Billionaire industrialist Jim Ratcliffe has triggered a war of words over a senior British minister who he accused of being unqualified for the job.
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire industrialist Jim Ratcliffe has triggered a war of words over a senior British minister who he accused of being unqualified for the job.
At a book launch on Wednesday, Ratcliffe — the richest person in the UK — criticized the country’s energy policy and said it could be improved by appointing a minister who “didn’t have a history degree from York, for a start.”
“The current one is a 38-year-old history graduate from York University,” he added. A spokesperson for Ratcliffe later confirmed his comments were referring to Michelle Donelan, 39.
A source close to Donelan said she was surprised by the “personal attacks” on the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. “Perhaps he should spend his time in his billionaire tax-haven bubble in the sun thinking about how he could use his talent and experience to support Britain,” the person said, instead of “sniping about northern universities and the achievements of successful women in their late thirties.”
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology does not look after energy policy, which falls under the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
At the event — to mark the launch of a new book, Grit, Rigour and Humour: The Ineos Story — Ratcliffe, 70, said that “daft” decisions in areas such as nuclear power were crushing manufacturing in the UK. He has called for more investment in reactors, and repeated calls for the UK government to allow hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Conversations with ministers were “frustrating,” he said.
He pointed to the US. “They have a secretary of state for energy and that guy is normally a physicist from MIT, or a few years ago a Nobel Prize Winner. They’re technical people from Harvard, MIT, that really understand what they’re doing.”
It’s not the first time Ratcliffe has criticized Donelan, who studied history and politics at York University. Earlier this year, he said that she was not the right person to lead her department.
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