The International Development Committee today released its report into the UK’s international investment body, British International Investment (BII). It includes some strange recommendations.
The committee, which is led by Labour MP Sarah Champion and includes Corbynites Kate Osamor and Navendu Mishra, criticised the board of the BII for failing to devote enough resources to “gender lens investing”. The report included a separate section criticising the BII for its investments in attractive low-tax jurisdictions, which result “significant lost revenue for countries in the ‘Global South’.” And more cash for actual production…
Only one of the BII’s three priorities is to actually make smart investments and create jobs, the other two being climate change and “inclusive development”. What more do the politicians want?
The report complained that in 2021, “BII invested in just 15 fragile and conflict-affected states, with only Nigeria receiving more than one per cent of BII’s total investment during that year”. If only war-torn countries had more startups…
It criticised that BII investments still had exposure to fossil fuels, in conflict with the government’s climate goals, and demanded that the BII elaborate an exit plan for those investments. The BII retorted that to do so would be to lose taxpayers’ money.
The committee goes so far as to propose that the FCDO abandons its “arm’s length” approach and takes more control over the BII board to bring in crucial “public sector representation”. Those brilliant investors…
The UK’s woke High Commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, met with Australian High Commissioner to the UK, George Brandis, when he was back in Australia over the Christmas period. When the pair met at Westminster House in Canberra, Treadell went off on a list of what the top UK-Australia priorities should be, picking some eyebrow-raising woke issues. The British representative down under listed the FCDO’s priorities in the partnership to be addressing:
Guido reliably hears Brandis retorted by saying – “No, they should be securing a UK-Australia free trade deal, and calling China out as climate criminals.” Sound.
The Australian High Commission denies this ‘characterisation’ and simultaneously tells Guido they do not comment on diplomatic exchanges. Guido is absolutely confident that this report is correct…
While the total cost of the FCO/DfID merger will end up being in the millions, FOI figures seen by Guido show the basic cost of rebranding and rolling out the department’s new name (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) rounds up to an eye watering £160,000. Guido imagines taxpayers might feel a bit FCDOff about that cost…
While the new logo came to just £429 + VAT thanks to the government’s in-house design agency, it’s been estimated by the department that the cost of implementing the logo – including their shiny new Whitehall brass plaque and stationery – will hit £158,631 by the end of 2020/21. Given the UK still gives aid money to foreign powers with nuclear weapons programmes, the department’s new stationery splurge comes in as a relatively minor waste of taxpayer cash…
In a remarkable intervention, Dominic Raab and the Foreign Office have called for a fresh Presidential election after recent revelations the vote was “falsified” via “electoral fraud throughout” the count. In Belarus…
The FCDO merger has clearly proved time-consuming for James Cleverly, not finding the time to do his dispatch box homework. In the Commons just now MPs witnessed an embarrassing scene as the minster of state forgot the phrase “Magnitsky Sanctions”. Raab initially looked pretty FuCkeDOff…
British Politics has a history of narrowly avoiding silly department acronyms; Alan Johnson often brings up the anecdote of the time Tony Blair asked him to head up a new “Department of Productivity, Energy, Industry and Science”, which Johnson quickly spotted spelt out “PEnIS“. He also occupied the role of Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning (HELL) and reviewed a proposal for a Sexual Health Advisory Group (SHAG).
The question in Whitehall at the moment is how to pronounce the acronym for the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). After a YMCA style F.C.D.O. baptism, most are now plumping for FuCaDO (to rhyme with Ocado). Red Lion revellers, however, may have overheard minister James Cleverly* this week loudly proffering his preferred pronunciation for the FCD Office – FuCkeDOff…
