Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen. 10.14am: The BBC has now posted a full story about Vince Cable’s comments on David Cameron’s speech. Cable told Laura Kuenssberg that Cameron’s choice of language was “very unwise”. I’ve already posted most of the quotes (see 10.03am) but here’s one more direct quote from Cable. The reference to the tens of thousands of immigrants rather than hundreds of thousands is not part of the coalition agreement, it is Tory party policy only. 10.03am: Here are some more quotes from Vince Cable’s interview with the BBC. Commenting on David Cameron’s speech, he said: I do understand there is an election coming but talk of mass immigration risks inflaming extremism to which he and I are both strongly opposed …. Much of the remaining immigration from outside the EU is crucial to British recovery and growth. That is why the cabinet collectively agreed to support British business and British universities by exempting overseas students and essential staff from the cap on non EU immigration. Cable also said that Cameron was making “very unwise comments”. 9.59am: Vince Cable also said that Cameron’s speech “risked inflaming extremism”, the BBC reports. 9.49am: Vince Cable has described Cameron’s speech as “very unwise”, the BBC reports. He has also said that getting net immigration down to tens of thousands a year, instead of letting it remain in the hundreds of thousands, is Tory policy and not coalition policy. This sounds like one of the most serious public Lib Dem/Conservative rifts we’ve seen from within the cabinet since the election. I’ll post the full quotes as soon as I get them. 9.32am: Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the home affairs committee, has also been commenting on David Cameron’s speech. He said the prime minister was wrong to say that immigration caused “discomfort and disjointedness” in some communities. According to PoliticsHome , this is what Vaz told Radio 5 Live. I think that those who have come to this country, those first generation immigrants do want to integrate and, if you look at the major towns and cities in this country, there is a desire for people to be involved. I think we’ve got a better record of toleration and integration than any country in Europe … The large number of eastern Europeans that came to Britain since the enlargement of the EU have actually integrated quite well, I think. 9.09am: Here’s some of the reaction we’ve already had to Cameron’s immigration speech. I’ve taken the quotes from the Press Association and PoliticsHome. From Tom Brake, co-chair of the Lib Dem backbench committee on home affairs, justice and equalities I am certainly not worried about the prime minister talking about [immigration]. I’m certainly not worried about the Liberal Democrats talking about it. It is an issue people are worried about but at the same time we have a responsibility to ensure that people understand the benefits … I don’t think [Cameron is proposing BNP policies]. I think the Government and the Liberal Democrats recognise the benefits of immigration to the UK economy but we are realistic that there is abuse of the system going on and that is why the Liberal Democrats supported, before the election, the setting up of a UK Border force to ensure that our borders are more secure. From Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader Sadly there isn’t much [Cameron] can do about it because the elephant in the room is the European Union and we have a total open border with all of them. We cannot have our own immigration policy and be part of the European Union. From Simon Darby, a BNP spokesman It’s cynical opportunism, isn’t it? It’s almost like a ceremonial adoption of our policy about two weeks before any major vote. In other words, [Cameron] knows what ordinary British people are thinking. He completely ignores that until two weeks before a major poll and then all of a sudden starts pressing a few buttons to try and make people believe he’s actually doing something about immigration. It’s a farce, it’s a con, and if we had copyright on our manifesto we’d have our lawyers round his office within hours. From Sir Andrew Green, chair of MigrationWatch [The speech is] music in my ears and it’s music I think in the ears of most people in this country … I think the importance of this speech is that [Cameron has] again nailed his colours to the mast – he has said he understands what the public feel; he’s going to have a serious shot at dealing with it. 8.38am: David Cameron is delivering two speeches today. There will be one about local elections and the alternative vote referendum at some point mid-afternoon. But, before that, he will make a speech about immigration. The text has already been released – you can read it here on our website – and Nicholas Watt has written it up for the paper. Here’s an extract from his story. David Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a “kind of discomfort and disjointedness” which has disrupted communities across Britain. In his most outspoken speech on immigration since becoming prime minister, Cameron will blame Labour for allowing immigration to become “too high” and for adopting an approach that allowed the British National party to flourish … Cameron will say this has placed serious pressure on schools, housing and the NHS, and has also created social pressures. “Real communities are bound by common experiences forged by friendship and conversation, knitted together by all the rituals of the neighbourhood, from the school run to the chat down the pub. And these bonds can take time,” he will say. “So real integration takes time. That’s why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods. This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it.” Otherwise, it’s relatively quiet. William Hague is discussing Libya at a Nato meeting, and Paul Burstow, the health minister, is speaking to the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. But reaction to the Cameron speech should keep us busy. I’ll also take a look at the papers – I didn’t have time yesterday, but I don’t think we missed much – and I’ll bring you the best politics from the web. As usual, I’ll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and an afternoon one at about 4pm. David Cameron Immigration and asylum Electoral reform Local elections 2011 Conservatives Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk
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James Weatherup in custody as further searches of paper’s offices are expected The police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World has taken a dramatic turn with the surprise arrest of James Weatherup, a senior journalist at the paper. Weatherup, who has not previously been named in connection with the scandal, was arrested early on Thursday. He is currently in custody at a police station in outer London. The arrest is expected to trigger further searches of the News of the World offices in Wapping shortly. It is thought that police felt the paper had failed to be fully co-operative during searches last week and are determined to be more robust today. As news editor at the News of the World between 2004 and 2006, Weatherup was one of the inner circle of executives under the then editor, Andy Coulson, who later became David Cameron’s director of communications until earlier this year. As the third news editor at the paper under Coulson, Weatherup was one of a handful of senior employees who would take part in private discussions of major news stories with other senior members of the paper. Weatherup subsequently returned to being a senior reporter on the newspaper, but continued to hold his job title. He is a close colleague of Ian Edmondson, who was also arrested last week and in connection with the investigation. Edmondson, the paper’s former assistant editor (news), was dismissed in January. News International had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. More details soon … •
Continue reading …Forget its fey image in Europe – in South America, and Paraguay in particular, it is the sound of the plains, hot nights and cold beer In Europe the harp has angelic associations. It is seen – unjustly – as a gentle, even fey, instrument. Images of Celtic mists and soft sunsets adorn the covers of a thousand classical CDs. In South America things are different. There the harp is a cowboy instrument, playing the tunes of the people, fast and furious. It can be as strident as a steel guitar and as rhythmic as a drum kit, with a bright, sharp, rising twang that makes you want to dance. Many South American countries claim a share of the tradition, but Paraguay is its true home and this week, in a series of short concerts in London to mark 200 years of the country’s independence from Spain, the young Paraguayan harpist and composer Blas Flor showed its power. The harp was brought to Latin America by Spanish colonists, at a time when it was still an active part of everyday music-making in Europe, a common folk instrument rather as the guitar is today. Adopted and adapted by the indigenous population, who have cherished it ever since, the Paraguayan harp is portable, its strings close together, played with fingernails like a guitar. Much Paraguayan harp music accompanies songs in the local language Guarani, but new composers are changing traditions and expanding its use. For enthusiasts of the obscure there is now even such a thing as Paraguayan electro rock. Some folk traditions are a chore to listen to, simple and unmusical. The harp in South America is different: it is the sound of wide open plains, hot nights and cold beer. Paraguay guardian.co.uk
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Is sticky toffee pudding the perfect marriage of stodge and sweetness, and what do you dollop on top? STP, as it’s known to aficionados (ie me) sounds like the ultimate school dinner staple; stodgy, gooey and unapologetically sweet, it’s just the thing to set you up for a game of lacrosse, a page of trig, and a whole trunk full of itching powder, apple pie beds and other such jolly wheezes. But you won’t find Enid Blyton’s schoolgirls tucking into sticky toffee pud after lights out, or Billy Bunter scoffing the stuff from his tuck box, because, as every food nerd will tell you, it was invented in the 1970s by Francis Coulson of the Lake District’s Sharrow Bay Hotel. Mr Coulson may well have been even better at publicity than he was at puddings, however, because according to Simon Hopkinson , the late and “legendary” chef once admitted to him that he’d adapted the idea from one Mrs Martin of Lancashire. Some years later, this good lady’s son contacted Hopkinson to tell him she’d been given the recipe by a Canadian friend, which makes sticky toffee pudding about as British as flipper pie – a fact to bear in mind next time it comes up at a pub quiz (as long as you don’t mind being the kind of contestant who quibbles with the official answers). No matter, wherever it comes from, I’m glad it made the trip. Although it’s often lumped in with similarly lumpen dishes involving syrup and treacle, STP is actually much more like a giant muffin than a sponge pudding, made with a distinctly liquid batter, rather than a creamed mix of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. The genius of the dish is, I think, the dates, which add a rich, sticky sweetness without making it any heavier than such puddings should be. The “original” Coulson’s recipe , as recorded by Gary Rhodes (who, in an audacious attempt at thickening the plot, bills it as “a good old English pudding which is made all over the country”), uses chopped dates, softened in boiling water, and folded into creamed butter and sugar, along with eggs, self-raising flour, and vanilla essence. It has a fluffy but moist texture, and I like the large pieces of date. I find the accompanying sauce, made from a mixture of double cream, treacle and demerara sugar far too rich for the pudding – it’s blandly creamy, rather than stickily toffeeish. The updated original Stolen or not, I prefer Coulson’s to Hopkinson’s updated version of Mrs Martin’s original recipes, which blends the dates to a purée, and mixes everything together in one go instead of carefully folding the dates into the other ingredients. He’s presumably right about the fact that any benefit this gives is destroyed by the addition of hot water, but it can’t be denied that Coulson’s recipe rises higher than his, and the squidgy chopped dates give it a more interesting texture. The maverick Ever-modish, young Jamie Oliver makes his STP with yoghurt, which keeps it moist, but weighs the batter down – and his cornucopia of sweet spices give the whole thing a gingerbread flavour. He also, for reasons unexplained, adds 2 tbsp of Ovaltine to the batter, which gives the cake a rich, dark colour, but makes it taste like bedtime. I do like his sauce though: rather than just cream, he’s made a proper toffee sauce by melting butter and light muscovado sugar together, and then stirred in a mere 140ml double cream. It’s more assertively flavoured, and light enough to allow the addition of further dairy products on the plate – after all, what’s a slab of hot STP without a scoop of ice cream? The bizarre If the yoghurt and malted chocolate drink was weird, Tamasin Day-Lewis’ version , in her compendium All You Can Eat, is downright wrongheaded – although, to be fair, she credits it to Joyce Molyneaux of the Carved Angel. On the basis that the original, with “its cascade of toffee sauce … and the sweetest fruit of all, dates” is “tooth-achingly sweet”, Molyneaux has used dried apricots instead: “their acidic sharpness more than stands up to and contrasts with the velvety thick toffee sauce”. I find the contrast jarring – the fruit seems almost sharp, and, although I can’t deny that steaming it, rather than baking it, makes it very moist, I’m not convinced that losing the crisp top and fluffy middle makes this worthwhile. Variations Delia not only grills her puddings briefly after baking, which gives them a deliciously crunchy top, but adds pecans: I like the texture of the nuts, but I can’t really taste them, so I substitute walnuts instead – this is one dish sweet enough to stand up to their bitterness. I prefer Jamie’s toffee sauce to any of the butterscotchy varieties which appear to have been inspired by Francis Coulson’s “original” version, but it strikes me that I’m missing a trick by simply pouring it over the pudding – it would be nice to have that sweet stickiness throughout. After doing a little research online , I borrow an idea from Mani Niall’s book, Sweet, and put half the sauce into the bottom of the dish before adding the batter. His tip about briefly freezing the sauce to firm it up while you make the rest of the pudding is inspired. Spice-wise, I’ve restricted myself to a sober pinch of cloves, to complement the dates without overpowering them. Perfect sticky toffee pudding A good sticky toffee pudding should be more than simple sugar hit – add nuts, for texture, and cloves, for a hint of spice, and this is one transatlantic migrant which will have no problem getting its visa renewed. Serves 6 175g medjool dates, stoned and roughly chopped 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 300ml boiling water 50g unsalted butter, softened 80g golden caster sugar 80g dark muscovado sugar 2 eggs, beaten 175g flour 1 tsp baking powder Pinch of ground cloves 75g walnuts For the sauce: 115g unsalted butter 75g golden caster sugar 40g dark muscovado sugar 140ml double cream 1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Butter a baking dish approximately 24cm x 24cm. 2. Make the sauce by putting all the ingredients into a pan with a pinch of salt and heating slowly until the butter has melted, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Boil for about 4 minutes, until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Pour half the sauce into the base of the dish and then put it in the freezer while you make the rest of the pudding. 3. Put the dates and bicarbonate of soda in a heatproof dish and cover with the boiling water. Leave to soften while you prepare the rest of the pudding. 4. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy, and then beat in the eggs, a little at a time. Stir in the flour, baking powder, cloves and a pinch of salt until well combined, and then add the dates and their soaking water, and the walnuts, and mix well. 5. Take the dish out of the freezer and pour the batter on top of the toffee sauce. Put into the oven for 30 minutes, until firm to the touch, and then take out of the oven. 6. Heat the grill to medium, and poke a few small holes evenly over the surface with a skewer or fork, and then pour over the rest of the sauce. Put briefly under the grill, keeping an eye on it as it can easily burn. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Is sticky toffee pudding the perfect marriage of stodge and sweetness, or does the name promise more than the dish delivers? What do you like to add to yours – and do you like it with custard, ice cream, or (shock horror), a dollop of yoghurt? Food & drink Felicity Cloake guardian.co.uk
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Shape GB’s National Childrenswear Survey measured more than 2,500 children, aged four to 17, with 3D body scanners Waistlines of girls starting secondary school are more than 8cm (3in) bigger than those of their counterparts 30 years ago, a study has shown. Their male classmates have waistlines nearly 7cm bigger and chests nearly 8cm bigger than 11-year-old boys three decades ago, according to Shape GB’s national childrenswear survey. The survey, which was partly publicly funded, is based on data from more than 2,500 children aged four to 17, who were measured with 3D body scanners in 2009-10. The results show how children’s body shapes have ballooned since the last major survey, which was released by the British Standards Institute in 1990 and based on measurements taken from more than 8,300 children in 1978. An average 11-year-old girl today is 148.78cm tall, compared with 146.03cm in 1978 – an increase of 2.75cm or 1.88%. But her waistline is on average 70.2cm, the survey found, compared with 59.96cm in 1978. Because the 3D scanner does not compress the skin like a tape measure does, and the scanner also measures the small of the back, it produces width measurements around 1.9cm larger. Even accounting for that difference, the average 11-year-old girl’s waist has increased by 8.34cm or 13.9%. Today’s results put her hip measurement at 81.78cm, compared with 77.81cm in 1978, and chest at 78.4cm, compared with 71.31cm in 1978. The average boy of 11 now stands 148.18cm tall, up from 144.63cm in 1978 – a 3.55cm or 2.45% increase. His chest is 78.45cm, compared with 68.76 in the 1978 survey. When the differences in measuring method are accounted for there is still a 7.79cm, or 11.33% increase. His waist has also expanded, from 61.49cm on the average 1978 boy to 70.02cm today, and his hips are 80.21cm, compared with 73.22cm in 1978. Select Research, the company who managed the survey, said the scans, which recorded nearly 200 different measurements per child, also showed that boys and girls’ body shapes differed before the age of seven, contrary to many retailers’ assumptions. They said that many clothes currently labelled for five-year-old boys were based on them being 110cm tall, while the data shows the average as 115cm. The Shape GB data is being used by sponsoring retailers Next, Monsoon, Shop Direct and George at Asda to design clothes. It is also to be used in the development of a Body Volume Index (BVI) for children as an alternative scale to Body Mass Index (BMI), which relies on simple height and weight measurements. Richard Barnes, MD of Select Research, said it was too early to draw conclusions on childhood obesity trends from the data. He said: “The increases in waist circumference since 1978 show that children have got bigger. However, increases in height and chest size show that children in the UK have grown over the years in many ways.” Children Schools Secondary schools Health Health & wellbeing Health policy Children’s clothes guardian.co.uk
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Beijing-run Hong Kong newspaper says police suspect artist of tax-dodging, bigamy and spreading pornography on web Chinese police say they have “firm evidence” that the detained artist-activist Ai Weiwei avoided tax, and he has begun “confessing”, a Hong Kong newspaper under Beijing control said on Thursday, drawing a denunciation from his sister. It also said Ai was suspected of bigamy and “spreading pornography on the internet”. The Wen Wei Po newspaper said it had the firmest details yet of the accusations that Chinese police are developing against Ai, whose secretive detention this month drew an outcry from human rights groups and western governments, alarmed by the ruling Communist party’s campaign against dissent. Ai was detained at Beijing airport on 3 April. He had a hand in designing the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and has juggled an international art career with colourful campaigns against government censorship and political restrictions, often using the internet. His family has said the government’s assertion that Ai is suspected of “economic crimes” is a pretext for hitting back against his activism. Citing unnamed sources, the Wen Wei Po said investigators had gathered “a large amount of evidence that Ai Weiwei is suspected of avoiding taxes, and the sums are quite large”. “A source revealed to this newspaper that firm evidence has been collected about Ai Weiwei’s suspected economic crimes,” the newspaper said. The Wen Wei Po is a Chinese-language paper published in Hong Kong by mainland authorities and is sometimes used to make Beijing’s case on contentious issues. “As the investigation has deepened, the public security authorities have accumulated quite solid witness, documentary and circumstantial evidence and Ai Weiwei has had quite a good attitude in co-operating with the investigation and has begun to confess about the issues,” the report said. Ai’s sister, Gao Ge, told Reuters that police had given his family no information about his whereabouts or the accusations against him and the Hong Kong newspaper was being used to vilify him without giving Ai a chance to respond. “This is not evidence. It’s using a small paper to push their own position without giving Ai Weiwei any fair redress,” Gao said. “It’s clearly against the law to hold him for so long without any notice to us.” The bigamy accusation, she said, was “absurd”, and airing other charges without allowing Ai to respond was grossly unfair. Ai, 53, is the most internationally prominent of dozens of Chinese dissidents, rights lawyers, activists and grassroots agitators detained or put in secretive custody since February, when fear of contagion from Middle East uprisings triggered a crackdown by China’s domestic security apparatus. The government said this week it was “unhappy” with foreign support for Ai. “The Chinese people also feel baffled – why do some people in some countries treat a crime suspect as a hero?” a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, told reporters. Chinese authorities have arrested a veteran dissident, Zhu Yufu, on subversion charges, his ex-wife and a friend said on Wednesday, making him the fourth activist known to have been arrested and likely to face trial in a crackdown on dissent. Ai Weiwei China Art guardian.co.uk
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Exclusive: Three mission members say calls to recant UN report disregard the rights of Palestinian and Israeli victims Read the full statement by Jilani, Chinkin and Travers Three members of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war of 2008-09 have turned on the fourth member and chair of the group, Richard Goldstone, accusing him in all but name of misrepresenting facts in order to cast doubt on the credibility of their joint report. In a statement to the Guardian , the three experts in international law are strongly critical of Goldstone’s dramatic change of heart expressed in a Washington Post commentary earlier this month. Goldstone wrote that he regretted aspects of the report that bears his name, especially the suggestion that Israel had potentially committed war crimes by targeting civilian Palestinians in the three-week conflict. The three members – the Pakistani human rights lawyer Hina Jilani; Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics; and former Irish peace-keeper Desmond Travers – have until this moment kept their silence over Goldstone’s bombshell remarks. But their response now is devastating. Though they do not mention Goldstone by name, they shoot down several of the main contentions in his article and imply that he has bowed to intense political pressure. They write that they cannot leave “aspersions cast on the findings of the [Goldstone] report unchallenged”, adding that those aspersions have “misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimise the findings and to cast doubts on its credibility”. In their most stinging criticism, the three joint authors say that “calls to reconsider or even retract the report, as well as attempts at misrepresenting its nature and purpose, disregard the rights of victims, Palestinians and Israeli, to truth and justice”. They point to the “personal attacks and the extraordinary pressure placed on members of the fact finding mission”, adding that “had we given in to pressures from any quarter to sanitize our conclusions, we would be doing a serious injustice to the hundreds of innocent civilians killed during the Gaza conflict, the thousands injured, and the hundreds of thousands whose lives continue to be deeply affected by the conflict and the blockade”. The four-person fact finding mission was set up to look into allegations of war crimes committed by both Israel and Hamas during the war in which 1,400 Palestinians – at least half of whom were civilians – and 13 Israelis died. The Goldstone report concluded that some Israelis could be held individually criminally responsible for potential war crimes. In his Washington Post article, Goldstone said evidence had since come to light as a result of subsequent Israeli military investigations into the conflict that showed that Israel had not targeted civilians as a matter of policy. Had he known that then, “the Goldstone report would have been a different document,” he wrote. Goldstone’s apparent retraction of key elements of the fact finding mission he led was seized upon with delight by the Israeli government which called for the report to be set aside in the light of his comments. An Israeli minister claimed that Goldstone had himself promised to work to have his own report “nullified”. But his three fellow members of the mission state that they “firmly stand by” the conclusions of the report . They say that neither Israel nor Hamas has come up with any convincing evidence contradicting the findings. The three authors cite the final UN report into the Gaza war, written by a follow-up committee led by Judge Mary McGowan Davies, that criticised Israel for the slow pace with which it has conducted its investigations and for its complete refusal to address some of the most serious allegations about its conduct. “The mechanisms that are being used by the Israeli authorities to investigate the incidents are proving inadequate to genuinely ascertain the facts and any ensuing legal responsibility.” The statement of Jilani, Chinkin and Travers will set back any attempt by Israel to have the Goldstone report revoked. The UN human rights council, which commissioned the fact-finding mission, has already made clear that the report could only be withdrawn if all four of its authors unanimously made a formal written complaint or if the UN general assembly or human rights council voted to drop it. Gaza United States Palestinian territories United Nations Israel Middle East New York Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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In a blind taste test, volunteers were unable to distinguish between expensive and cheap wine An expensive wine may well have a full body, a delicate nose and good legs, but the odds are your brain will never know. A survey of hundreds of drinkers found that on average people could tell good wine from plonk no more often than if they had simply guessed. In the blind taste test, 578 people commented on a variety of red and white wines ranging from a £3.49 bottle of Claret to a £29.99 bottle of champagne. The researchers categorised inexpensive wines as costing £5 and less, while expensive bottles were £10 and more. The study found that people correctly distinguished between cheap and expensive white wines only 53% of the time, and only 47% of the time for red wines. The overall result suggests a 50:50 chance of identifying a wine as expensive or cheap based on taste alone – the same odds as flipping a coin. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at Hertfordshire University , conducted the survey at the Edinburgh International Science Festival . “People just could not tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine,” he said. “When you know the answer, you fool yourself into thinking you would be able to tell the difference, but most people simply can’t.” All of the drinkers who took part in the survey were attending the science festival, but Wiseman claims the group was unlikely to be any worse at wine tasting than a cross-section of the general public. “The real surprise is that the more expensive wines were double or three times the price of the cheaper ones. Normally when a product is that much more expensive, you would expect to be able to tell the difference,” Wiseman said. People scored best when deciding between two bottles of Pinot Grigio, with 59% correctly deciding which was which. The Claret, which cost either £3.49 or £15.99, fooled most people with only 39% correctly identifying which they had tasted. In 2008, a study led by Adrian North, a psychologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, claimed that music helped boost the flavour of certain wines . North, who was commissioned by a Chilean winemaker, reported that Cabernet Sauvignon was most affected by “powerful and heavy” music, while Chardonnay benefited from “zingy and refreshing” sounds. Psychology Food science Food & drink Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
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As the Deepwater Horizon crisis continues, new chief executive Bob Dudley battles to turn the oil group around Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, will face hostile shareholders on Thursday and, barring an 11th-hour breakthrough, the humiliating prospect of his controversial proposed alliance with Kremlin controlled oil company Rosneft collapsing. It was reported late on Wednesday that BP had broken off talks to buy out its Russian partners, the oligarchs who make up AAR and stand in the way of the Rosneft alliance being consummated. It is thought that AAR demanded too high a price for its 50% share in the joint venture TNK-BP in return for not blocking the alliance. A source close to AAR said: “It is up to BP to make a sensible proposal to get out of the mess it has created.One has not been forthcoming… They [BP directors] now face the consequences of their actions.” BP and AAR declined to comment. Almost a year on from the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf, the present situation hardly represents the turnaround that Dudley, or BP, had hoped for. Dudley took the helm on 1 October, after his predecessor, Tony Hayward, paid the price for what is officially the world’s biggest offshore accidental oil spill. Less than four months into the job, Dudley announced an audacious proposal to transform the fortunes of BP , looking not west to the US but east: a $16bn share swap with Rosneft – the first of its kind between an oil major and a national oil company – to cement a new joint venture to explore the Arctic. BP has had its fingers burnt in Russia before. In the late 1990s, it lost out in a dispute with AAR. The two sides made up to eventually form TNK-BP, the Russian joint venture at the heart of the impasse over the proposed Rosneft deal. Last month an independent arbitration tribunal upheld an injunction , secured by AAR, which prevents the two companies consummating the deal. AAR had successfully argued that the Rosneft deal contravened the TNK-BP shareholder agreement, which requires BP to offer the joint venture first refusal over any business opportunity in Russia. Dudley claimed that AAR had been properly consulted on the deal when analysts queried him days after he had unveiled the Rosneft alliance. It soon transpired that AAR felt otherwise. But BP still looked secure, with the proposed Rosneft alliance seemingly having the blessing of the Kremlin. Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin was also deputy prime minister and in charge of Russia’s energy policy, a key player to have onside. At a dramatic Friday night press conference at BP’s St James’ Square headquarters in London in January, when the deal was announced, those listening in by phone overheard Dudley quietly thank Sechin, after his speech, for his “very nice words”. Dudley calculated that AAR would not dare to challenge the deal. The last oil oligarch to cross the Kremlin – Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ironically the boss of the dismantled oil company whose assets went to Rosneft – is still languishing in a Siberian prison cell. But Russian politics, particularly involving energy, are unpredictable at the best of times. Dudley, it seems, guessed wrong and BP is paying the price. To make matters worse, on Monday, Sechin quit his Rosneft post in a Kremlin reshuffle, leaving BP more isolated than ever. Iain Armstrong, analyst at stockbroker Brewin Dolphin, said: “It’s such a political misjudgment by Dudley. If it wasn’t for the fact that the chief executive position of BP is a poisoned chalice right now, he would be out. BP is lurching from one crisis to another.” BP’s two-month period of exclusivity with Rosneft – during which it was supposed to formally sign the alliance – expires on Thursday. It seems unlikely Rosneft would extend the deadline, which means it is free to seek other partners for the proposed deal. Now the tough negotiations will begin in earnest. All is not lost for BP however. It still has an advantage over other rivals wanting to become Rosneft’s partner, since the two companies have been in talks for years about exploring the Arctic. And AAR, which claims it wants to be involved in the Arctic exploration, would also lose out if BP was not able to form the alliance, whether through TNK-BP or not. But it is clear that if Dudley wants the deal to go ahead, he will have to cut a deal with AAR. It will not come cheap and could take weeks to negotiate. If BP cannot resurrect the Rosneft alliance, it will have little impact on the business in the short term. Exploration was not due to begin for several years and the chances of success are uncertain in any event. But it would be a major blow for Dudley, particularly as BP had championed the alliance as “historic” and an example for the rest of Big Oil wanting to team up with national oil companies to follow. Brewin Dolphin’s Armstrong says: “If the deal did not happen it would be a blow to Bob Dudley’s reputation. It would represent a setback for BP’s rehabilitation.” The Rosneft debacle is terrible timing for BP. The annual general meeting, at the ExCel centre in East London, was always going to be a stormy affair because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A protest by environmental activists is planned outside the conference centre before the meeting begins. Investors are also angry that the company paid bonuses to its finance director and head of refining last year, and about the £1m golden goodbye for Hayward. Big funds such as the California state pensions fund Calpers and Florida’s equivalent SBA, who own 0.4% of BP, as well as activist funds such as the Christian Brothers Investment Services group, will vote against the approval of BP’s report and accounts. The less environmentally and corporate governance-minded investors also have reasons to be unhappy. BP’s share price is still almost a third lower than it was just before Deepwater Horizon at a time when oil prices have surged and it lags behind rivals such as Shell. Hayward plots his City comeback Former BP chief executive Tony Hayward paid the price for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, leaving the company on October 1 last year. But he is already plotting his City comeback. He has been lined up as senior independent director of commodities group Glencore in its $60bn flotation. The role could be announced on Thursday when, as expected, Glencore formally fires the starting gun on the listing. Hayward is also reported to be setting up an oil and gas investment fund which could list in London through a £1bn flotation this year. Hayward was appointed as a non-executive director of BP’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, soon after he stepped down as BP chief executive. He joined just before the full-blown row erupted between BP and its Russian partners, who co-own the venture, over the proposed alliance with Rosneft. But even if it ends in tears for Hayward at TNK-BP, his wife Maureen could keep his BP association alive. She is reported to be writing a book in his defence of her husband, who was villified for such gaffes during the Gulf crisis last year such as “I want my life back”, and telling the Guardian: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” The comments were made in mid-May, when the official size of the spill was still estimated at 5,000 barrels a day. By the following month, it was increased to up to 40,000 barrels a day. BP is now contesting the official figures, which are likely to be one of the factors determining how much it will have to pay in fines. BP Bob Dudley Tony Hayward Oil and gas companies Russia Oil Oil Energy industry BP oil spill Pollution Oil spills Europe Tim Webb guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …As the Deepwater Horizon crisis continues, new chief executive Bob Dudley battles to turn the oil group around Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, will face hostile shareholders on Thursday and, barring an 11th-hour breakthrough, the humiliating prospect of his controversial proposed alliance with Kremlin controlled oil company Rosneft collapsing. It was reported late on Wednesday that BP had broken off talks to buy out its Russian partners, the oligarchs who make up AAR and stand in the way of the Rosneft alliance being consummated. It is thought that AAR demanded too high a price for its 50% share in the joint venture TNK-BP in return for not blocking the alliance. A source close to AAR said: “It is up to BP to make a sensible proposal to get out of the mess it has created.One has not been forthcoming… They [BP directors] now face the consequences of their actions.” BP and AAR declined to comment. Almost a year on from the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf, the present situation hardly represents the turnaround that Dudley, or BP, had hoped for. Dudley took the helm on 1 October, after his predecessor, Tony Hayward, paid the price for what is officially the world’s biggest offshore accidental oil spill. Less than four months into the job, Dudley announced an audacious proposal to transform the fortunes of BP , looking not west to the US but east: a $16bn share swap with Rosneft – the first of its kind between an oil major and a national oil company – to cement a new joint venture to explore the Arctic. BP has had its fingers burnt in Russia before. In the late 1990s, it lost out in a dispute with AAR. The two sides made up to eventually form TNK-BP, the Russian joint venture at the heart of the impasse over the proposed Rosneft deal. Last month an independent arbitration tribunal upheld an injunction , secured by AAR, which prevents the two companies consummating the deal. AAR had successfully argued that the Rosneft deal contravened the TNK-BP shareholder agreement, which requires BP to offer the joint venture first refusal over any business opportunity in Russia. Dudley claimed that AAR had been properly consulted on the deal when analysts queried him days after he had unveiled the Rosneft alliance. It soon transpired that AAR felt otherwise. But BP still looked secure, with the proposed Rosneft alliance seemingly having the blessing of the Kremlin. Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin was also deputy prime minister and in charge of Russia’s energy policy, a key player to have onside. At a dramatic Friday night press conference at BP’s St James’ Square headquarters in London in January, when the deal was announced, those listening in by phone overheard Dudley quietly thank Sechin, after his speech, for his “very nice words”. Dudley calculated that AAR would not dare to challenge the deal. The last oil oligarch to cross the Kremlin – Mikhail Khodorkovsky, ironically the boss of the dismantled oil company whose assets went to Rosneft – is still languishing in a Siberian prison cell. But Russian politics, particularly involving energy, are unpredictable at the best of times. Dudley, it seems, guessed wrong and BP is paying the price. To make matters worse, on Monday, Sechin quit his Rosneft post in a Kremlin reshuffle, leaving BP more isolated than ever. Iain Armstrong, analyst at stockbroker Brewin Dolphin, said: “It’s such a political misjudgment by Dudley. If it wasn’t for the fact that the chief executive position of BP is a poisoned chalice right now, he would be out. BP is lurching from one crisis to another.” BP’s two-month period of exclusivity with Rosneft – during which it was supposed to formally sign the alliance – expires on Thursday. It seems unlikely Rosneft would extend the deadline, which means it is free to seek other partners for the proposed deal. Now the tough negotiations will begin in earnest. All is not lost for BP however. It still has an advantage over other rivals wanting to become Rosneft’s partner, since the two companies have been in talks for years about exploring the Arctic. And AAR, which claims it wants to be involved in the Arctic exploration, would also lose out if BP was not able to form the alliance, whether through TNK-BP or not. But it is clear that if Dudley wants the deal to go ahead, he will have to cut a deal with AAR. It will not come cheap and could take weeks to negotiate. If BP cannot resurrect the Rosneft alliance, it will have little impact on the business in the short term. Exploration was not due to begin for several years and the chances of success are uncertain in any event. But it would be a major blow for Dudley, particularly as BP had championed the alliance as “historic” and an example for the rest of Big Oil wanting to team up with national oil companies to follow. Brewin Dolphin’s Armstrong says: “If the deal did not happen it would be a blow to Bob Dudley’s reputation. It would represent a setback for BP’s rehabilitation.” The Rosneft debacle is terrible timing for BP. The annual general meeting, at the ExCel centre in East London, was always going to be a stormy affair because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A protest by environmental activists is planned outside the conference centre before the meeting begins. Investors are also angry that the company paid bonuses to its finance director and head of refining last year, and about the £1m golden goodbye for Hayward. Big funds such as the California state pensions fund Calpers and Florida’s equivalent SBA, who own 0.4% of BP, as well as activist funds such as the Christian Brothers Investment Services group, will vote against the approval of BP’s report and accounts. The less environmentally and corporate governance-minded investors also have reasons to be unhappy. BP’s share price is still almost a third lower than it was just before Deepwater Horizon at a time when oil prices have surged and it lags behind rivals such as Shell. Hayward plots his City comeback Former BP chief executive Tony Hayward paid the price for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, leaving the company on October 1 last year. But he is already plotting his City comeback. He has been lined up as senior independent director of commodities group Glencore in its $60bn flotation. The role could be announced on Thursday when, as expected, Glencore formally fires the starting gun on the listing. Hayward is also reported to be setting up an oil and gas investment fund which could list in London through a £1bn flotation this year. Hayward was appointed as a non-executive director of BP’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, soon after he stepped down as BP chief executive. He joined just before the full-blown row erupted between BP and its Russian partners, who co-own the venture, over the proposed alliance with Rosneft. But even if it ends in tears for Hayward at TNK-BP, his wife Maureen could keep his BP association alive. She is reported to be writing a book in his defence of her husband, who was villified for such gaffes during the Gulf crisis last year such as “I want my life back”, and telling the Guardian: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” The comments were made in mid-May, when the official size of the spill was still estimated at 5,000 barrels a day. By the following month, it was increased to up to 40,000 barrels a day. BP is now contesting the official figures, which are likely to be one of the factors determining how much it will have to pay in fines. BP Bob Dudley Tony Hayward Oil and gas companies Russia Oil Oil Energy industry BP oil spill Pollution Oil spills Europe Tim Webb guardian.co.uk
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