oil

we live in volatile times. the price of everything is soaring, except house prices, which are plummeting (oooh get me i have come over all daily mail on you). the credit crunch has many of us by the short and curlies.
we cry out for a leader to carry us through this economic minefield. a man (or woman, as i can do pc as well as the next man (or woman) – see i told you i could) with strong convictions, a firm grasp of the situation and bravery to chart the course needed.
step forward our broad shoudered touselled headed blonde leader boris.
yes in a time when oil prices keep going up boris, the mayor of london, has decided not to renew the deal with venezuela which allowed london’s buses to get cheap fuel, which in turn allowed them to be offering travel concessions to those on social security.
back when it was signed ken livingstone, the then mayor, claimed it would benefit up to a quarter of a million londoners, the current take up is far short of that at close to 60,000 people. still that is a lot of people who are much better off. payment for this oil was to be in the form of consultancy work carried out by london experts in the fields of: recycling, waste management, traffic and on reducing carbon emissions.
at the time the deal was struck it was attacked by the green party, who complained that livingstone should be finding ways to reduce london’s reliance on fossil fuels. which is fair enough as that is what the green’s mostly stand for. while the conservatives complained that livingstone and hugo chavez, the venezuelan president, should be ashamed of this deal as it exploited the poor of venezuela. which is fair enough as the conservative party have always stood for compassion for the poor (sorry for a moment there i was cameron’s press secretary).

step forward boris johnson. he sees the inequity of the deal. we get cheap oil, buses can pass on the savings to be poorest, and venezuela gets advice it needs. to boris and the tories there is a terrible smell about this. so they have to stop it.
boris says: "many londoners felt uncomfortable about the bus operation of one of the world's financial powerhouses being funded by the people of a country where many people live in extreme poverty" most of those people who were disgruntled would be tory members of the greater london assembly, the rest of us not so bothered.
"there are better ways of benefiting londoners and better ways of benefiting venezuelans". but “ways” were outlined and i suspect none will be forthcoming any time soon. (to be fair to boris he is maintaining the subsidies for those on benefit until the original deal runs out – august of this year.)
back when the deal was signed richard barnes, the then leader of london assembly conservatives slammed the deal because "london should not be doing business with third-rate south american dictators with an appalling human rights and democratic record."
too right richard we just want our deals to be with first-rate dictators with appalling human rights and democratic records.
with all this talk from david cameron, boris johnson and, now, richard barnes i am expecting the conservative party to unveil several ethical programmes that will ban the sale of weapons to dictatorships, ensure that countries we invest in and do business with are transparent with their human rights records, while back home i expect both david and boris to address the thorny issue of workers rights to ensure that they are protected against the unscrupulous employers. in addition to that the conservatives will lead the charge to ensure that big business pays fairer taxes because they should not exploit the worker.
then again i think that in this instance both boris and richard were just talking for effect and frankly they don’t care about the poverty in venezuela, nor do they care about the state of venezuelan workers they were just miffed that ken livingstone got a sweet deal worked out that benefited the poor in london.

still we can all rest easy as the mayor’s press release states that with the closing of the office in caracas £67,000 a year will be saved on the lonodn budget (even though that £67,000 was actually buying cheap oil).
so although london buses will now have to pay the market rate for oil boris can at least claim to make good on a campaign claim as he has stopped a scheme that he referred to as “crackers”. good for you boris.

one of the reasons that the deal had to go was that the new first deputy mayor (the unelected) tim parker saw the deal as not being part of the “core strategy” for the greater london assembly. mr. parker is interested that londoners get value for money for any deals struck. getting cheap oil seems not to be value for money.
but look boris has struck a deal with mayor bloomberg of new york. the two mayors have agreed to swap personnel and ideas so that both cities could learn from each other’s best practices.
well that is value for money. hold on my 25 bus runs so much better on “best practice” than it does on petrol.
could it be that new york is a better place to go than caracas?
could it be that boris and mr. parker just don’t like left-wingers?

but here is irony for you. do you want to know which other city has a deal with venezuela for cheap fuel?
can you guess?
score one for the home team if you said new york.

mayor bloomberg share some of that best practice with boris and mr. parker now.