Ed Miliband’s brother David is being paid by a venture capital outfit that is likely to benefit from his brother’s Net Zero policies, it has emerged. But this conflict of interest has not been publicly declared. David Rose, who did the digging and made the link, has written about his discovery in UnHerd. Here’s an excerpt.
Speaking to Labour Conference last week, Ed Miliband — now the Secretary of State at the Department for Net Zero and Energy Security — pledged to construct an “armoury of clean power” for the United Kingdom, in order to make its electricity system “net zero” by 2030. What he didn’t mention, however, was that his brother is being paid by a venture capital outfit whose profits are likely to increase in the process. …
Just over a decade [after leaving Parliament], David has refashioned himself as a man of virtue: he lives in New York, where he runs International Rescue, a U.S.-based charity that supports people in humanitarian crises. For his services, however, he receives a princely sum. In 2022, he took home a salary of $1,253,728, as well as a bonus of $150,000.
For such a level of remuneration, and with such a workload, one might expect David to be busy with the day job. Yet, for more than four years he has had an additional job: in September 2020, five months after his brother became Shadow Energy Secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet, it was revealed that David had become a paid advisor to Giant Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm that has a particular focus on green technology and energy. Following a series of earlier investments, it recently launched a new “climate focused growth fund” and claims it wants to invest a further $1 billion in “sustainable technologies” by the end of the decade.
All of which may seem perfectly in fitting with David’s form when it comes to juggling multiple jobs. Except for one thing: at least two of the companies Giant Ventures has invested in are likely to prosper as a direct result of decisions made by the new Government. In other words, David now works for a company that stands to profit from climate policies introduced by his brother Ed.
Before and since the election, Ed Miliband has spoken of the need to create a vast energy storage network connected to the national grid — to ensure that, in a renewable energy system, the lights don’t go out when the sun is not shining and there is no wind. Part of this, he has said, will be supplied by arrays of giant batteries. He mentioned them again in his conference speech last week, when he called for the “armoury of clean power”.
Enter Field, a battery power storage firm set up in 2021 by Amit Gudka, one of the co-founders of collapsed energy firm Bulb. Field, with five sites already finished or being built, claims to be ready to meet Miliband’s challenge. And Giant Ventures seems to agree: according to data gathered by finance research experts PitchBook, it invested in Field at its outset in 2021.
Now, it is possible that Ed Miliband was unaware that Field was partly financed by Giant Ventures, although this had already been reported. It is also possible that didn’t know his brother was a member of the Giant Ventures advisory board, though that information was also public.
But that would be puzzling. According to Whitehall’s Ministerial Code, newly appointed ministers must formally declare “all interests that might be thought to give rise to a conflict” with their government post: not only their own, but those of their spouse and “close family members”. They must not only avoid any conflict, but also the “perception” that one might arise. It should have been obvious to Ed Miliband that he had a duty to check his brother’s interests.
This year’s declaration is yet to be published, but both Labour and Conservative former ministers told me that declarations of ministerial interests are usually made immediately after taking office, so that civil servants are aware from the start where conflicts might arise. I asked both the energy department and the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the list, whether Ed had declared David’s role at Giant Ventures, but both refused to comment. Asked when the next list would be published, all they would say is that this would happen “in due course”.
Worth reading in full.
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I’ve put a large cardboard box out two weeks running, which they’ve refused to take; presumably because there’s a couple of tiny polystyrene balls at the bottom. I’ve now burnt box at back of garden and will no longer play their silly game of separating the trash. I’m surprised it’s taken me so long to stop playing.
Time to haul out another idiot politician to pay for the sins of our tyrannical bureaucrats.
It’s getting a very long list of them isn’t it?
I once put some rubbish in a rubbish bin, too.
I know, it’s a good job Marcus Aurelius knew isn’t my real name!
Good Lord!
Oh, not that either?
You’re a monster.
Now you tell us, Marcus!
As the saying goes “no good deed goes unpunished”. I would always recommend not binning anything with your intact name or address on it in case the garbage stasi want to trace it back to you. An indelible marker pen or shredding should do the trick.
At least, through incidents like these, people are starting to see how unhinged the environment movement has become.
Been doing that for years. Didn’t think I’d be worrying about the bin police though.
That said, this news should also be used to emphasise the risk of ID theft. Not only could someone go through the bins to identify you – this shows that someone actually did.
I went round, under the cover of darkness, covertly dumping bin bags full of stripped wallpaper in the neighbours’ bins in the street, the night before bin collection.
It’s when we first moved in and the previous owners were obviously fans of the ‘multi-layer’ approach to wallpapering over the decades. We ended up with our garden shed crammed full of these bags.
You’re meant to take it to the tip but we didn’t own a car then and we’d have had to pay through the nose for the council to take it away. It took several weeks but I got shot of it all. ‘Off-territory’ dumping for the win! Fortunately my neighbours are all very chill and helpful, one even suggested I do that, but god knows how much I’d have been fined in Brighton.
I am a master. I’ve got rid of TONS of waste like this. The council employee at the tip told me to do it when I looked aghast at the prospect of having to pay AGAIN for the council to take a few old bricks. Thing is, my neighbours don’t know about this… arrangement… so like you say, darkness and stealth are key
We put an old car engine in a wheelie bin once, back in the 1990s the bins were much bigger. Council truck groaned a bit when it compacted it but there it was, gone..
When wheelie bins were first introduced, as long as it fitted in the bin, you could put it in. True, dat. That was the whole point of them. The only time one wasn’t emptied was when I filled it with garden rubble…it was so heavy it was almost impossible to wheel the bin, so had to take some out and spread it out over a few weeks!
Well I just call it using your initiative. I feel like as the years go by there seems to be more and more rules for us to abide by. The vast majority being totally pointless.
We’ve got some used beer bottles that aren’t made of glass so can’t be recycled. They’re mega heavy and appear to be made from stone or granite. They’ll be getting off-loaded 2 or 3 at a time down at the bins in the car park at the top of the street.
I figure that as long as I don’t do a secretive dump in the dog poo bin I’m not actually doing anything wrong..
There is actually a bin for dog poo———–It’s called a politicians mouth.
I got rid of a bath by chopping it up and putting a bagfull of it in my bin for each collection. Eventually got rid of it over many weeks. This between the time that councils started charging for DIY domestic waste (by claiming it wasn’t domestic’) and the recent change which stops them imposing these charges.
This has turned into quite the “Dumpers Anonymous Confessional”, hasn’t it? You bloody axe maniac you! Or were you more of a Leatherface, in your weapon of destruction choice?
I am pretty sure that they don’t recycle anything like what they claim. I suspect most ends up in landfill. So they have us jumping through all these hoops for nothing. GREEN has to be the most insidious and disgusting political ideology ever imposed on an easily manipulated public, who thought they were living in a free country. —–Once their gas central heating is ripped out and they have 10 plastic bins in their garden some people might actually wake up one day and say “Eh, what is going on here exactly”?
I find the last part of this story particularly vexing. £400 fine for litter picking. My wife does at least an hours litter picking most days. She has early onset AD. If she is fined for putting something in the wrong bin there will be hell to pay.
#excited is trending in the legal community.
My solution is to dig holes and bury it. Keeps you fit digging and yields topsoil to go in raised beds.
I am jusy continuing the practice of the former owner of my home, who was a haulage contractor for a large nearby chemical company. They paid him to take it away and he tipped a lot of the useful bits and pieces in the back garden. For the last three decades it has yielded much useful stuff for an enterprising cheapskate like me.
For a fist full of rubble?
We found an old coal fire back boiler buried in our garden – didn’t know what it was at first.
Hunger games type behaviour, may the odds always be in yr favour.
In Essex visits to waste disposal sites (“recycling centres” in swamp language) requires prior reservation giving phone number, email addreess and vehicle registration number. I have found the staff who check admission allow some leeway on time which is just as well because local roads are often choaked.
Staff in the centre are very interested in metal waste, so much so I wonder if they sell it privately. There is no assistance available for heavy items.
This seems to me just another way of monitoring the public.
Council waste tips have always been obliged to take metal. Yes, I strongly suspect that the staff scavenge and sell-off the good bits. I’m a bit of a car renovation nut – the local guys have got used to me dumping old driveshafts and suchlike.
This level of micro surveillance and stupidity has not yet reached Scotland, as far as I am aware. The response from the typical Jock would likely be far more colourful than awa’ and bile yer heid….
It is sad then that the typical Jock could not manage “awa’ and bile yer heid….” when the Scamdemic and associated nonsense were being rolled out.
No personal criticism intended.
It’s high time everyone told their councils to F themselves. This is rule without consent.
The level of the fine constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment, totally out of order.
How can it even be a crime to put waste in a bin, it’s not industrial quantities of waste, it was one piece of cardboard.
The Highland Council (SNP) is similarly anal about street litter bins, all sorts of threats and incitement to snitch, horrible notices.
Could the FSU help to challenge this or help organise an appeal for funds.
“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”
Thomas Sowell
With respect, the people of Brighton shouldn’t complain.
They voted for the greenists.
PS maybe try some direct democracy and sneak out at night and plant some cardboard boxes in the greeny’s bins?
We will soon have a bin that goes out once a year for toe nail clippings. Try not to put it out on the wrong day though or the toe nail wardens will slap you with a heavy fine.
One for the left foot and one for the right.
Years ago (before I retired) after each meal in the company’s dining room we meticulously separated out plastic and polystyrene cups placing them in special containers. One day I happened to be in the service yard where I witnessed the two separate containers being emptied into the back of the same dust cart! After that I made a point of placing plastic cups in the polystyrene container and vice versa.
Simple solution: don’t pay the fine. Inundate the council for evidence of any contract and shower them with FOI requests. Basically, tie them up in legal knots. They’re just out to rob you after all.