Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaks to staff at the met office in Exeter, to discuss the UK’s ongoing response to extreme heat, wildfires and drought, August 14, 2026
Burnham urged to stand up to the fossil fuel giants and reject plans to drill Britain’s largest untapped oil fields
PRIME MINISTER Andy Burnham was urged to stand up to profiteering fossil fuel giants and reject plans to drill Britain’s largest untapped oil field as consultations on them drew to a close today.
Labour faces a key environmental test as the final decision over the future of the Rosebank oil field, which lies about 80 miles west of Shetland, is left with ministers.
Production at both Rosebank and Jackdaw had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but those decisions were quashed after a legal challenge from Greenpeace, leaving the government to decide whether or not drilling should go ahead.
The decision on the two projects comes after a summer that has seen soaring temperatures and devastating wildfires in both Britain and Europe.
Environmentalists warn that allowing the development of the Jackdaw gas field off the coast of Aberdeen, whose consultation ended last week, would produce more than 250 million tonnes of CO2 — equivalent to 70 per cent of Britain’s annual emissions.
Greenpeace campaigner Maja Darlington said: “The PM wants to be pragmatic, but there is nothing pragmatic about watching communities be battered by climate chaos while the Prime Minister flirts with expanding the very industry driving it.
“More drilling means more heatwaves, more droughts, more wildfires, and more suffering for the communities Burnham represents. The climate crisis is already hitting working people hardest — firefighters on the front line, bus drivers exposed to inhumane heat, nurses collapsing on the job.
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark RichardsGreenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
A worker collects engine oil as he works at a degassing station in Zubair oil field near Basra, Iraq
ENERGY firms raked in an excess of £6 billion in Iran war windfall profits this year, it was revealed today as households brace for yet another bill rise at the end of the month.
Campaigners said profits generated in Britain by these companies equate to over £200 for every household in the country, while a further increase in gas prices is expected in the next Ofgem price cap announcement on August 26.
Financial results posted by the world’s top energy firms revealed their British profits are only one part of their global profits, totalling £95bn in 2026.
Analysis from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC) revealed the excess profits linked to global energy market disruptions as a result of the US war on Iran, which has increased cost pressures on households in Britain, as well as other countries.
Researchers looked at financial results posted by BP, Centrica, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Iberdrola, Shell and Total.
EFPC co-ordinator Simon Francis said windfall profits must be considered alongside previous findings saying a third of households are “on the brink of, or are in energy debt.”
“These price shock profiteers are doing very well out of the Iran conflict, but they are doing little to solve the underlying problems,” Mr Francis said.
“As people brace for the next price cap announcement on August 26 and a third of households are on the brink of or in energy debt, the energy industry watches the profits climb.”
Article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
The rubble of a burned out residential home smolders in the Balboa neighborhood of Spokane, Washington, on August 2, 2026. (Photo by Erick Doxey/AFP via Getty Images)
“The fossil fuel industry may not have struck the match, but the climate crisis they drove has loaded our landscapes with tinder,” said an environmental activist.
Over 60,000 people were ordered to evacuate the Spokane area over the weekend as it was devastated by what Democratic Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell called the “top fire” in a nation currently being scorched by climate-fueled blazes.
Illustrating how the climate crisis is already impacting lives and communities across the country and the globe, three raging fires reportedly consumed over 600 structures as of Sunday, including homes and businesses, and reduced entire streets to their foundations.
At a briefing on Sunday afternoon, officials said more than 250,000 acres were burning across Washington, but reported no deaths or injuries.
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown called it “the worst natural disaster our region has faced.”
Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson has requested assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is under the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote on social media that she had spoken with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and that he “made clear the federal government will do everything it can to support response and recovery,” though President Donald Trump has previously intervened to block disaster aid to Democrat-led states.
While the fires moderated over the weekend, on Monday they remained largely uncontained and continued to spread due to dry conditions from recent severe droughts in the region, exacerbated by rising global temperatures.
This is Spokane, Washington. Right now. First weekend of August.
“This is climate change playing out live in real time,” said meteorologist and Climate Central journalist Shel Winkley in a video about the Spokane fires.
Warmer temperatures, he explained, have caused a vicious cycle of “weather whiplash” in which greater winter rainfall facilitates plant growth before harsher summer heat domes suck moisture from these plants, turning them into a tinderbox.
“Northeastern Washington and central Oregon now see at least three more weeks of fire weather days each year than they did just back in the 1970s,” Winkley said. “More fire weather days means more chances for a spark, any spark, to turn into this.”
The blazes are part of a nationwide trend, with wildfires this year more severe on average than in previous years. Over the past decade, the average annual acreage burned in the US was more than double the average of the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center.
Last week, an Oxfamanalysis of data published in the journal Nature found that emissions from just five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies—were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023—“heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change.”
Using S&P Capital Trucost data, the group estimated that Big Oil was responsible for more than $60 billion in environmental damage last year.
But as costs fall on the public, oil companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil have reported record profits of $12.1 billion and $14.5 billion over the past quarter, in part due to global oil price spikes driven by Trump’s war with Iran.
“The fossil fuel industry may not have struck the match, but the climate crisis they drove has loaded our landscapes with tinder,” said Clémence Dubois, the campaigns director for the environmental group 350.org. “Chevron and Exxon are profiteering from a model of distraction, leaving ordinary people to pay the price with higher bills and devastating impacts such as these fires. These profits feel almost criminal.”
Jay Inslee, Washington’s former Democratic governor and a longtime advocate for policies to combat the climate crisis, said on Sunday that his friend, a legislator from Spokane, had been forced to flee his home due to the fires.
“Climate change isn’t some faraway threat,” Inslee said. “It’s happening right now, to our neighbors and friends. We have to fight for them.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
A view of the Chamber of the House of Lords ahead of the State Opening of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster in London, May 13, 2026
PEERS have seen their shares in oil and gas firms soar by tens of thousands since the start of the US war on Iran as the energy price cap jumped today, the Morning Star can reveal.
At least seven lords and one baroness have seen their stock holdings in companies such as Equinor, Chevron and Shell, increase since the war-driven energy shock.
New research from the End Fuel Poverty Coalition (EFPC) shared exclusively with the Star revealed the estimated gains made by peers as households “dread” the next energy bill.
EFPC co-ordinator Simon Francis slammed the lords who “may be leaping at the prospect of increased dividends and share prices” on the backs of “suffering households.”
Among the lords who saw the highest rise in their holdings was former Treasury and Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew of Oulton.
A Tory peer and board member on GB News’ holding company, Lord Agnew saw his shares in Britain’s largest gas supplier Equinor grow by around £28,000 since the February 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran which kicked off the war.
Former Tory Treasury minister Lord Sassoon saw shares in Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and Shell grow by a combined value of just under £28,000.
EFPC highlighted other sitting peers holding shares in Shell, including former Hong Kong governor Lord Patten, former Tory home secretary and chancellor Lord Clarke and crossbencher Lord Rees.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Peter Mandelson was Keir Starmer’s pick for US ambassador, but was forced to resign following the release of the Epstein Files (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Government failed to declare meeting with top Global Counsel clients, and says no notes were taken at several meetings
The government has no official records of meetings that top civil servants held with senior figures and clients from Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm last year, including an undeclared meeting with oil giants and private equity firms, openDemocracy can reveal.
Global Counsel went into administration earlier this year after details of Mandelson’s close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in the Epstein Files, including emails showing how he sought the billionaire paedophile’s advice on establishing the firm.
But before its collapse, Global Counsel’s business was booming as it and its founder established close ties to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Ahead of the 2024 election, the company donated a member of staff to support Labour’s work on financial services policy development and produced promotional materials, which openDemocracy has seen, touting its significant access to the party. “Our clients’ engagement pays dividends in the long run,” it promised, adding that it was “uniquely placed” to help corporate clients “establish relationships that outlive the election and deliver policy dividends on the other side”.
By the end of that year, Starmer had appointed Mandelson as the UK’s US ambassador, and Global Counsel had seen its UK revenue surge by 75% since 2022, from £7.9m to £13.9m. The business also took on over 20 new clients in the first quarter after Labour’s win – more than in the previous five years combined – including Palantir, Shell and TikTok.
Now, openDemocracy can reveal that the most senior civil servant from the Department for Business and Trade and a senior Treasury official met with Global Counsel’s representatives several times last year, including at a roundtable the firm hosted for its clients.
No records from the discussions – including notes or minutes – exist, the government told openDemocracy in response to a Freedom of Information request.
Our investigation comes as parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee takes the rare step of voicing “grave concerns” about the government’s failure to keep proper records from official meetings, following its review of documents set to be published relating to Mandelson’s time as US ambassador.
ISC chair Lord Beamish wrote to the government expressing a number of concerns, including over a “lack of an audit trail – in terms of agendas, minutes and records of conversations,” which he described as “unacceptable in government.”
Shadowy meetings
In January last year, Gareth Davies, then permanent secretary at the Department for Business and Trade, met Global Counsel’s most senior adviser on business and trade, Geoffrey Norris, at the exclusive Royal Horseguards Hotel in Whitehall.
The meeting was useful enough that four months later, in May 2025, the pair returned to the same hotel to chat some more.
Yet little is known about what they discussed. The department quite vaguely recorded the purpose of these meetings as “to discuss latest business updates” and “discussion on growth”, respectively.
When openDemocracy asked for more information, the government said it had none.
Davies then spoke at a Global Counsel dinner event in early June and attended a client roundtable event that the firm hosted, which Norris chaired, at its offices weeks later.
There, the senior civil servant spoke with executives from several Global Counsel clients, including oil giants Shell and Equinor, plus JP Morgan and Blackstone. But you wouldn’t know that from the government’s published transparency requests, which fail to mention that clients were present. Their attendance was revealed to openDemocracy only in documents obtained via Freedom of Information requests.
Norris was not the only Global Counsel member Davies was in touch with. In July last year, he met with Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, the company’s co-founder and CEO, “to discuss the industrial strategy”.
Both Norris and Wegg-Prosser are New Labour alumni. Norris was a top business aide in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments, and later advised Mandelson while he was business secretary, while Wegg-Prosser worked as an adviser to Mandelson before becoming Blair’s director of strategic communications.
When Labour lost power at the 2010 election, Mandelson and Wegg-Prosser established Global Counsel, which Norris joined soon afterwards, remaining at the company until its collapse in February.
Wegg-Prosser was reportedly offered a peerage and a role as Labour’s investment minister in September 2024, but declined to avoid stepping down as Global Counsel’s CEO. He eventually quit in February of this year after it was revealed that he’d had extensive contact with Jeffrey Epstein, including traveling to New York to meet Epstein in 2010, two years after Epstein was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Global Counsel went into administration weeks after Wegg-Prosser’s exit.
Davies is a long-serving civil servant who recently left DBT to become the top official at the Home Office. He began his career in government alongside Davies, Wegg Prosser and Mandelson, as a Downing Street adviser during the New Labour years.
A DBT spokesperson said: “Transparency returns are published in line with Cabinet Office guidance, and the Civil Service Code has not been broken.”
‘We need full transparency’
Global Counsel also enjoyed significant access to the Treasury under Labour – in some cases with no record of what it lobbied ministers and officials about.
A Global Counsel lobbyist specialising in financial services was seconded to the office of Labour’s first City minister, Tulip Siddiq, before she resigned in January 2025 over alleged corruption links to her aunt’s ousted government in Bangladesh. The staffer’s secondment was a registrable donation-in-kind valued at more than £35,000, and not against parliament’s rules.
In November 2024, Siddiq, who was also economic secretary to the Treasury, met with one of Global Counsel’s most senior figures, its financial services lead, Rebecca Park, to discuss “growth and competitiveness of the financial services sector”. The government declined to provide any details of what was discussed after openDemocracy submitted an FOI request last year.
Later, in July 2025, the Treasury’s director general of financial services, Gwyneth Nurse, met Global Counsel’s Benedict Brogan, a former journalist-turned banking lobbyist, at the Wolseley to “discuss the UK regulatory environment”. Again, the government told openDemocracy it held no further record of what was discussed at the meeting.
Follow-up correspondence obtained by openDemocracy shows Brogan invited Nurse to a client roundtable event in the autumn, with the suggested date of 20 October. Government transparency data shows Nurse attended a Global Counsel dinner event on 20 October, though the records do not show which of the firm’s clients were in attendance.
Financial deregulation has been a significant feature of Labour’s policy offering to the City, which has won the party rare public shows of support from some of the world’s most influential financiers, notably JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and Jon Gray of Blackstone. Both firms have, incidentally, worked with Global Counsel.
The lobbying firm was also reportedly contracted by other financial giants as part of an ultimately successful campaign against an increase in ‘carried interest,’ the reduced rate of tax that dealmakers pay on their profits from private equity deals, which can often save them millions.
Mick McAteer, a former regulator and the director of the Financial Inclusion and Markets Centre, said the finance sector should “serve the interests of the real economy, environment, and society”.
“But, finance sector lobbyists now exercise undue influence over finance sector policy. As a result, we are seeing a programme of deregulation and corporate welfare designed to promote finance sector growth, which could ultimately harm our interests. We need full transparency on meetings between policymakers and finance lobbyists.”
The government has previously faced significant criticism over its failure to declare a meeting in early 2025 between Starmer, Mandelson and Palantir.
Now, its failure to keep records of the meetings it has had with Global Counsel and its clients appears to breach the Civil Service Code, under which all civil servants are legally required to “keep accurate official records”.
Separate guidance on managing records in ministers’ private offices states explicitly that officials are “bound by the government’s commitment to keep records of meetings with outside interest groups”.
Duncan Hames, senior director of policy at Transparency UK, said: “When government transparency is treated as a tick-box exercise, or ignored altogether, this undermines our right to know how decisions are made and leaves room for undue influence.
“In this case, as in so many others, it is clear that the current system is not working as it should. It’s time for the UK government to follow Scotland’s lead and publish a comprehensive register of those lobbying government.”
openDemocracy contacted Ben Wegg Prosser and Benedict Brogan but neither responded.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn’t know anything about democracy.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaks to staff at the met office in Exeter, to discuss the UK’s ongoing response to extreme heat, wildfires and drought, August 14, 2026
