Legitimate Commerce

Astoundingly enough, at least one of Fishy Rishi's new licenses to pollute has been awarded to a major Party donor. Even though the chief executive of EnQuest has given the Conservatives cash and kind to the value of almost half a million over the past decade, the company's subsidiary EnQuest Heather has nevertheless benefited from the Government's largesse, doubtless thanks mainly to the magic of that elven-woodling company name. More astoundingly still, EnQuest was recently fined the cost of several executive luncheons for burning off gas without regard even for the minimal constraints imposed by the British free market. A little less astoundingly, EnQuest is unlikely to have occasion for repenting either its investment in the Conservative Party or its dirty habits, since Team Starmer has no intention of revoking the new licences; a pledge not to grant further new ones remains in place, with only twenty-eight billion reasons against its lasting much longer.