardship, the legacy of which persisted of course for some time after his 2007 resignation, until the Deepwater Horizon disaster forced BP to truly address the issue.
4 Environmental record
4.1 Position on global warming
4.2 Hazardous substance dumping 1993–1995
4.3 Air pollution violations
4.4 Colombian farmland damages claim
4.5 Canadian oil sands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP#Environmental_record
5 Safety and health violations
5.1 1965 Sea Gem offshore oil rig disaster
5.2 Texas City Refinery explosion
5.3 Prudhoe Bay
5.4 2008 Caspian Sea gas leak and blowout
5.5 2010 Chemical leak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP#Safety_and_health_violations
I wonder why it has been banned in France then, due to safety concerns? any ideas? x x x
C is for Corruption, C is for Conservative
This is downright disgraceful. Should be given wide publicity.
Lord Browne should be made to declare his interest and get out.
Will be sharing far and wide.
Haven’t BP messed up enogh of our planet?
Where would that be?
“BP is a London-based oil company with one of the worst safety records of any oil company operating in America,” says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen. “In just the last few years, BP has paid $485 million in fines and settlements to the US government for environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety rules, and penalties for manipulating energy markets.” We speak with Slocum and with an attorney representing several workers who survived the blast that sank BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. He’s also representing the wife of one of the eleven workers now presumed dead who is filing a lawsuit accusing BP of negligence. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/5/group_bp_has_one_of_the
have a look for yourself:
you can see a reverse-chronological list of oil spills here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
and information on BP’s most recent, The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the BP oil disaster, or the Macondo blowout:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
Georgie, that is a truly terrible list. But considered as a response to my {provocative – I apologise} “Where would that be?” to Angela Southon’s “Haven’t BP messed up enough of our planet?” … there appear only to be 2 BP spills listed: Macondo/ Deepwater Horizon & Prudhoe Bay March 2nd, 2006 {653 to 689 tonnes}, altho’ there are another 3 dealing with the Trans-Alaska pipeline, which presumably carries BP oil, one of which is reported as sabotage.
Seriously though, hasn’t the Macondo spill been cleaned up, so that it could no longer be claimed to be messing up our planet?
Not to be white-washing for BP, but in all that long list, there do seem to be other candidates for “messiest oil company”.
No it hasn’t been cleared up! Look at Gulf Restoration website. Fish and crustacean stocks collapsed, many areas of beach ruined, huge volumes of a very poisonous “cleaner” called Correxit were spread by B.P., turns out it has made the oil even more toxic and slower to decay. A lot of illness; oil well or some other vent near it may still be leaking.
Is it this a British company causing environmental disaster oversea? Maybe they should stay and make profit oversea and wreck UK land. We still need oil though and so let them stay overseas and we UK people let it be.
I imagine the reason for Lord Browne’s appointment has absolutely nothing to do with Cuadrilla, but quite a lot that under his tenure BP grew from a local national OilCo to a very big player indeed {altho’ his vigorous cost-cutting, in the matter of laying off engineers & hiring HR types, is thought by some to have contributed to later BP disasters}. So, Blair favourite that he was, one can see the attractions to this Cabinet of a cost cutting, job eliminating, nanny encouraging, “proven track record of private sector growth” person.
Probably the same qualities that made him attractive to Riverstone.