They have recently been joined by Charlotte Trantor Owen, the young lady that Boris Johnson elevated to the House of Lords last year, aged 29. I can only guess what experience she has for whatever post she has taken up but I might leave myself open to legal action if I start to make suppositions, so I won't.
We now learn that Boris Johnson himself joined the board of directors on 15 May 2024. I assume this wasn't a happy coincidence, mere serendipity, and Adams persuaded him. It can't have been Skidmore because he was one of the junior ministers who urged Johnson to quit in 2022, submitting a letter of no confidence in him on 6 July. He can't have been terribly popular with BoJo.
Johnson has been warned by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), which oversees ex-ministerial appointments, that the “broad overlap” between his roles in office and at Better Earth may entail “unknown risks” because of the lack of transparency over the firm’s potential future clients.
Adams also received similar advice from ACOBA:
"Given your roles as a minister, there are also inherent risks that you could offer Better Earth Partners unfair access and influence to government. The Committee noted your role will not involve contact with government, which is expected under the Rules.
"Better Earth Partners’ potential ‘partners’ are unknown. As you may be advising clients that are unable to be confirmed in advance, there is a risk that you could advise clients you had contact with during your time in government, or advise on matters you had specific involvement in whilst in post."
It must be pretty obvious that the quadrumvirate wasn't selected for their geological expertise in mining for uranium or indeed anything else, except political contacts and gossip perhaps.
Adams isn't a director of Better Earth but he is a director, the only one in fact, of YO8 Ltd, a company he incorporated on 29 May 2023, just before he resigned as an MP when it was clear Johnson wasn't going to be allowed to put him in the Lords.
Also on the Better Earth board is Janaki Sophia Prosdocimi who is also on the board of Circlo3 Ltd, based in Shoreditch, London, which had a negative equity close to £500,000 in 2023.
The only other director is Amir Adnani, a Canadian citizen who The Guardian say is the director of a network of offshore companies based in the tax haven of The British Virgin Islands.
The newspaper also says that Boris Johnson failed to disclose that he met a uranium lobbyist while prime minister. This wasn't Adnani but Scott Melbye, the executive vice-president of Uranium Energy Corp, a company owned by Adnani, in the House of Commons in May 2022 when he was still prime minister. This meeting wasn't recorded at the time, so he's already broken the rules!
Uranium Energy Corp is a US business listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares in Better Earth aren't being publicly traded but if they ever are, my advice would be to leave your money in The Skipton. I wouldn't trust any of them.
