Come, ethical bombs...

"Ethical" investments now include shares in companies that make nuclear bombs. Words no longer mean anything, but 'ethics' never did mean much anyway.

According to a letter signed by 100 Labour MPs and peers, weapons manufacturers should be reclassified by regulators and financial institutions as “ethical”. The letter, drafted by MP for Aldershot, Farnborough, Blackwater, Hawley & Yateley, Alex Baker, argues that this reclassification will encourage investment and drive the production of missiles to help support Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion. This remarkable intervention reveals a great deal about the convergence of the green and security policy agendas but also sheds light on the abolition of thought and fact from Westminster.

“We must rethink ESG mechanisms that often wrongly exclude all defence investment as ‘unethical’,” explains Baker’s letter. “There can be no more ethical investment than giving the Ukrainian people every ounce of support that can be mustered by their allies.” According to this claim, ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – rules have held investment back. The problem for Baker is that this isn’t true – there is no evidence of investors’ reluctance to invest in defence companies. I asked Google for the share prices of the largest defence companies based in or active in the UK. All of them are booming.