Friday 7 September 2012

Scraping the bottom of the oil barrel?

I wonder if Newsnight will bother to reply…

Dear Newsnight,
after Peter Lilley's appearance on Newsnight to discuss the economics of climate change, could you answer a couple of questions so that I can decide whether to take this matter further?

1. Was anyone at Newsnight aware that Mr Lilley is non-executive chairman of Tethys Petroleum Ltd?
2. Does Newsnight have a policy of asking guests about potential conflicts of interest before booking them?
3. If Newsnight was aware of Mr Lilley's position, why was the discussion not foregrounded to inform the readers?

As it stands, Mr Lilley's violent attack on renewable energy appears to have been framed as an appearance simply by an expert who'd written 'a report' rather than as an individual with an economic interest in one particular energy industry.

Yours etc. 

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