According to the BBC, it seems that a substantial number of people in Venezuela object to to the dubious scheme concocted by their autocratic President Hugo Chavez and Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, which, incredibly, is meant to subsidise Transport for London buses, at the expense of the poor people of Venezuela, through a dodgy crude oil barter deal.
Any effect on bus fares in London will be virtually zero, since the UK Treasury will still levy fuel duty and VAT, per litre of fuel, irrespective of the "cheaper" (but non-zero) price of the fuel out of the oil refinery gates via this supposed barter deal.
The effect on the people of Venezuela will be proportionately much more, due to the lost oil revenue which they could have benefited from at market rates.
International oil barter deals are notoriously corrupt, e.g. the United Nations administered "oil for medicines" deals in the period between the liberation of Kuwait and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
How many dodgy middlemen does Livingstone's oil barter deal involve ?
The signing ceremony in Caracas for the deal has been cancelled at the last minute, denying Ken Livingstone a media opportunity to pretend that he is some sort of world statesman.
Surely the London taxpayer should not be having to pick up the bill for Ken Livingstone's trip to see his communist friends in Cuba, where he seems to have decided to stop off en route. ?
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