Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Fraudster Faulkner fracks us over
The dangerous and damaging hydraulic fracturing process is a big hit with the crackpot Conservative right — who fell for a US conman and porn huckster gassing them up about it in 2013, remembers SOLOMON HUGHES

A TORY hardcore are trying to get fracking reconsidered on the back of rising energy prices and widespread calls to boycott Russian gas and oil following Putin’s Ukraine invasion.

Fracking — hydraulic fracturing — means breaking up bedrock to try to liberate oil or gas. It’s polluting, can cause earthquakes and does nothing to stop global warming— which in some weird macho way is why some on the right prefer fracking to wind power or better insulation as better energy solutions.

Pushing fracking is supposed, I think, to look tough and no-nonsense. So it’s worth remembering that the last time British politicians and journalists got enthusiastic for fracking they were the opposite of savvy and in-the-know.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds during a visit to Horiba Mira in Nuneaton, to mark the launch of the Government's Industrial Strategy, June 23, 2025
Features / 25 July 2025
25 July 2025

Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

LOOKING THE OTHER WAY: Peter Mandelson seems to have been rewarded with a post in Washington for his continued friendship with Jeffrey Epstein while Jes Staley, the former Barclays banker, has been banned from holding senior positions in finance
Features / 25 July 2025
25 July 2025

There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

Construction workers during the installation of the first high speed railway platforms for the HS2 project at Old Oak Common station, west London, May 29, 2025
Features / 11 July 2025
11 July 2025
Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaking at the launch of the Government's 10-year health plan during a visit to the Sir Ludwig Guttman Health & Wellbeing Centre in east London, July 3, 2025
Features / 11 July 2025
11 July 2025

US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

Similar stories
EYE OF A STORM: Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke
Features / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
SOLOMON HUGHES reveals how one of the leading lobbyists for new technology set to hoover up billions in subsidies is already embroiled in a privatisation scandal that has been described as ‘disastrous for taxpayers’
A HEAD SCRATCHER? Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves
Features / 18 October 2024
18 October 2024
Why is Labour so excited about unproven and untested schemes to burn fossil fuels while radically reducing CO₂ emissions? Just follow BP, Drax and Hynet’s money, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
The Grenfell Memorial Wall in west London, September 3, 2024
Features / 6 September 2024
6 September 2024
SOLOMON HUGHES exposes how executives behind lethal cladding have pocketed £302 million since the tragedy, as Labour frontbenchers continue to schmooze at luxury conferences funded and organised by implicated firms