"Many Photos" - Britain's richest man Jim Ratcliffe blasts Vivienne Westwood over icon's opposition to fracking

Britain's richest man Sir Jim Ratcliffe (above) has launched a blistering attack on Dame Vivienne Westwood over her opposition to fracking

Britain's richest man has launched a blistering attack on Dame Vivienne Westwood over her opposition to fracking.

Chemicals tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe – who is worth £21billion – said the designer did not care about the jobs it would create, and accused her of living in a London bubble.

Dame Vivienne, 77, hit back, calling Sir Jim, 66, a liar bent on destroying the environment.

His firm, Ineos, is a key player in the dash for shale gas. The fuel is extracted through fracking – a controversial process in which high-pressure water, sand and chemicals are blasted into rocks deep underground to release trapped fossil fuels. Critics claim the process causes earthquakes and increases pollution.

Dame Vivienne, a pioneer of 1970s punk fashion, has been a vocal campaigner against fracking, which she wants to be banned.

But Sir Jim – whose company has been granted the rights to look for shale gas in North and South Yorkshire, Cheshire and the East Midlands – said she was standing in the way of progress. ‘It’s ridiculous we’re not allowed to do the science to find out if we’re sat on decent shale gas deposits,’ he said.

‘There are a lot of people in the North of England who are not very well off and they’re not going to have jobs and there’s no investment. So it’s all very well the politicians who live in Chelsea and Knightsbridge pooh-poohing shale, and Vivienne Westwood [wanting to show] a film every fashion show about how she’s anti-shale ... but she doesn’t have to live in the North of England and she isn’t without a job.’

Dame Vivienne Westwood, who accused Ratcliffe of being a liar bent on destroyed the environment, takes part in a protest against the government's fracking policy in London

The comments by Sir Jim, whose firm is a major plastics producer, prompted a furious response from Dame Vivienne.

She said: ‘There will be no jobs for anyone once Ineos’s fracking the UK for plastic sees the Earth’s climate increase by 5C – making the Earth totally uninhabitable.

‘Jim Ratcliffe has lied and said fracking’s to help Britain’s energy security. But the truth is it’s only to either create feedstock [raw material for plastic] or to power his plants to make more plastic.’

But Sir Jim said Westwood was standing in the way of progress

Sir Jim, who lives in Monaco, also attacked ministers for tying the fracking industry up with red tape. At present, the process must be paused if it causes tremors above 0.5 on the Richter scale – a level so low that it cannot be felt at ground level.

Energy firm Cuadrilla has had to suspend work at its Lancashire site several times after seismic activity exceeded the 0.5 limit. One day last October there were six tremors recorded in 12 hours.

Friends of the Earth said small earthquakes ‘can be a warning of bigger problems to come’. But Brian Baptie and Ben Edwards, advisers to the Government’s Oil and Gas Authority, say it is safe to treble the magnitude to 1.5 because the risk of harm is ‘vanishingly small’.

Sir Jim said of the current limit: ‘They’ve just picked stupid levels. If you drop your handbag on the floor there’s some seismicity.

‘They’ve set a level which is ridiculous, you can’t feel it. If you set [it at] that level then you stop the show – it won’t work in the UK.’

 

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News Photo Britain's richest man Jim Ratcliffe blasts Vivienne Westwood over icon's opposition to fracking 
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