Monday, 17 March 2014

Don't We Just Love Pre-Budget Lobbying?

Spring is here, and it falls to the unhappy lot of the corporate PR to be instructed from on high to demean themselves by placing articles seeking to change the Chancellor's mind on some heavily-trailed Budget measure.  One can imagine the effect this tosh has over the Osborne family breakfast table. "I see in the Telegraph that EDF are asking for some more free cash, George."  "Oh really, dear? Then I will hasten to the Treasury to do their bidding this very morning."  At best, these daft articles are a kind of pre-emptive whinge.

In their own way they can be amusing, though, for all that.  I particularly like it when they place their ads on Guido's blog; and C@W is always open to pre-paid contributions ...  But it is to the Telegraph we turn for these two closely related gems:
Keep carbon tax, say green and nuclear energy chiefs ;  and
Britain has the right energy policies in place, it just needs to keep the costs down
The latter is under the by-line of out old EDF friend, chief frog Vincent de Rivaz lui-même.  Not satisfied with his extravagant Hinkley Point C deal, he also wants to preserve the windfall for his existing nuclear fleet that is the Carbon Price Floor - a boon which is altogether more tangible and immediate than the sometime-never Hinkley, being cash-in-hand right now.  Pretty brazen to use the words "just needs to keep the costs down", but being in lobbying mode is a shameless business (he invokes Ukraine and the floods, too, though inexplicably fails to mention Chinese inward investment).

Tough shit, Vince, but you had it coming.  Live by the subsidy, die by the subsidy.

Spotted any other entertaining budget-whine for our delectation ?

ND

2 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

The PR person's work is never done.
A thankless task.

A former girlfriend was a top spinner in the construction field.
headhunted across Europe she was. Someone able to place the most banal, pointless, exaggerated or just plain untrue puff piece into any publication. She earned a fortune.

rwendland said...

Don't suppose Vincent de Rivaz is that keen on UK's "need to keep the costs down" idea of continuing discussions with Rosatom about building Russian VVER reactors in the UK, per the memorandum of understanding Michael Fallon signed with the Russians last year.

In Turkey Russian VVERs seem economic with only a 15 year subsidy on half the electricity produced at £75/MWh, which must make Areva/EDF gag. Lucky for them, the Ukraine adventure probably makes Russian competition a distant possibility in the UK!