Lesley Docksey: Spinning Out Of Control: Governments, Banks,

and Energy Companies, Fueling Climate Change. Being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, means that you start with an advantage that others don't have: Parents with money, property, influence, business connections and so on, connections that can last for generations. A silver spoon, that appeared recently, was the exceedingly generous compensation paid to British slave owners, when the UK abolished slavery in 1833, though not one penny went to the freed slaves. The ancestors of many well connected people, including David Cameron, benefited. One way or another, the silver spoon allows you to inherit the best of the old boys networks, and a guaranteed place at all sorts of top tables. These days, you also appear to be born with a revolving door. As I pointed out in Revolving Wars, the door between retiring military personnel, or ministerial level politicians and a well paid position, in companies supplying the military, revolves at great speed, although sadly, not at a fast enough rate, as to fire the users into outer space, nor would they go, without a profitable contract in place. But other such doors exist, and just as the links between government ministers, senior armed forces personnel, and just as the links between government ministers, senior armed forces personnel, and the arms trade, make it almost impossible to stop our forces from fighting illegal and unnecessary wars, so the links between the government, banks and fossil fuel companies make it impossible to get politicians to take action to mitigate climate change, or achieve realistic funding for renewable energy. The World Development Movement has just published a briefing, Web of Power: the UK government and the energy finance complex fueling climate change, and it makes for disheartening reading. Of the 125 MP's and Lords, that make up the UK government, no less than 32% have links with finance, and or fossil fuel companies, while the top 5 banks give financial backing to fossil fuel companies and politicians. The City funded David Cameron's campaign for the leadership of the Tory Party, and the fossil companies give financial backing to government, while lobbying hard for their industry.