I wrote a furious article about the £250 million PPE contract inexplicably awarded to the “family office” Ayanda Capital, an investment house for private wealth tax avoidance. We now learn £150 million of face masks delivered are unusable as they do not meet the required standards.
The Times today reports the NHS year’s supply of top level “FFP2” masks for surgical and similar use – 43 million of them – delvered by Ayanda failed regulatory testing. This was entirely predictable. As I wrote on 8 July:
The normal public procurement tendering process has pre-qualification criteria which companies have to meet. These will normally include so many years of experience in the specific sector, employment of suitably qualified staff, possession of the required physical infrastructure and a measure of financial stability. This is perhaps obvious – otherwise you or I could simply stick in a bid to build the HS2 railway that is £10 billion cheaper than anybody else, win the contract then go and look for a builder.
Ayanda Capital would fail every single test in normal procurement criteria to supply PPE to the NHS. I can see no evidence that anybody in the company had ever seen PPE except when visiting the dentist. They appear to have no medical expertise, no established medical procurement network, no quality control inspection ability, no overseas shipment agents, no warehousing or logistics facilities. We have of course seen this before from these crooked Tories with their “emergency procurement”, with the “ferry company” with no ferries. But this – a quarter of a billion pounds – is on a whole different level.
I understand that normal procurement chains were struggling, but I would still trust any of the UK’s numerous long established and globally successful medical supply companies to go out and get the right kind of medical supplies, of the right quality, and arrange their supply and delivery, rather than throw an incredible sum of taxpayers’ cash at the first couple of City wide boys who said they can do it. From a company with a very dodgy balance sheet.
Plainly Ayanda Capital had no pretence of every having the expertise to undertake this kind of procurement. The excellent piece of investigative journalism (and what a delight it is to be able for once to say that) by the Times’ Billy Kenber reveals something still more horrifying. He says the deal was put together by a “government adviser” who is also an “adviser” to Ayanda Capital.
So there you have the answer to how this obscure and completely inappropriate company landed this massive contract; simple network corruption, with a Tory “adviser” taking a cut from both ends. It speaks volumes of how Johnson’s Tories view government; an opportunity for self-enrichment through getting their hands on the state purse. Covid-19 may seem a disaster to us, to them it is an opportunity. Procurement regulations are suspended. Massive contracts are thrown around with no checks and no competition. Public health functions like test and trace are thrown to new start-up companies owned by their their mates instead of being run by the established public infrastructure in councils and the NHS. It is a big, money-making Tory Bonanza.
We do not just need a public inquiry. We need people to go to prison. All those involved in the Ayanda Capital PPE contract would be a good start.
UPDATE 8:58am
I have just seen this absolutely astonishing thread from Jolyon Maugham at 6.25am this morning. It really is mind-blowing. Not only did the “adviser”, named as Andrew Mills, set this all up, he himself established an intermediary company in the transaction to cream off a fortune.
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Many years ago, when I worked in the Irish Department of Finance, I was targeted by a similar type company which, when correctly bypassed for a power station contract, threatened legal action. No end to the brass neck.
They won’t be held to account though, will they? Not for thousands needlessly dying from Covid, because of their incompetence, and not for this. No one will go to jail; if their pals allow a Public Inquiry it will be a whitewash.
They’re probably currently scoping out their exotic island paradises they can disappear to bought with our money.
The complicity of the electorate is equally to blame. Do they care? No. They repeatedly vote for these clowns and con men, having sucked up the black propaganda constantly sprayed over them. This is the absolute nadir of democracy.
Which political party exposes this stuff? They’re all crooks. In most countries that wouldn’t be a controversial statement at all.
The question is not whether all politicians are crooks – that goes without saying – but rather whether they come up with the, or some, goods for the people of the country, while doing the profiting. That is the issue here: are the people of Britain getting anything for their money, so brazenly trousered by the Tories? And I think the answer is increasingly: no.
N
Your approach is a disgrace. They are all crooks but British crooks are the best. British Nationalism!
Scotland deserves to be rid of the British is best mentality particularly when British means we can be best at sneaky corruption.
There are British nationalists who can’t stop ranting about “the P***s”, whatever the topic. Similarly there are Scottish nationalists for whom every damned thing is about Scotland versus England. The public sector in Scotland is easily as corrupt as it is in England and in Britain as a whole. No local council official will sign off any contract unless he gets a slice of the action, either directly or in terms of favours owed, and the same is true at higher levels of administration. Fisheries, the “health service”, planning, whatever – for some these things are like big pots for them to thieve from as though God owed them the right to. Is there any other country in the world that has a larger proportion of the male population belonging to the freemasons than Scotland? The freemasons are fundamentally about corruption. It can’t seriously be argued that they are merely blokes who like discussing geometry, architecture, and the Old Testament in all-male company while occasionally dressing up and “imparting moral lessons through ritual” (mostly to younger men) before they sit down for a bevvy, allowing the “ladies” in once a year just in case there is any suspicion. Whether Edinburgh is more or less corrupt than Bristol or Liverpool or Newcastle I have no idea. “Which political party exposes this stuff?” The answer isn’t the SNP, because they’d be exposing themselves. If the SNP stood on a platform of fighting corruption I might have some time for them.
Throughout Britain the left has been going on about “Tory politicians doing favours for their friends in big business” for generations (less so Labour politicians for decades in various London boroughs, Hull, Glasgow, etc.), and it’s as though they are holding a firearm with the firing-pin removed, because unfortunately they haven’t got anywhere with this and I doubt many of them want to. The sad thing in Britain is that while there is some discourse about corruption after the event – or more exacrtly, once it’s been reported in the yellow press – it’s not considered the “done thing” to EXPECT it before it happens. It’s almost as if that would be to have ideas above one’s station. Kind of “always assume the best about public sector figures unless there’s positive evidence not to that has been reliably reported in the lovely media”.
@Laguerre writes “I think people are not used to seeing open, brazen pillage of the state in Britain, and so they are reacting slowly.” But what about say rail privatisation, the advance of companies such as Capita, Serco, and G4S, the private finance initiative, or the Millennium Dome?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the huge “We must open the schools no matter what” campaign is corporate PR for a vaccine.
It really saddens me that there is NO public information campaign about “how to keep your immune system fighting fit”. This won’t necessarily stop any particular person getting killed off by an infection, but overall it could save many lives.
N
“But what about say rail privatisation, the advance of companies such as Capita, Serco, and G4S, the private finance initiative, or the Millennium Dome?”
That wasn’t open, brazen, pillage. There have to be some criteria of graduation. There was some product from those events. The trains still run, for example. Now it’s different. It no longer matters if there’s no product for the public.
It’s no good just expressing horror at all Thatcherite style events as though they’re all the same.
N
A cracker of a rant. A real Britnat rant. I think my previous post must have riled you a little bit. Good. You deserve it due to some of your previous abusive Britnat comments.
Cubby
Let me start by pointing out i would like to see an independent Scotland.
But please stop with this england bad Scotland good trope.
Glasgow city council over the years alone has had so many incidents of cronyism and corruption.
Delve hard enough and you’ll find council members trousering cash for contracts everywhere.
The political class wherever it is in the uk is out for what they can get at our expense.
The rampant corruption of this Tory Government will continue unabated until they are forced from office. Their impunity is facilitated by removing names from visibility as this presents an increasingly tough challenge for professional investigative Journalist who attempt to uncover and expose the truth. However, as the print media outlets start to feel the pain and lay off press contributors, perhaps we will see a comforting resurgence of in-depth probe material as Journalist compete to gain notoriety for excellent investigative reporting. The Tories pledged in their manifesto to kill off Judicial Review and that will become an urgent priority for them as they come under increasing scrutiny due to their kleptocratic greed and hast in hovering up state funds. Our ability to challenge this obscenity will be steadily eroded as they solidify their power with Tory Government appointed compliant Judges as they have also pledged. This power consolidation and relentless plundering will reach a point of no return after crash-out Brexit so we cannot ignore this looming deadline.
As stated in my post on the Elections Aftermath Forum and worth repeating here: Totally aside from the issue of my accusations regarding stolen postal votes there is another truly legitimate reason why this Tory Government could be forced out of office. That is the Tory Government’s documented use of public funds to pay the Institute of Statecraft to task their so called ‘Integrity Initiative’ with creating defamatory anti-Corbyn propaganda to demonize and destroy the Labour Party. Christopher Steele, a discredited former British MI6 Intelligence Officer, created this subversive operation that has no right to function as it does while posing as a ‘registered charity’ and accepting state funds. I have elaborated on the conduct of this disreputable operation in the past as it remains a front for interfering in the legitimate Electoral process of foreign Governments as well as deliberately sabotaging UK Democracy. There are calls for this so called ‘charity’ to be investigated, stripped of its charitable status and potentially prosecuted for illegal conduct.
How many countries have criticized Venezuela at the UN claiming their Election was rigged because the US didn’t get the puppet Government they wanted in place? Despite the highly credible assertions of former US President Jimmy Carter, that their elections are among the safest, most well monitored elections in the world, there’s been an ongoing rant about ‘Rigged Elections’ to justify crippling sanctions. There is valid evidence of very serious state sanctioned corruption in support of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election; it should have already justified the PM and Tory Ministers removal from our Parliament in handcuffs! This would be an egregious enough scandal that the UK would openly condemn any other nation for not pursuing exactly such criminal proceedings to correct the injustice. Could the UK face sanctions if the Covert 2019 Rigged Election was exposed and the Tories tried to cling to power?
Why do so many people still feel compelled to endorse the falsehood of an 80 seat Tory majority as a functional reality and try with ongoing bizarre machinations to legitimize the patently illogical result of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election when what we really need to do is challenge that result. There is nothing to lose in challenging the result because we already have copious evidence that our Electoral System is “wide open to Industrial scale fraud:” top QCs have said as much for the past decade! The only way to force change is to challenge an Election because those who cheated have no intention of changing the system that favours their corrupt practices and the Tories will not relinquish their power unless forced to do so. The Electoral Commission is totally powerless to enforce the most minimal level of scrutiny because they cannot monitor any private company like Idox when ‘Management’ of our postal votes is outsourced. “A Watchdog that cannot Watch is just a dog!”
The legal challenges brought by John Ware are the focus of my recent posts in the Discussion Forum: Elections Aftermath – Was our 2019 Vote and the ER Referendum Rigged? I emphasize the fact that although the highly illegal conduct of using state funds to defame an opposition Labour Party has not gained public attention yet, it could be submitted in Court as a component of the evidence in both the Ware v Corbyn case and Chris Williamson’s case against the EHRC. Seeking to profit even further from the outrageous capitulation of Keir Starmer, against the advice of Lawyers and in betrayal of Labour members; Ware’s brazen threats may be his undoing. The Legal advice ignored by Starmer was based on evidence that has not evaporated and must be brought to Court – so on the Forum there are links to the fund raisers for all of the cases Ware and the ‘Poison Dartblowers’ are waging against the Left. We also still need to “Rescue our Watchdog,” so if you have not yet read or signed my Petition please consider doing so now at: https://tinyurl.com/w4u9dwm
Given the amount of support Corbyn is receiving – financial and other – I think Ware may well back down. His case is rubbish, and were he to lose the result would be absolutely stunning with huge implications – something neither he nor his Establishment backers would want to contemplate.
All the more reason, of course, for us to hope he does go ahead with it.
Most of the people died of Covid, if Covid they actually died of, before these companies would have had a chance to provide any masks.
Worse maybe that the government in the early days held back in giving contracts to UK suppliers who had actually approached them because the government was organising its own purchasing mechanism. This delay led to many, many deaths.
Thanks for this follow-up Craig, and best wishes to you.
I have a problem in that it is known amongst Defence Intelligence military brass that a number of game plans/strategies exist to bring Labour leader and Establishment stooge Sir Keir Starmer, into power using subversive methods to bring down PM Johnson’s government. I have said before bumbling Boris is an interim while Starmer solidifies his position for the next ‘sine qua non’ of the new world order.
Oh sweet Jesus…
Mark Golding
Their problem is going to be getting enough people to vote for Keir Starmer.
I don’t think Starmer will be leader for more than a year. He’s crap and they know he is. He never really was a politician, his advisers are the same group that devised Labour wipe out in Scotland and ignored repeated warnings from northern MPs that declaring the party a remain party would cost them seats.
«ignored repeated warnings from northern MPs that declaring the party a remain party would cost them seats.»
That is part of the dream of the “PASOKification” of Labour: to ensure that Labour can never again govern on its own but has to go in coalition with the “moderating” influence of the LibDems. The ideal UK politics of the whig faction is to make the LibDems the kingmakers and to alternate government between Con-Lib and Lab-Lib coalitions, or less ideally but still acceptably between Con-only and Lab-Lib governments, so that all governments be slightly different shades of thatcherite, as in the past 40 years.
Labour members are certain Starmer is the guy to win back ‘the red wall’. They think he’ll achieve it by re-promising those leave seats a second referendum. That’s Labour members for you!
Shatnersrug
Exactly. The Labour party is still in denial about what happened in the Northern and Midland heartlands, so are the conspiracy theorists who think the last election and the EU referendums were rigged.
The Labour party needs to sort itself out, get back to grass roots politics for the many.
Frankly, I think votes, like members are irrelevant, Johnson knows it and so does Starmer. The latter has gone out of his way to alienate tens of thousands of Labour party members, these are the grass roots, knock on the doors, trail the streets at election time members. Starmer’s gang don’t do anything considered so low brow, that’s for the proles.
Starmer’s not bothered, he wants the party stripped bare of working class socialists; MI5 and various other agencies can be relied on to provide an election victory.
Maybe Johnson already knows what’s coming, hence stripping the cupboard bare whilst he can?
Depressing times.
Mark Golding: sounds like treason.
So whilst the brave NHS staff were putting themselves at grave danger treating the sick whilst improperly clad with protective masks the Tory Government spins were cleaning up spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers cash to their pals for millions of pounds of masks that couldn’t b3vused.
What @ fitting tribute Craig to the doctor, nurses, carers and the many old folks in care homes who lost their lives. Like hapless beasts to the slaughter we should clap in their memory to rendition of Rule Britannia..
Alternatively, maybe people like Andrew Mills and his ilk could get friendly visits. These people are all reachable and could personally be thanked for their conduct. Civic and social decency demands it.
Ayanda is just the top of a long list of similar deals.
https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1288475850434912256
Kudos to Kenber and The Times for exposing this instance. But why isn’t the mainstream media all over this? Is it because the constant drip feed of similar news is now just background noise?
I have a very strong feeling that the Tories are moving on from dealing with COVID-19, while making large profits, to only creaming off the profits, and not bothering with providing realistic solutions. I saw it happen in Iraq in 2003, to a degree first hand, and I suspect it is beginning to happen here too. Large sums of (Iraqi) money were disbursed, without accounting, for “rebuilding Iraq” after the invasion of 2003 ($18 billion). Nothing built ever worked properly, because that was not the point: the point was to shovel all that money into the pockets of US officials and contractors. And it all went home with them to the US. It’s very reminiscent of Tory practice today. It’s increasingly outright pillage of the British state.
Agreed it is pillage. A lot of money has been made out of SARS-Cov2. (I am beginning to think that most usage of the notion of “Covid-19” – a syndrome, a collection of symptoms which are basically among the common symptoms of flu – rests on a category error. AIDS too came with huge propaganda and lies, but at least there was fairly widespread understanding of the difference between the virus HIV and the posited syndrome AIDS.)
Take the “half price meals” crap – a blatant attempt to get people to spend, spend, spend, in a time of huge unemployment, economic contraction at a level unprecedented for decades, and the impending Brexit cliffedge. Whose money do people think the government is spending on the half of a restaurant meal price that the consumers “don’t have to pay”? Do they think the government is spending its own money? Have they never heard the observation “There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”?
Many businesses have been raking in the cash from the state even though they are unlikely to reopen, or if they do reopen they will employ far fewer staff and rent much smaller premises. It’s obvious that a major crash is coming – but get out there and blow your money, right?
Bourgeois business scum are bourgeois business scum. They only think about profit. Everything they or their front men say about democracy, health, etc., is c*ck. Proles are sh*t on their shoes. One doesn’t need “investigative journalists” or “critical academics” to “explain” that.
Then there’s Spain – the first message being “Go on, you dirty proles, fly to Spain, you know you want to, you’ve got our permission now”…followed by “Ugh, Spain! Ugh, you filthy germ-spreading second-wave-causing proles!” (Other considerations probably included that the time wasn’t considered quite right for bankrupting airports and airlines.)
Spain and restaurants are part of the same package in a way: bus the natives back to the reservation to let them do their tribal thing and let off steam for a bit before Stage 2 begins.
Oh and Leicester – the so-called “hotspot” where there are hardly any cases and the number is declining. “Leicester” is as much of a dogwhistle for readers of the Daily Heil, watchers of the BBC, etc. as are “Brixton” and “Windrush”.
Why do you persist in saying that COVID-19!is just like the flu? What utter nonsense. It discredits whatever else you write.
Interesting observation SA. What N_ says seems spot on no matter the truth about COVID. Ah but “discredits whatever else you write” is a neat trick!
It is not a trick. Are you a covid denier? Answer. Because those who deny the seriousness of covid-19 are ostriches hiding their head in the sand. Yours is the neat trick mate.
SA – your use of the phrase “denier” says it all: some of us, using our own faculties, have formed our own opinions, and they may be different to your own.
I – and many like me – am/are not “denying” anything – merely pointing out that the way this has been handled by the Government and the Press is at best chaotic, certainly manipulative, and potentially guided by an agenda which has precious little to do with healthcare
If saying that makes me a denier, then it surely also makes you a naive bigot
Andrew Carter
You are confused. The fact that the government has first mishandled the pandemic badly and was ill prepared to deal with it and then used the pandemic To make a killing (money wise) for their cronies are not what I am disputing here. It is that saying that Covid 19 is like the flu is what I am talking about. That is what I mean by denial.
SA
A virus leading to death by pneumonia in people with compromised immune systems.
Just travelling a different road to arrive at the same destination.
If you have ever founded a business, you will know that income streams can sometimes be unreliable but costs come along with unremitting regularity. Many small businesses are one lost order from cash flow problems/crises.
Calling them ‘bourgeois scum’ means you really do not understand the risk/reward ratio of setting up a business. A shocking number fail to last one year, the number surviving three would be an insufficient percentage to elect any government.
There are undoubtedly criminals who have business fronts, but the vast majority of business owners have to put up personal guarantees to banks to secure lines of credit, overdrafts etc and many have to lodge the title deeds to their homes as collateral.
It takes real guts to found a business and people like you should go try it to find out just how hard it is…..
Nothing like a bit of personal abuse from Habbabkuk. Probably all he’s got left in life.
And what will be the political repercussions? The Tories have a majority of 80, the FTPA means the next GE will be in either 2024 or 2025 (’cause they will want to return to May elections). The war over the soul of the Labour Party will (rightly) continue as Corbyn defends the libel action brought by John Ware and Keir Starmer’s rewarding of the conspirators that sunk Corbyn and brought him to power sees the light of day (unless of course the MSM continues to act as if the issue is under a D Notice (perhaps it is)).
Best guess, Johnson and his nefarious sidekick take the fall and someone less tainted (Sunak?) takes the throne.
Meanwhile, Trump makes a grab for the silverware while he still can. Forcing the parent company of Tik Tok into a firesale to American “investors”, and demanding a “cut”. Such an obvious Mafia inspired move. “Nice business ya got here, shame if anyting was to happen to it.”
The FTPA has to be reviewed by this November. Also if “nothing changes” (!) the next election has to be in May 2024. (Section 1(3).)
Ffs, Alastair Campbell chiming in on that Twitter thread is nauseating.
And, there are still people who believe this lot will deliver the Brexit they voted for (whatever that may have been).
Time for prayer and fasting. After the end of the year the fasting will be imposed anyway.
Anyone interested in this scandal should follow Jolyon and his Good Law project, who are trying to take the government to court over this. This is only one of the many instances of contracts handed out to friends of Gove and Johnson, with companies who have no know record or expertise in the field, but merely claimed to have ‘contacts’ with suppliers.It is a colossal scam on UK taxpayers. Needless to say the government are attempting to stonewall and deny any attempts to hold them to account. Miller has removed the known links between him and the government, changed his Twitter id several times.
The disgraceful honours outrage from last week is just the more visible part of how this gov – mainly Cummings, Gove and. Johnson – uses corrupt patronage to reward the acolytes and people willing to lie, deceive and do its bidding. They don’t just disregard any accountability, they are removing all avenues which once allowed some, hiding information, refusing to answer questions and brazenly denying everything.
The worst aspect is their disregard for people knowing how corrupt and incompetent they are – they just flaunt it, secure in their impunity and powerlessness of any critics. Next year will see serious disruption and chaos, but they don’t care, and will blame everybody else.
Yes incredible. All here on his twitter feed
https://mobile.twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1291244082145177600
More Tory criminal activity whilst the plebs get to die an excruciating death in covid infested hospitals. Sounds like your average day at Tory HQ. It gives me no satisfaction to point out that the people suffering most from Tory immorality are the Torys main voting base! For certain this farago wouldn’t have happened under a labour govt. (Doubt the death toll would have been much less) but the difference is priorities, lining your own pockets whilst others die or trying to get the money into frontline services which save lives.
@Gerald – There is a difference between Covid-19 (a syndrome) and SARS-Cov2 (a virus – named after a syndrome, yes, but nonetheless a virus). Hospitals can’t be infected with a syndrome. I don’t say this out of pedantry, but because many seem to be wandering around disoriented. For example I’ve met loads of people who have been led to think that a diminution of the sense of smell and taste is something Really Strange And Peculiar when until recently everybody knew it was a classic symptom of the common cold. In fact I haven’t heard of a single person getting a moderate to bad cold without having this symptom!
Napoleon observed that by far the most important technique of rhetoric, more important than all the others combined, was repetition.
“Social psychologists” have found that if people are told that what is in front of their faces is something completely different from what they would otherwise see it actually is, many are susceptible. This is especially so in Britain when many will believe whatever somebody tells them in a posh accent even if they still think posh people are stuck-up. For those of us who live in Britain it is especially scary that this country has such an exceptionally high reported mortality rate…which strangely for some reason coincides with a shutdown of most of the health service.
Another feature of the propaganda climate is that it’s ignoring the fact that human beings have immune systems and that there are basic things you can do every day to keep your immune system strong. Oh wait – most of these can’t be patented, unlike vaccines.
N_ You’re in danger of starting to sound sensible.
Keep it up!
“Napoleon observed” so that’s what N_ stands for. Pretty obvious now, thanks.
Even megalomaniacs make the odd astute observation from time to time.
Mention Covid, and all the cranks come out to play, with their regurgitated conspiracy waffle.
N
For an improved accuracy of your comment try changing Britain to England.
N_
COVID-19 IS A VIRUS
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1
You really think that Cherie Blair, Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson et al have not been lining their own pockets the past 15 years??
isn’t it time Mandelson was canonised as a Saint? I mean, after the House of Lords and the EC, surely ‘the only way is up’
Soon, preferably
I agree Rhys and I think Starmer is no different to them.
See The Good Law Project: https://goodlawproject.org/
Tory Corruption is a polite term for a bunch of organised criminals, known as the Brexit Lobby, who have been put in power not by the people’s vote but by the transatlantic cartel who control the corporate media and also, coincidentally, happen to peddle the fascist ideology of Uncle Sam. I take on board that the times article may be a contradiction to this statement but articles like Billy Kenber (which are very few and far between) are there to provide the artifice that these people really are keeping the public informed of high level corruption – the point is what will the consequences be for those in the government when such corruption is publicly identified?
bad apostrophe on “people’s”
A useful rule of thumb used to be as follows:
The Times ~ military-industrial complex
The Guardian ~ Big Pharma and “health”-industrial complex
Not forgetting ‘N’ – an industrial level of conspiracy complex
Ian
Yes, people are still conspiring.
Outrageous, though sadly par for the course now.
Why aren’t the opposition raising a stink over what appears to be ‘in plain sight’ contract award nepotism and possible financial corruption? This comes after the recent HoL appointments cronyism too.
One thing is for sure, under Starmer, they don’t call it Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition for nothing.
I think people are not used to seeing open, brazen pillage of the state in Britain, and so they are reacting slowly. It will take time to get going.
The Mafia were onto similar mask scams recently, which spread into France a couple of months ago, but Italians are more wise to this kind of approach to making profits from catastrophes.
The Labour Right is not in a strong position to cast stones. Look at the post-government jobs of every New Labour minister – or at the companies now employing more recent extreme centrists like Leslie, Umunna, Berger and Smith.
They wonder why we don’t like paying taxes
If only it were just a Tory problem.
The Times reported in 2018 that Blair claims an allowance worth up to £115,000 a year to help pay for his public duties after leaving government. By 2018 (when this emerged) he’d claimed £1,077,888 from public funds. This despite having a known property portfolio of 39 homes and flats worth £35m and an estimated worth of >£70m.
And then they wonder why working-class people feel unrepresented.
Well, there’s a surprise. Tories profiteering from a national emergency.
English/British nationalist incompetence and corruption continues to destroy the so-called united kingdom.
A lot more information in this detailed thread by Jo Maugham QC
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1291244082145177600
Extraordinary and shocking.
Oh what a surprise, corruption in government.
The more government you have the more corruption you will have. Politicians come and go but the perfect correlation between the size of the government and the quantum of corruption remains in place – always and everywhere. No exceptions.
If you don’t like corruption then you need to limit the power of government. That most people on this blog argue for an ever expanding government role means that they are also ardent supporters of corruption. Aint cognitive dissonance a bitch.
That’s not inevitable at all. Systems are as good, or bad, as the rules and laws that direct conduct.
And this isn’t a good example to make that argument, given the govt has departed from the normal tendering process.
Really? Maybe you can point me to the “rule or law” that authorized the British state to invade Iraq.
Speaking of rules and laws, it is often claimed that the economic, social and cultural dynamism of the US is underpinned by its unique constitution. The constitution of Liberia is closely modelled on the constitution of the US which means that the 2 countries have substantially the same rules and laws directing “their conduct”
Transparency International ranks the US as 23rd in its global corruption index, but ranks Liberia as 137th – so clearly there is something going on that is not explicable by “rules and laws”
Despite being large, the German government is not very corrupt is it? Also the UK government has, until fairly recently, also not been very corrupt. It is a relatively new phenomenon.
Why don’t you check out Deutsche Bank – and ask yourself if there is any corruption to be found inside that bank. Do an internet search for “Siemens corruption” and see what comes up. Maybe you remember the German car emissions scandal spearheaded by Volkswagen.
Ask yourself how any of these things could possibly persist absent the protection of the German state.
Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that the British state is not corrupt. I don’t know what you mean by “fairly recently” Does Mark Thatcher’s involvement in the Al -Yamamah arms deal qualify as “fairly recently” ? How about the British state providing life long protection for Jimmy Savile and the fact that the same techniques remain in place for protecting a senior member of the Royal Family.
But the point is we may descending to another level of more pervasive and unfettered corruption.
Blown out the water Loony – perfect!
“It is a relatively new phenomenon.”
One wouldn’t know reading here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290393618_How_Corrupt_is_Britain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_the_United_Kingdom
“How Corrupt is Britain? demonstrates that, rather than an aberration, corruption is endemic in powerful institutions in contemporary Britain, both public and private, and is sustained by a culture of impunity that has emerged over generations. Indeed, the main bodies that are supposed to bring the corrupt to book, Parliament and the police, are implicated in corrupt practices to such a degree that it is difficult to conceive how they might be able to hold others to account.”
Keep on dreaming…
Vintage Loony. Because the scrutinisers are crooks, do away with all scrutiny. Excellent
Ministers set policy, but it’s civil servants who carry them out. Why no push back from senior or junior civil servants? Aren’t they part of the guard rails for a well functioning, good governance democracy? Or is that just idealistic PR no one subscribes to?
Cummings’ treated of the civil service has consequences.
Undoubtedly, but it does demonstrate that the integrity, highest standards etc is just romantic fiction.
Interestingly Tim Horlick, CEO of Ayanda Capital has a degree in PPE from the University of Oxford (https://www.ayandacapital.com/).
As this heats up, I expect the EHRC to drop their report on Labour antisemitism; the MSM loves a dead cat
This topic actually made it onto the BBC’s lunchtime news programme, its by no means put to bed yet. There’s a lot of fat cat Tories who’ve made a packet out of this pandemic using taxpayers cash.
Rabbi Mirvis vindicated, in a corbyn labour government this caper would have never seen light of day, ashworth definitely being much cleverer than a very dumb hancock, who appears to have missed out on a cut of the largesse too. Its all going to plan, all that remains now is bojo’s ouster and we can get back on track for that much needed Iran war under starmer.
I wonder when will the integrity initiative get round to tackling this lack of integrity?
Could someone start a twitter handle
#bananakingdom?
You hit it on the head “state purse /Taxpayers money”
All politicians irrespective of party believe the public purse is there for their personal
Use,to do with as they please,why are they no accountable?why can politicians not be sacked? They are a protected species,
Those in high office are supposed to respect conventions, precedents and unwritten rules…
We’re told this offers ‘flexibilty’, that a written, codified constitution wouldn’t. Personally, I think that’s a BS excuse, used by unaccountable elites to hide behind, we need hard, codified rules, in an age where respectable and honourable conduct are rarer than hen’s teeth.
True, but how much of the crisis was about public health at all? The lockdown has been a good excuse to put small firms out of business to make way for the huge tech corporations, many based in the United States (perhaps not coincidentally). Politicians and the business establishment got the chance to hide economic collapse that would have happened in some form anyway, with a virus. The right-wing have successfully shut down many public services, some no doubt permanently, pretending it is for health reasons, while also, likely, crashing asset prices so homeowners have to sell on the cheap.
And where is the opposition? There isn’t one. The Labour Party and SNP have colluded with Johnson and the Tories in the whole disaster, as have local government, the media, the NHS and big business. No wonder they couldn’t let Corbyn win in December.
Unless you are selling a home and not buying another one, house prices crashing does not affect you that much. What matters is how much you have to pay for the new one.
«Unless you are selling a home and not buying another one, house prices crashing does not affect you that much.»
That’s a famous myth: for a lot of people in southern England their house is their pension, and that enables them to spend their entire income without saving anything for their retirement, as the next buyer is doing it for them.
A *temporary* house crash they can take, but a *permanent* one means that they have to create belatedly from scratch a pension fund, and start saving like crazy, cutting brutally their living standards.
Like working class people but without the earlier affluence?