That Hugo Chavez, such a card eh?
The Venezuelan president, who sits astride the world’s fifth largest
oil reserves, used a press conference with Ken Livingstone, the Mayor
of London, to make an extraordinary offer to supply cheap fuel direct
to poor Britons who face soaring energy bills.
"We have two refineries here, one in the north, one in
the south," said Mr Chavez, who also met trade unionists, Labour MPs
and supporters of his socialist project – though notably not Tony Blair
– during his two-day visit.
"These
refineries would be used to help the most needy people in London, in
Great Britain, especially in the winter. If prices continue to rise,
people will not be able to afford them. People will die."
Mr
Chavez has used similar schemes to supply bargain fuel to neighbouring
countries and even to poor communities in the United States – much to
the ire of those in Washington who regard him as a dangerous populist.
Mr
Livingstone – who later hosted a lunch for Mr Chavez and 100 luminaries
of the British Left, as well as Peter Voser, the chief financial
officer of Shell International – said his officials were discussing the
logistics of the scheme.
"Anything that could be
done by the president to ease the oil-cost burden of a world city would
be welcome," said the mayor. In exchange, London would offer Caracas
the benefit of its expertise in "traffic management schemes".
Exporting traffic managment schemes….how capitalist! We export services and receive natural resources, straight out of the Milton Friedman playbook.
But the larger thing, Chavez supplying cheap fuel to Brits. We in Britain are vastly richer than most in Venezuela. This is thus a subsidy from the very poor to the rich (yes, compared to the slum dwellers there, everyone here is indeed rich). Isn’t this the way socialism so often works out? The poor paying for the rich?
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