Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who made his fortune in chemicals and now owns Manchester United (because that’s what you do when you have too much money and not enough hobbies), has diagnosed the UK’s economic malaise with the precision of a man who has never had to take the bus.
The Ineos founder told the BBC this week that Britain is “on the slide” and needs urgent investment in North Sea oil and gas to reverse course. This is the same Jim Ratcliffe who relocated his tax domicile to Monaco, a country so small you could see the entire economy from his yacht. He is now, apparently, Britain’s economic oracle—a role he seems to have inherited simply by being very rich and owning a sports team.
The irony is almost too perfect to be accidental. Here is a man who personally voted with his feet (and his accountant) against the UK tax system, now insisting that what the country really needs is more investment in extractive industries. Industries, let us note, in which he has substantial financial interests.
Ratcliffe’s confidence in North Sea oil as an economic saviour is touching, really. It suggests he believes the solution to a complex, post-industrial economy’s challenges is to double down on the same fossil fuel sector that is gradually becoming economically obsolete. It is as if someone looked at the last two decades of global energy transition and thought: “What this moment needs is more hydrocarbons.”
The real comedy is not that he is wrong—though the North Sea’s best days are behind it. It is that a man who personally opted out of the British tax system now feels qualified to prescribe what Britain needs. Confidence, it turns out, is the one commodity billionaires never run short of.