Subscribe to this blog's feedA colleague of the great man trotted off dutifully to Monday afternoon's’s session of the Lords Select Committee which keeps an eye on European Union issues like competition and the single market.
Centrica, National Grid and Gaz de France were due to give oral evidence. But for a moment it looked like the Frenchies (a.k.a the three-person delegation from GdF) weren’t going to make the session.
The Grid and Centrica had been called and were taking their places in the committee room. At that point no sign of the GdF team. However they did make an eleventh hour appearance and scrambled into their seats just as the delayed parliamentary session got underway.
Did this signify that GdF was about to get all Anglo Saxon and embrace such un Gallic principles as the “just in time “approach to doing business? Sadly, probably not.
Once they began to give evidence, the GdF team led by strategy supremo Bernard Brelle made it jolly clear that they really liked the idea of national champions although they didn’t call them as such. And weren’t overly keen on full ownership unbundling
Quel surprise!
Not surprisingly, the peers were interested in issues about energy security and consolidation in the sector. But it took the dears nearly an hour before they hit the G spot and asked about Gazprom.
Jake Ulrich, managing director Centrica Energy, played the straightest of bats and insisted there had been no approaches from the Russian energy giant.
Given the other events of this week and the apparent move to near Cold War status of the UK’s relationship with the Kremlin (following those diplomatic expulsions) the prospect of the Russians getting their hands on plucky Centrica look, well, increasingly unlikely.
Or is the great man missing something?
