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04 Jun 2001
The Conservative Party has been funded or backed by some of the biggest
companies in Britain, many with dodgy ethical and environmental records.
Friends of the Earth's analysis of corporate political sponsors, published
today, gives details of the companies,their donations and their environmental
records. They include
Michael Brinton, Chairman is one of the Conservative Party's "Business backers".Formerly Greenalls Group. Greenalls Hotels & Leisure was fined £3,000 and £5,000 with£2,000 costs for two water pollution offences by Tynedale magistrates on 11th July 2000. Two sewage spills from a treatment plant operated by Northumbrian water, but which served the company's Slaley Hall Hotel, malfunctioned in summer 1999 entered a local stream and killed fish and other wildlife up to 400 metres downstream.
John Clare is Chief Exeuctive is one of the Conservative Party's "Business backers". In August 2000, Friends of the Earth criticised Dixons over the presence of brominated flame retardants in its computers, TV and Hi Fis. In late 1997, after Dixons was 'named and shamed' by the TUC as anti-union, the company claimed to have done a U-turn.However, this was disputed by the Labour Research Department in its December 1997 Labour Research magazine, sourcing AEEU officials.
Director Lady Patten was a Conservative Party business backer. Donation from Director Jonathan Charkham. In August 2000. FOE criticised Argos Distributors Ltd for use of phthaltes, alkylphenols, bisphenol a and brominated flame retardants in its plastic toys,computers, TVs and Hi Fis. Argos was also criticised by FOE and Global Witness in 1999 for its sale of garden furniture made from illegally logged Cambodian wood.
Shadow Chancellor Michael Portillo receives between £5,001 and £10,000 pa as an adviser on international affairs. The Ecuadorian Government has granted a bidding to the OCP (a partnership of which Ker-McGee is a member) for the construction of a 500km pipeline to transport bad quality heavy crude oil across the country from East to West.
The majority of the transported crude will come from the Yasuní National Park which constitutes the last pristine corner of the most important National Park in Continental Ecuador, which is the home of the Huaorani tribe. Additionally, it will expand the petroleum frontier in the Amazon forests in South Ecuador -that have had little intervention - in indigenous territories Quichua, Shuar and Achuar.
The pipeline route was approved without an Environmental Impact Assessment
that supports it, and without consultation with the affected people.
The pipeline route goes across all 94 systems of fault in Ecuador, various
active volcanoes, vulnerable lands with danger of erosion, an area of
fragile lands with a high concentration of schools, all the country's
ecological floors, including areas where streams and rivers are born,
first-quality agricultural areas,places with unsteady lands and seismically
active, primary tropical forests, etc. the Mindo Valley - an area that
has the greater concentration of birds per unit of area in South America.
The proximity of Colombia aggregates an additional risk to the OCP considering
that in this country more than 760 threats to the pipeline have occurred
in the last 10 years.
Andrew Dalton, Managing Director of ML Investment Managers is a Conservative business backer. On 4th February 2000, the Three Gorges Action Coalition published a press release urging customers of a number of companies including Merril Lynch, to sign an e-mail petition, calling on them to stop their 'involvement' in the Three Gorges Dam project in China.
The Coalition described the dam, then in its second phase of construction,
as the 'most socially and environmentally destructive' in the world,
leading to the displacement of 1.9 million farmers and residents and
the embezzlement of resetlement funds. The petition was aimed at limiting
foreign finance for the scheme.The Financial Times reported on 15th
April 1999 that Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney were acting as
co-lead managers for a $500m gobal bond, due to be launched in May 1999
by the Chinese Development Bank, and intended to raise funds for China's
controversial Three Gorges Dam.
Labour Research of December 1998, volume 87 number 12, reported that Ranger Oil had donated £5,000 to the Conservative Party in 1997-8. Conservative peer Lord Moynihan is a Director. According to Greenpeace Business in August 1997, Ranger was in partnership with Phillips, Agip, Omv and Petrobras to conduct seismic testing in tranche 44 of the oil exploration frontier in Rockall.
The exploration was heavily criticised by Greenpeace as it involves
exploration of oil fields in otherwise undisturbed areas of the Atlantic,
rich in bird and marine life. Greenpeace took the UK government and
22 oil companies to court to demand a full Judicial Review of the decision
to grant licences for oil exploration in this area.
Labour Research reported in May 1997 that Slough Estates had given £110,000 to the Conservative Party since 1992. In late 1997, pensions group PIRC reported on political donations. PIRC wrote to a number of companies requesting they seek shareholder approval for such donations. Slough Estates was cited as having donated £21,500 to the Conservative Party in the year 1996/7, plus £2,000 to the Centre for Policy Studies
and £2,500 to Aims of Industry. The Rt Hon John MacGregor MP is a paid director. Financial Times reported on 23rd August 1997 that Slough Heat and Power were served with two prohibition orders. According to the FT, Slough Heat and Power spilt between 15 and 20 tonnes of hydrochloric acid, some entered storm water drains. Corporate
Watch reported that Slough Estates had offered to pay for half of the £8 million pounds for a planned 'environmental' bypass in Aldenham Country Park, Hertfordshire, England.The bypass would cut through Aldenham Country Park which is within the Green belt,is home to bats, and used by local people.
Other companies in the FOE analysis backing the Tories include: Akzo Nobel, British American Tobacco, and Norwest Holst.
Commenting, FOE Executive Director Charles Secrett said:
"Our analysis shows that many Tory business backers have poor
ethical and environmental records. Perhaps this may help explain why
the Tories have managed to fight this Election on the least green platform
produced by any major Party in living memory. To restore their credibility,
the Tories need a complete rethink on their environmental policies and
their relations with business."
The full analysis of Tory and Labour business backers is available from
FOE Press Office
Contact details:
Friends of the Earth
26-28 Underwood St.
LONDON
N1 7JQ
Tel: 020 7490 1555
Fax: 020 7490 0881
Web: www.foe.co.uk/feedback.html
Media team
