David Rose
September 30, 2024 6 mins
As acts of political fratricide go, few were as public — or petulant — as Ed Miliband’s defenestration of his elder brother David. After Ed beat David to the Labour Party leadership in 2010, the pair attempted an awkward hug — but there was no disguising David’s bitterness. He refused to join Ed’s shadow cabinet and resigned as an MP three years later. After Labour lost the 2015 general election, he accused his brother of “taking the party backwards”.
How times change.
Speaking to Labour Conference last week, Ed Miliband — now the Secretary of State at the Department for Net Zero and Energy Security — pledged to construct an “armoury of clean power” for the United Kingdom, in order to make its electricity system “net zero” by 2030. What he didn’t mention, however, was that his brother is being paid by a venture capital outfit whose profits are likely to increase in the process.
As acts of political fratricide go, few were as public — or petulant — as Ed Miliband’s defenestration of his elder brother David. After Ed beat David to the Labour Party leadership in 2010, the pair attempted an awkward hug — but there was no disguising David’s bitterness. He refused to join Ed’s shadow cabinet and resigned as an MP three years later. After Labour lost the 2015 general election, he accused his brother of “taking the party backwards”.
How times change.
Speaking to Labour Conference last week, Ed Miliband — now the Secretary of State at the Department for Net Zero and Energy Security — pledged to construct an “armoury of clean power” for the United Kingdom, in order to make its electricity system “net zero” by 2030. What he didn’t mention, however, was that his brother is being paid by a venture capital outfit whose profits are likely to increase in the process.
***
When David Miliband stepped down from Parliament, his MP’s salary was a modest £66,000. But that was only a small portion of his income. In his final entry in the Commons interests register, he declared he was also being paid £100,000 a year as chairman of Sunderland Football Club, and £92,840 as an adviser to a green investment fund. To top up his account, he also accepted almost £65,000 for appearing at a London forum hosted by the foreign ministry of the United Arab Emirates.
Just over a decade later, David has refashioned himself as a man of virtue: he lives in New York, where he runs International Rescue Committee, a US-based charity that supports people in humanitarian crises. For his services, however, he receives a princely sum. In 2022, he took home a salary of $1,253,728, as well as a bonus of $150,000.
For such a level of remuneration, and with such a workload, one might expect David to be busy with the day job. Yet, for more than four years he has had an additional job: in September 2020, five months after his brother became shadow energy secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet, it was revealed that David had become a paid advisor to Giant Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm that has a particular focus on green technology and energy. Following a series of earlier investments, it recently launched a new “climate focused growth fund” and claims it wants to invest a further $1 billion in “sustainable technologies” by the end of the decade.
All of which may seem perfectly in fitting with David’s form when it comes to juggling multiple jobs. Except for one thing: at least two of the companies Giant Ventures has invested in are likely to prosper as a direct result of decisions made by the new government. In other words, David now works for a company that stands to profit from climate policies introduced by his brother Ed.
Before and since the election, Ed Miliband has spoken of the need to create a vast energy storage network connected to the national grid — to ensure that, in a renewable energy system, the lights don’t go out when the sun is not shining and there is no wind. Part of this, he has said, will be supplied by arrays of giant batteries. He mentioned them again in his conference speech last week, when he called for the “armoury of clean power”.
Enter Field, a battery power storage firm set up in 2021 by Amit Gudka, one of the co-founders of collapsed energy firm Bulb. Field, with five sites already finished or being built, claims to be ready to meet Miliband’s challenge. And Giant Ventures seems to agree: according to data gathered by finance research experts PitchBook, it invested in Field at its outset in 2021.
Now, it is possible that Ed Miliband was unaware that Field was partly financed by Giant Ventures, although this had already been reported. It is also possible that didn’t know his brother was a member of the Giant Ventures advisory board, though that information was also public.
But that would be puzzling. According to Whitehall’s Ministerial Code, newly appointed ministers must formally declare “all interests that might be thought to give rise to a conflict” with their government post: not only their own, but those of their spouse and “close family members”. They must not only avoid any conflict, but also the “perception” that one might arise. It should have been obvious to Ed Miliband that he had a duty to check his brother’s interests.
This year’s declaration is yet to be published, but both Labour and Conservative former ministers told me that declarations of ministerial interests are usually made immediately after taking office, so that civil servants are aware from the start where conflicts might arise. I asked both the energy department and the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for the list, whether Ed had declared David’s role at Giant Ventures, but both refused to comment. Asked when the next list would be published, all they would say is that this would happen “in due course”.
Similarly reticent, Giant Ventures refuses to disclose how much it pays David Miliband, but it seems certain he does receive a stipend: one of his fellow advisory board members, Lord John Browne, the former chairman of BP, states in the Lords register of interests that the position constitutes “remunerated employment”. For Miliband in particular, this “employment” takes a number of forms: not only does he attend board meetings — he also appears at events and in the firm’s videos and podcasts.
As for the insight he provides to the fund, a spokesperson told me that, “like all venture capital firms that are not listed on public markets, we do not publish our investor reports to the general public”. However, PitchBook has identified two firms that look likely to profit from Ed Miliband’s “clean energy superpower” revolution. As well as Field, for instance, there is Beams, which helps homeowners make their properties more energy efficient — a service that should prosper following Miliband’s pledge to impose tough, green standards on both private and public rental homes.
Miliband has also made a specific ministerial decision that will benefit Field. Less than three weeks after the election, Field became the beneficiary of a technical change to the rules governing Britain’s electricity supply system that Miliband personally signed.
The document in question, the Capacity Market (Amendment) Rules 2024, is not an easy read. It relates to the curious way that the grid pays for energy storage: under the “capacity mechanism”, the Government concludes expensive contracts with companies such as Field, who in return guarantee that they will supply a stipulated amount of electricity at a moment’s notice for a given period of time. (In the case of batteries, the limitations of battery technology mean this will be no more than a few hours.) Under this system, the companies get paid whether or not they actually supply any energy.
The cost, which has been rising steadily, is met by adding a levy to customers’ electricity bills. Energy supply expert Gordon Hughes, emeritus professor of political economy at Edinburgh University, told me that by the beginning 2026, the annual cost is likely to be more than £2 billion, the equivalent of £70 per household, and by 2030, up to £5 billion.
Until Ed Miliband changed the rules, the problem for companies like Field was that when batteries are used and recharged repeatedly, their capacity deteriorates. This meant that battery firms had to pay to install more capacity than their contracts said they needed when their batteries were new, so that they would not be running the risk of breaching their contracts when their capacity declined. This was because the old rules said they were not allowed to add more capacity if and when it was required. “This change is clearly advantageous to them,” says Hughes, “because it allows them to reduce their upfront costs. It is also likely to increase their profits.”
This was not the only decision Miliband made on 18 July that may come to benefit Field. On the same day, he signed a letter to the national grid setting out details of the capacity mechanism’s future, which will create lucrative opportunities for firms like Field to build more batteries, enhancing their profits and the value of investments made by venture capital firms.
After the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told me it could not comment as to whether Ed Miliband had declared his brother’s interest in Giant Ventures, I sent an email setting out details of how a conflict, or at least the appearance of one, might occur. But Its spokesperson refused to address this, saying only: “There is an established process in place for the declaration and management of interests held by ministers. This ensures that steps are taken to avoid or mitigate any potential or perceived conflicts of interest. The List of Ministers’ Interests will be published as part of this in due course.”
Giant Ventures said it did not wish to comment, while David Miliband failed to respond at all.
This is unsurprising. Since leaving Parliament, David Miliband has been reluctant to speak publicly about his relationship with Ed. But on one of the few occasions that he has, in 2015, he told The Guardian: “I’ve always said you remain brothers for life.”
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SubscribeThe gradual decline into socialism and how the grifters benefit. This is not business as usual. Business under normal terms must grow, it can’t stand still. That’s both a good and bad thing. But socialism makes it unnecessary to grow, unnecessary to develop business practices and product. There is no growth, there’s just the squeezing of the tax payer with multiple taxes with the promise of the traditional socialist shining future, and scooping out the profits until the animal is dead.
If there’s is a national identity to England it’s dazed animals being led to the slaughter. Of course England isn’t alone, but it’s further down the Marxist road than others, even if they’re told different. There is very little resistance. The government turns people against people. I don’t see the same political engagement as I see in Europe, who is often regarded as ever ready to go down the socialist road. The national identity of England, commented on in another story, could very well be its end.
This isn’t socialism, it’s corruption and crony capitalism
That’s socialism. What did you think it was?
It’s crony capitalism masquerading as socialism!
Whatever you say.
The dividing line between crony capitalism and socialism has always been thinner than a used fifty pound note.
This is actually corporatism – closer to Italian, Franquista or LatAm fascism than any other ideology. They simply insert the “state” and “party” as the owners of the means of production having looted or extracted via tax the legitimate owners’ capital. They then indulge all the worst instincts of capitalist robber barons to fill their own boots until inevitably the economic wheels fall off. There are differences between labour’s attack on UK PLC in the 1970s and now. On the plus side UK is a more globalised player now so big finance, big tech and other non state corporate actors can perhaps reduce the success of the attack once it hits them in the wallet. On the minus side there is no longer a UK state apparatus to pick up the pieces – the security services appear focussed on industrial and commecial espionage and old fashioned crime – especially trafficking in narcotics. The police and judiciary are the same but also bogged down with their student politics on issues like skin color and sexual preference. Considering the damage labour did to the UK 1974-79 i think the current attack will not be as bad – or as successful for labour. Certainly they were less able to wreak havoc from 1997-2008 though that might be because Bliar, Mandelsson etc were so stinking rich they had no need of graft. 2008-10 saw a very spirited assault on UK PLC by Commissar Brown and his thugs, but a combination of bad international economic winds and their own rank incompetence blunted their efforts. I see something similar happening this time – lets hope i am right for al our sakes!
What is socialist about it? A private company is making millions of pounds through nepotism and seemingly dodgy practices with an “advisor” using his brother to pass favourable laws to allow the company to make more money. How does that relate to socialism, which most people take to mean public ownership of infrastructure and utilities?
Under this system, the companies get paid whether or not they actually supply any energy.
The cost … is met by adding a levy to customers’ electricity … the annual cost is likely to be more than £2 billion, the equivalent of £70 per household, and by 2030, up to £5 billion.
This is not money they earned.
he signed div > p:nth-of-type(4) > a”> div > p:nth-of-type(4) > a”> div > p:nth-of-type(4) > a”>a letter … setting out details of the capacity mechanism’s future, which will create lucrative opportunities for firms like Field to build more batteries, enhancing their profits and the value of investments made by venture capital firms.
Enhancing their profit in a government driven programme that cannot flourish without the push and pull of government policy. That is the public ownership. Without the money being driven their way these companies would not survive. All this to reach zero emissions. But no one is really investing in alternatives, in fact it’s falling away. And very few have done it without government subsidies. So yes, it’s the thin end of the wedge for socialism.
Socialism; Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
Over 1 billion pounds for renewable energy from government. That’s unearned money. As they say, other peoples money.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/over-1-billion-budget-for-renewable-energy-auction
FTSE companies are owned by the public! They can vote at their AGMs. They need to obey laws set by others.
Socialism means companies are controlled by politicians, and they set their own rules, as they have here. And they do it in the name of those that they screw.
…pretty much exactly how “Socialism” functioned in the USSR…now functions in China…and was starting to emerge in Great Britain in the 1970s, until Margaret Thatcher steamrollered the whole filthy pack of them in 1979…
…I should add I feel quite strongly about that previous period, as I was doing my O-Levels in the early seventies, often studying by candlelight because of the power cuts…but with a good deal of support from my Dad during the day during the week…his firm were working a three-day week at the time for the same reason.
Thus far the Starmer Government is looking about as decent, honest and effective as the various shambolic packs of scoundrels that his party officiated over at that time…
…but unfortunately has a much bigger majority, so might have long enough to actually destroy the Country, as they are well on course to do…
…and indeed large numbers of them plan, because they think the United Kingdom of Great Britain of Northern Ireland the vilest and most racist hellhole on earth, blame it for all the ills of the world, and think it ought to be abolished and we ought to be punished.
And it was facilitated by the Conservative Party over 14 years and more; I recall its opposition days included opposition to little that mattered.
It’s common knowledge that the Conservatives lost the last GE because they weren’t conservative.
Remember Cameron saying he was the Heir to Blair. And he was, more than most realised!
“I know it was you, Ed. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!”
Words fail me. In a healthy media ecosystem, this would become a national scandal. I’m not holding my breath.
I can’t help feeling Britain would be a different place if the sensible Miliband (David) had become Labour Leader.
Getting tired of repeating it – there is no “right” or “sensible” Milband. Just my view !
Different ? Possibly. Better ? Unlikely.
Aside: what qualifications did David Milband have to become chairman of Sunderland football club and trouser £100K a year ?
David wasn’t as much of a Socialist as Ed. That is “better” in my book. In answer to your question, David is a high profile former politician with good contacts. However much he “trousers” as a result of the appointment, it is small beer compared to Tony Blair’s take.
Attempting to extol someone’s virtue by comparing them favourably to Tony Blair; that is about as low as the bar can go.
Love him or hate him, Tony Blair was a very successful politician.
We have a nomenklatura running the country and, like all nomenklaturas, they are busy filling their boots and those of their families.
As I’ve said in a several other comments, this only reinforces my view that there was never a “right Miliband brother”.
Not in any way surprised.
I also suspect that like Starmer, they are so high on their own virtue supply that they believe there’s nothing wrong with any of this.
Net Zero on its own is harmful enough without all the opportunities for graft and corruption that it brings with it. Just how long is it going to take before the majority of people wake up ?
The public voted this government in so we own it!
Not really true. Labour’s share of the vote was low and their share of the electorate was about 20 per cent.
You own it if you want to.
1 in 5 voted for them – many would simply be naive, misled etc etc – and tbh the Tories have been so corrupt for so long they must take a lot of the blame for this. Of the 9m or so that voted for Starmer i expect only a few % are actually dangerous or evil, and i expect that % is similar across other voting blocs. Its really up the 80% of us that didn’t vote for labour/starmer to show our deluded fellow citizens how crazy and venal labour actually are. It is also vital for the Tories to regroup, purge the grifters and (with or w/o Reform’s help) put themselves back in the public’s trust.
The Tories have work out what they stand for before regrouping. Are they one nation or Reform light. Do they actually like each other. Public trust in both parties is at an all time low as can be seen by the small percentage who voted Labour. I am not sure the current system can be fixed.
Can someone not investigate where individuals in the Conservative Party have made gains at private companies from the deliberate ruin and devastation of the NHS? That way we may be able to start holding real people accountable for specific patient deaths due to lack of resources and long waiting times, rather than just always blaming it on ‘the system’. People need to be held accountable and tried by law accordingly.
You should be holding NHS management responsible…and there is no lack of resources just wastefulness and DEI spending.
You are right that NHS management groups should be accountable for a lot, but when things go sideways there are always commercial businesses waiting in the wings to take over, mop up and make a profit. Primary Care Networks of GP practice groups are a classic example. The ICB appoint companies with next to no track record of success with patient care – only recorded profit – to take over supposedly under-achieving PCNs. They then fire a huge percentage of their clinical and admin workforce, and the numbers suddenly look better, but at the absolute expense of patient safety. They sell the PCN off as an attractive commercial concern and make a fat wedge out of it while waiting lists rocket from days to weeks to months and people can no longer get appointments and are at increased risk. Who’s managing the managers? Who puts management policies in place for integrated care boards and are they the same people who are making a profit once everything’s sold off?
There is grift in the net zero agenda – no surprise.
A bigger story for me is the extent to which our entire electricity supply will be reliant on batteries by 2030. As I understand it their crucial element is lithium, the world supply of which is largely controlled by China.
Do we do strategy at all these days?
Yes, but you wouldn’t believe what it is!
Actually, I think you might.
“Batteries” on the national grid are often pumped storage reservoirs, like Coire Glas or Cruachan. I’m not aware that there are massive lithium batteries included in this, but could be wrong.
look up Ed’s flywheels. it’s hilarious
…the key point is that Labour Party People are Good People…so whatever they do is, by definition GOOD…even if on the surface, and to those of us not so virtuous and gifted as to be Good Labour Party People, it looks like the worst kind of intellectual and financial corruption…
…so please get with the programme, or you can expect a visit from the Thought-Crime Police that I am assuming those really, really GOOD PEOPLE Yyvette Cooper and Lisa Nandy are probably planning even as I write…
…need to go now…there appear to be policemen arriving with gags and restraints..!
More fool these companies believing that current or former U.K. politicians will make good advisers or Board members. They will just get ignorant advice and bad PR. For everyone’s sake ex MPs should be paid a more competitive salary and forbidden from taking company directorships or advisory roles for a period of at least 5 years after they cease to be an MP.
What does Barney Greenway think?
This is par for the course with all politicians. We’ve just had 14 years of crony capitalism under the Conservatives. Becoming an MP is an opportunity to put self interest above your country.
While I understand why this worries people, and the interests should have been declared, I’m not really not if in-and-of itself this is that troubling.
The commitment to net-zero is not a new thing – Labour moved it forward to 2030 from 2035 under the Conservatives, but it’s been a long-term policy goal for I think almost a decade at this point. An inevitable part of that is some amount of electricity storage.
The proposed policy change seems in-itself quite reasonable (why restrict providers from adding capability as-needed?). More broadly, you would think almost all measures that would increase battery storage would also make providing that storage more profitable for private battery-storage providers – except some sort of radical nationalisation scheme.
Again, the troubling bit is that this wasn’t declared, but in an alternate universe where David Miliband wasn’t Ed Miliband’s brother (or where Ed Miliband wasn’t in the cabinet), this change or one equivalent to it still probably would’ve happened.
When the people who push “the commitment” stand to personally profit from movement in that direction, that is or should be a disqualifying event. It casts a cloud over the whole enterprise. These people are actively working to degrade living standards for the masses and enrich themselves along the way. Declaring that you’re doing something that borders on evil does not make it less evil.
I’m not sure that makes sense from a policy perspective.
Leaving aside whatever you think about climate change or net zero specifically, the government shouldn’t not pursue a nationally-significant major policy goal just because of the personal interests of a minister either.
If a minister has a parent with dementia, does that mean the government shouldn’t fund Alzheimer’s research? If a minister has a cousin who is a teacher, does that mean the government shouldn’t increase teacher’s salaries?
Reading between the lines on the article, Ed Miliband didn’t specifically ease contracting requirements just for Field, the company David Miliband is linked to. It’s a broader policy that applies to all battery storage providers. It ought to be evaluated on it’s own merits.
Ed’s change is a green flag for fraud, a fraud so easily predicted that the original regulations were written specifically to prevent this kind of fraud. This was Rule 4.4.4, which Ed has altered to re-open a loop-hole that will allow suppliers of electricity storage to get paid for more capacity than they can supply.
Here is how it works. The government is awarding a contract to a supplier of electricity storage, aka CMUs, based on a certain capacity to deliver electricity on demand. The supplier gets primarily paid for the capacity, not the electricity delivered. Capacity is easily fudged so the incentive is to overstate capacity and so get paid more than you’ve invested in.
Testing capacity at commissioning is relatively easy to regulate to prevent flagrant overstating of capacity. Regulating supplier capacity in later years gets tricky but the regulator requires extended performance tests (EPTs) every 3 years to prove ongoing capacity. There is though an obvious way to cheat the EPT. For example, with CMUs built from old recycled batteries, capacity will fall significantly over 1 year, and even more if the supplier does not pay for expensive battery maintenance. The incentive is to declare and successfully test capacity X in year 0 and get paid the full price of capacity X in years 1, 2 and 3 even though your actual capacity drops anywhere between 10% and 30% less than X. Then, at the end of year 3, the supplier spends a bit of cash to get capacity back up to X to pass the EPT. Rinse and repeat. At grid scale, such practices will leave the UK’s actual CMU capacity far less than that being paid for (at huge expense) and relied on to keep the grid from collapsing.
The regulator’s fix to this *was* Rule 4.4.4. This rule prohibited “augmentation” (adding capacity) between EPTs so a supplier could not cheat the EPT by adding lost capacity that had been paid for but not provided. Ed has literally removed the regulatory mechanism needed to prevent us being cheated. And he knows that’s what he’s done because the rationale for Rule 4.4.4 was so clearly documented. Kerching.
Thanks for this very clear explanation of the detail.
Maybe if His Majesty’s Official Opposition can get their heads out of their ars*s they can start to make something of this.
Enter Field, a battery power storage firm set up in 2021 by Amit Gudka, one of the co-founders of collapsed energy firm Bulb.
Bulb was a grade 1 disaster -set up to offer cheap fixed price energy based on unhedged short term positions on the supply side.As soon as spot prices increased it was screwed and went into administration-along with 1.5million
suckerscustomers..Now the whole renewables policy farce is going to be underwritten by an unproven battery company which,even if it was bona fide,doesn’t have the requisite technology-nobody does!
Talk about a grifters paradise.
Even worse, one of the other founders of Bulb (Hayden Wood) is now the founder of another company mentioned in the article (Beams) which also benefits via investment from Giant Ventures.
What he didn’t mention, however, was that his brother is being paid by a venture capital outfit whose profits are likely to increase in the process.
Well, no; none of them mention that and we are not supposed to question it, either.
Starmer appears blind and deaf to conflicts of interest like this and the optics of freebies. It feels grubby somehow.
If historians exist in the future it would be fascinating to know what they would make of this period of the 21st century. The green agenda seems to be the biggest gravy train ever to further the wealth and power of some NGOs. In the future it will become apparent that most of climate change has been caused by factors beyond man’s reach and present understanding. But the social and economic impact of our actions today will be seen as staggering and totally irrational. What will they make of the greed and corruption of the few but immensely powerful people driving this agenda?
Remember when COVID was fizzling out and the exact same people pivoted on a sixpence to the green stuff? Conveniently, Glasgow was hosting COP that year.
The ringleader of “independent SAGE” actually said he was replacing their fatuous COVID briefings with climate briefings to “keep the energy going” – ie keeping the gravy train rolling.
My own experience in renewables (my work is mostly O&G) has been that the whole thing is an elaborate way of making certain people rich. Even the stuff that does / potentially can work isn’t really handled like a viable technology; it’s all handled like a scam.
For it to work well, it needs expertise: a good degree in History, Politics or PPE would fit the bill.
like old Turkey Teeth that runs ecotricity.
Is it just me, but doesn’t that picture of the two brothers remind one of the casino scene in Godfather 2, when Michael Corleone hugs his brother. “I know, Freddy. I know.”
Learning about African politics, we were taught that the only goal in tribal politics is to get to the top and rinse the country for whatever you can get before the next top man comes along and kicks you out in order to repeat the process. At the time, I thought we were different.
This is appalling and Ed Milliband must be dismissed as a minister and the contracts nulified.
I think of it as a happy alignment of the stars. Virtuous, talented, people provide their unique political skills and experience to talented investors, who fund talented entrepreneurs, whose products are purchased by virtuous, talented, people in government, using debt provided by talented, virtuous, investors.
Meanwhile, the virtuous, talented, people in government pass regulations requiring the populace to use the produces purchased so virtuously from the virtuous investors advised so astutely by the people with such valuable political skills and experience.
Why shouldn’t such talented people get rich?
Nothing surprises me with these two, known Marxists they equally display such virtues
The Milliband brothers were brought up in a Marxist household. Like all committed socialists they amass personal wealth far beyond the freams and aspirations of most ordinary, hard-working people. They and their ilk disgust me.
I am sorry but that picture looks like something from a gay romance.
the green energy nonsense is straight out of the soviet sabotage playbook. UK’s 0.9% of global carbon emissions means we probably dont need to do anything more. Without nuclear and gas the grid will brown out and suffer load shedding…. and the cost of electricity will put energy hungry industry (ironically high tech stuff like data centres) out of business or increase costs by 50%. Milliband should have stayed in the 6th form debating society and let some engineers run energy. The ‘keep it in the family’ quasi corruption/nepo issues are just icing on the cake of destruction.
Why even as a paying subscriber does this ‘forum’ not register my likes but does register dislike?
Help please!
Software’s not very good. For example, constantly logs me out.