Tonight:
9°c
It is difficult to comprehend the scale of the Russian crisis engulfing BP. The TNK-BP joint venture, now under threat from its Russian billionaire partners, accounts for a quarter of the British company's entire production, a fifth of all its reserves and an eighth of its profits.
No wonder executives at the company's St James' headquarters are wearing a look of increasing panic. Without the Russian presence, their corporation would effectively cease to be a truly global one. At a stroke, regardless of how it was compensated, BP would become an also-ran - its rise of the past decade from struggling oil company to hugely successful energy multinational all but over.
To make matters worse, the plan of the oligarchs is to let loose the wholly Russian producer on the world stage, creating formidable competition for a weakened and badly demoralised BP.
Should we care? Yes, we must. There's no doubt BP needed its head examined to enter into a straight 50/50 arrangement with the Russians, so the breakdown is not entirely unexpected and the British firm only has itself to blame. But that apart, BP is one of the few great success stories UK Plc still possesses. It's one of our rare champions and a major employer and contributor to the Treasury coffers to boot.
Which is why, I have to ask, are three distinguished former servants of the Crown on the payroll of Mikhail Fridman, the most high-profile and vociferous of the billionaires? His main holding company, Alfa Group, has two subsidiaries, Alfa Capital Partners and Altimo.
On the eight-strong international advisory board of Alfa Capital Partners is Lord Powell, former foreign affairs adviser to Prime Ministers Thatcher and Major. At Altimo, the telecoms arm of Alfa - the name stands for Alfa Telecom International Mobile - there is also an international advisory board. Among its six members are Sir Francis Richards, ex-head of GCHQ and governor of Gibraltar, and Lord Hurd, the ex-Foreign Secretary.
I find their continued involvement with Fridman appalling. The sole reason they are regarded as useful is the expertise and contacts they acquired while in the service of this country. None of them qualify as major-league business brains. They were paid by the UK, honoured by the UK and still receive pensions from the UK. Yet they are working for a man who, by his behaviour towards BP, is intent on doing enormous harm to this country.
For their £100,000 a year or thereabouts - I'm told that is the going rate for such appointments - they are expected to turn up at meetings and be available with their advice. Looking at their CVs, I wonder what they talk to Fridman and his cohorts about? I bet they don't sit and chat about the cricket.
It's incredible, in my view, they're allowed to take up such appointments at all. Charles Powell, as he then was, had total access to the inner workings of our government for years. Hurd ran the Foreign Office from 1989 to 1995. Richards was the boss of GCHQ, our most secret and sensitive communications centre, for five years. Now here they are, busy helping the Russians.
I don't think Fridman has hired them because they can explain to him the intricacies of cricket. Would Russia allow the ex-chief of its equivalent of GCHQ to sit on a board advising BP? What do you think?
Shame on Powell, Richards and Hurd.
