Green industrialist Dale Vince has announced he will stop funding direct action climate groups such as Just Stop Oil to instead put cash towards Labour’s campaign ahead of the next general election.
He has previously admitted giving “hundreds of thousands” of pounds to Just Stop Oil, having supported the group since it was founded in February last year.
The eco tycoon’s wind farm company, Ecotricity Ltd, has turned him into one of the UK’s wealthiest businessmen, worth £100 million ($121.6 million).
Mr Vince in April told talkSPORT radio: “If Labour wins, Just Stop Oil will no longer need to exist.”
Over the summer he joined protesters from the group in so-called slow marches through the streets of central London.
About 160 activists blocked traffic in 16 locations across the capital, causing delays and some angry responses from members of the public.
Just Stop Oil said the aim was to publicly demand an end to all new oil and gas projects.
Writing in The Guardian about his decision to pull funding, Mr Vince said even though he was still “comfortable with their methods”, Just Stop Oil’s tactics had not worked fast enough and it was time to adopt a new strategy.
He said the next general election, expected next year, would be the “most important of my lifetime, perhaps any of our lifetimes” and the Conservatives’ “relentless damage to our economy and our environment” must be reversed.
To do so, a new approach is needed, he argued.
“That’s why rather than fund protest, I’m going to concentrate my support wholeheartedly on the British electorate voting the Conservative government out of power at the next election,” he said.
He added that Labour was the only party “realistically equipped to reverse the current regime’s most damaging policies”.
He said Keir Starmer’s opposition had shown their commitment to turning back the tide of Tory policies and “embrace vital tenets of the green economy”.
Mr Vince started his renewable energy empire in 1996 and by 2017 Ecotricity was providing power from 75 windmills to 117,000 homes.
The businessman on Friday posted a message on X, formerly Twitter, calling for an immediate general election.
He criticised Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for cancelling the northern leg of the HS2 railway and hit out at Liz Truss's disastrous mini-budget.
"HS2 has been cancelled due to Tory incompetence, not some bigger event beyond their control," he said.
"The really tough – but good for the country long-term – decision Rishi Sunak needs to make is to call an election. Now."
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Notable cricketers and political careers
- India: Kirti Azad, Navjot Sidhu and Gautam Gambhir (rumoured)
- Pakistan: Imran Khan and Shahid Afridi (rumoured)
- Sri Lanka: Arjuna Ranatunga, Sanath Jayasuriya, Tillakaratne Dilshan (rumoured)
- Bangladesh (Mashrafe Mortaza)
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Seemar’s top six for the Dubai World Cup Carnival:
1. Reynaldothewizard
2. North America
3. Raven’s Corner
4. Hawkesbury
5. New Maharajah
6. Secret Ambition
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
The years Ramadan fell in May
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
