An honourable person would recuse himself from situations where even the suggestion of impropriety is possible. Sunak should not have been PM to start with.
Care you expand more? I thought (granted, without any evidence) he's poised better compared to his predecessors. Better in what way? Well, not a clown; lasted more than 45 days -- neither of which, I admit, is not high praise.
So, I thought he was maybe a decent chap. I'd be interested in any pointers au contraire.
Regardless, I agree on the recusal part: Caesar's wife must be above all suspicion.
The end of Truss should have meant an election, we're all killing time to ensure MPs collect a few more paychecks. The project has been cancelled but the contractors are still here.
If you're in a position of power, you're going to have relationships where there might be the appearance of impropriety for anything - and you may not even know there would be the suggestion of impropriety until after the fact.
Infosys has 40 clients w/ greater than $100m/year contracts, which they don't enumerate individually, but from skimming the internet, it looks like oil and gas, banking, manufacturing, and tech companies all potentially fit into that bucket - so should he recuse himself from everything that is related to any of those industries?
Before he was married into Infosys, he was a banker and presumably has lots of relationships with these large companies regardless - should he recuse himself from anything that might touch any of those large companies? Not a rhetorical question, I'm trying to understand what the criteria is.
I remember there being a desire to build a concrete plant near my house when I grew up. When the council running the town had to put the meeting in the largest room they had, and people started poking through the whitewashing... it went away.
If I was a member of that zoning panel, I'd still not want it there. But if it is the best spot for the town... I am in conflict of interest.
These type of conflicts happen ALL the time.
People will never be lily white, and have no conflicts. And from what people are saying on the size of the deal, etc.. .it may have been in the works before he became PM. These type of deals don't happen over night.
People will never be squeaky clean, but from the highest office in the land one must expect better than whiffs of dodgy multi-billion deals. If one can't possibly shake that whiff, s/he shouldn't be in that office.
False dilemma.
Hilary Clinton’s speaking fees to big banks, or Elizabeth Warren’s connections to academia, are a lot more material to those individuals than Infosys turning a $100 million contract into a $150 million contract is to Sunak.
Saying nothing is hypocritical and blaming only one side is tribalistic.
A basic slob like you, you mean?
What does that mean?
His wife isn't in government, and AFAIK Sunak owns no part of Infosys.
What she makes is as his as hers.
For the purposes of public office or even a CEO at a publicly traded company, the appearance of a conflict is no difference than a material conflict.
It is pretty clear that Sunak is toast and that the people around him simply don't care anymore.
> A firm founded by Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law signed a billion-dollar deal with BP two months before the prime minister opened hundreds of new licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea.
That angle doesn’t make sense if you realize that the firm is an IT company, not a company that is involved in oil and gas extraction.
I'm pretty sure lotsofpulp's underlying question is, how would that - or any divestment - work when it's the PM's father-in-law which has the shares and is chairman emeritus?
Are all relatives within distance X supposed to divest? And if not, you can't become PM? Hopefully they all like you enough!
You might as well argue steal whatever I like because it's a tiny percentage of GDP.
And from a practical standpoint, any honest politician should want to avoid it, if nothing else to avoid arguing about bullshit from a defensive stance. So there is very much an argument that smoke needs careful fire investigation.
The next step down the this road, of course, is arguing that people are above reproach precisely because of their position. "When the President does it, it's not illegal", etc. Corrupting a government is a process, if you look at other corrupt countries, comparisons are an easy way to sort of spot, "you are here."
Doesn't that seem ... stupid? To put the onus on the people who have no access to any communications or details about what looks like corruption? It's my opinion that without forcing them to do everything in the open and prove to us that there is no quid pro quo, you're going to end up with Soviet USSR style government real fast.
I'm sure this is "business as usual" but ... maybe it shouldn't be?
By your line of logic, if Elizabeth Warren votes for something that benefits Harvard, that’s improper without any evidence that Harvard is giving her something in return.
Doesn't matter if it only impacts a relatively small portion of his family's immense wealth. The level of tolerance for that should be zero.
- Infosys already had a $100m/year contract with BP
- the new contract is 1.5b over 10 years, so a significant increase, but as part of the contract infosys becomes the primary IT partner for BP, therefore not an unimaginable increase
- Infosys's customers include Shell, Aramco, Chevron, and others. They're one of the top IT services company for the energy industry, so this isn't an outlandish customer for them to have
- Infosys's revenue in 2021 was $12b, making this contract ~1% of their annual revenue. The net increase over their previous contract is .4%
In short, this looks like a fairly standard contract from a provider that was already heavily represented in the industry and has an existing substantial investment with the customer - and one that doesn't materially impact the trajectory of the company. Other than the timing of the events, there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest inappropriate actions on anyone's part.