Nepotism/Cronyism Watch

y2johnny wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

New Zealand is basically the back of beyond in global travel terms, so easy to keep isolated and is effectively Covid proof simply because of its position on the globe.

Australia had a mare, they got it completely wrong with the Ruby Princess and effectively helped spread coronavirus worldwide ffs!

After getting it under control they basically scored a second own goal with lax control and supervision of isolation of visitors to Australia in Melbourne and basically had to isolate the city for a couple of months because of it, so no, they certainly were not textbook examples of normal country's getting it right!

Probably Germany is perhaps the best example I can think of and they had the massive advantage of not only having perhaps the worlds best pharmaceutical infrastructure but also a regimented and diligent population seemingly more disciplined in following basic instructions on social distancing, etc - and even they are in lockdown right now, similar to ours!

We of course had a full lockdown at the beginning of the year which people basically got bored with, did there own thing and haven't given a fuck about anybody else ever since.

It's people who spread Covid not governments!

We've had excuse under the Sun why selfish twat's do whatever they want to do including driving to Barnard Castle to check their eye-sight ffs!

It doesn't matter if the government is good, bad or indifferent as long as people don't give a toss, the virus will still be spread and the hospitals will fill up with cases.

It really is as simple as that.

Bolton/Greater Manchester has been in lockdown for what, about two months now and the new cases are higher now then when they went into lockdown - how can you blame the government for that, because if everyone isolated for just two weeks the virus would simply have died out there.

It's people breaking lock down that is the problem and not sticking to the simple few rules to stop all of this happening!!!

But blame the government - anybody but themselves of course.

And as for late lockdowns - don't make me laugh - it's all the government's (Tory) fault for doing it too late in March but not a dickie bird is said for Manchester's delay into going into tier 3 for well over a week with Burnham's (Labour) political point scoring stance some weeks back!?

Selective memory or what?

I don't have a selective memory, thanks for being so aggressive in your response though.....typical.

Also I do agree with a lot of what you say.  There are a huge amount of selfish conspiracy theorists who are dragging this on a lot longer than what is needed.

The UK is a small island, we could of quite easily done similar. We did lockdown too late.  That is a fact. 

Again, with the Andy Burnham thing, I agree.  But both parties was to blame, funny when London are dragged into the lockdown the furlough scheme goes back up to 80%.  

Australia is already doing a lot better than the UK, and even have people back at sporting events, time will tell if it is too soon but still doing better than we are.

And the "blame the government, anybody but themselves" comment, well doing what I do you don't need to tell me that.  I've seen the absolute worst of everything unfortunately.  From people profiteering on vital ppe, inadequate ppe being supplied to the NHS, misinformation, conspiracies, selfishness....the list is endless.

I don't know whether a different party in the UK would do a better job, I never claimed they could.  All I do know is this government has ignored scientists calls from day one until it is too late.

As you seem to be agreeing mostly with me I'll only highlight two points to reply to - The UK is an island true but it is also one of the worlds great travel hubs and the biggest in Europe.  In short the world comes to us and we go to the world.  We may be little but in world travel terms we are superbly well connected and not parked out of the way in some southern corner of the world like Australia and New Zealand are.

The virus was almost definitely in this country even before most of us had ever heard of coronavirus and even if we had lockdown a a couple of weeks before we did the self entitled knobs would only have stuck it for a few weeks before fucking it off probably meaning that the second wave would have simply reached us a couple of weeks earlier than what it actually has!

As for the second point if the only priority was health the government, any government, would be taking the experts advice but it is not, the economy is a critical factor to keep alive too and as many sage members have already said, their job is to give informed health advice to the government for them to decide how to achieve a working balance between keeping people safe and keep jobs going at the same time.

Both are critical and you simply can't choose one over the other, you have to somehow manage both at the same time.

Fwiw I've never said the government was doing a good job or a bad one just that they were doing what any government would do more or less with the resources and knowledge they had at the time and the unknown hurdles and mountains they would have to climb as the tsunami swept over them.

I'm certainly not a fan of this government but it's hardly their fault if people deliberately refuse to follow a few simple rules to stop this thing from spreading in its tracks.

Sure they've made mistakes, not got the messages out clearly, made plenty bad decisions - any government would get things wrong in the circumstances but the big problem - and the thing that is keeping the whole thing going - is irresponsible and selfish behaviour from absolutely loads of people and that unfortunately is the world we now live in.

It really isn't hard to social distance, wear a mask indoors in public or work places, stay within your bubble and wash your hands and I simply can't see why the government is being blamed because so many selfish and uncaring people can't be arsed to be bothered about it.

It simply isn't the government that is causing the problem it's the many who simply still can't give a fuck about anyone but themselves and clearly never will.

Here is a handy summary of some of the contracts worth over £1 billion awarded to Tory friends:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/fury-over-1billion-coronavirus-deals-22885550

Sluffy wrote:

Not sure what you are talking about are you meaning your Owen Paterson reference, if so I'll take you at your word there was a 'failure' but what measures were taken by the contractor to rectify it?

Or are you saying the government paid £350m for faulty equipment and simply said to the supplier, 'don't worry about it, just keep the money, have a nice day' or something equally banal?

Of course there would be some contractual recourse to remedy the problem, it just would be left in mid air as you somehow seem to assume it will?

As for poor decision making I refer you to this quote from the impartial Head of the Civil Service at the time -

"And frankly, with all the uncertainty of handling a new disease, no-one could be quite sure of the right thing to do".

It's easy to find fault and be critical with hindsight.

At least we now agree that no crimes have been committed, that's a massive step forward from all the stuff that were being alleged and people like Johnny seem implicitly believe actually happened.

No need to take my word for it, just look at any news story on the matter.

I agree, you'd like to think the contract included terms to ensure the tax payer wasn't hit by product recalls - no word on that though and neither Hancock nor any other gov minister has mentioned that key piece of information. 

You've taken a broad quote from the head of the Civil Service (which i completely agree with by the way) and applied it to a very specific topic about health spending - was he even involved in this? Think you're stretching quite a bit there (sure you know that though  ).

Once again, this isn't about a crime being committed - it's a question of competence.

If a delivery contract is being decided based on personal relationships questions need to be asked. 

Not sure what your issue is with that.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

Not sure what you are talking about are you meaning your Owen Paterson reference, if so I'll take you at your word there was a 'failure' but what measures were taken by the contractor to rectify it?

Or are you saying the government paid £350m for faulty equipment and simply said to the supplier, 'don't worry about it, just keep the money, have a nice day' or something equally banal?

Of course there would be some contractual recourse to remedy the problem, it just would be left in mid air as you somehow seem to assume it will?

As for poor decision making I refer you to this quote from the impartial Head of the Civil Service at the time -

"And frankly, with all the uncertainty of handling a new disease, no-one could be quite sure of the right thing to do".

It's easy to find fault and be critical with hindsight.

At least we now agree that no crimes have been committed, that's a massive step forward from all the stuff that were being alleged and people like Johnny seem implicitly believe actually happened.

No need to take my word for it, just look at any news story on the matter.

I agree, you'd like to think the contract included terms to ensure the tax payer wasn't hit by product recalls - no word on that though and neither Hancock nor any other gov minister has mentioned that key piece of information. 

You've taken a broad quote from the head of the Civil Service (which i completely agree with by the way) and applied it to a very specific topic about health spending - was he even involved in this? Think you're stretching quite a bit there (sure you know that though  ).

Once again, this isn't about a crime being committed - it's a question of competence.

If a delivery contract is being decided based on personal relationships questions need to be asked. 

Not sure what your issue is with that.

I don't believe everything I read in the papers, do you?

Lord Sedwill was the Head of the Civil Service at the time who in the private sector if you are more familiar with that world is equivalent to the Chief Executive/Managing Director role and as such he wouldn't be involved in the day to day stuff but certainly would be the one answerable when things go wrong and as such would have been very much involved in the suspension of normal tendering procedures and the replacement of them with emergency powers and also getting to the bottom of all the allegations of contracts being wrongly awarded and/or not delivered upon.

You show a staggering lack of knowledge about Contract Law if I may say so, implicit in any contract for sale of goods is that they have to be fit for purpose and any breech of that is enforceable by law - you certainly don't need any government minister having to say that, its already fundamental to any contract throughout the world.

Awarding contracts to anyone you know is also not an issue as long as a declaration of interest is made before the contract is awarded - you and the press reports/social media seem to be making out that it is something sinister/underhanded in someway - it is in fact common practise and those declaring their interests are simply excluded from the contract negotiations or awarding of them.

All government contracts are also able to be scrutinised by the all party Public Accounts Committee -

The Committee of Public Accounts is a select committee of the British House of Commons. It is responsible for overseeing government expenditures, and to ensure they are effective and honest. The committee is seen as a crucial mechanism for ensuring transparency and accountability in government financial operations, having been described by Professor the Lord Hennessy as "the queen of the select committees...[which] by its very existence exert[s] a cleansing effect in all government departments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Accounts_Committee_(United_Kingdom)

Don't you find it somewhat strange then that the only people claiming 'foul play' is social media and journalist with a particular political agenda and not the leader of Her Majesty's  Opposition Party or the 'Queen' of all Parliament's 'scrutinising' bodies?

My 'issue' if I have one, is that it seems to me yet again that the people with the least knowledge about the subject (social media) are making by far the most noise about it.

If there really was a major problem of corruption going on don't you think it would be front page news akin to what happened with Cummings that went on for days on end rather than some anti-government nutjob lawyer with a major bee in his bonnet about the government attempting to stir up some shit against them?

The PAC is a select committee, Sluffy. It selects what it looks into aided and abetted by the National Audit Office which is also selective.

Not that I'm siding with those trying to make political mileage out of the pandemic.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:The PAC is a select committee, Sluffy. It selects what it looks into aided and abetted by the National Audit Office which is also selective.

Not that I'm siding with those trying to make political mileage out of the pandemic.

Thanks Bob, the thing is though this matter IS being looked into by PAC and has been ongoing since the middle of last month.

COVID-19: Government procurement

Inquiry
In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, public sector bodies have had to procure goods and services with extreme urgency.

Under emergency laws brought in at the start of the pandemic crisis, the Cabinet Office - which oversees government’s buying policies - has changed some of the procurement rules for contracts relating to the government’s response to COVID-19. Concerns have been raised about some of these procurements, including around a lack of transparency.

This inquiry will look at the scale of Government’s COVID-19-related contracting, how procurement rules have changed and how the government is managing the risks associated with these changes.

For a chosen sample of these contracts it will look specifically at who bought what, from whom, and at what cost, during the pandemic - and whether this is delivering value for taxpayers money in the crisis.

The Committee will question senior officials at the Cabinet Office and Department for Health and Social Care. If you have evidence on these questions please submit it here before 6.00pm Wednesday 2 December.

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/731/covid19-government-procurement/

Do people really think that what they read on social media or in a paper is the full and truthful account of everything that has happened?

Do they really think the government as gone rogue, can do what it wants and is answerable to nobody???

Does nobody use their brains anymore and just believes what some random person on social media says???

Certainly seems like it to me at times.

If there's anything untoward to be found the systems are in place to do that irrespective of what any nutjobs on social media with an axe to grind against the government might be saying otherwise!

If anything is found to have been done wrongly or illegally then those doing so should be punished accordingly.

It's as simple as that.

Thanks Sluffy

Sluffy wrote:

The Committee will question senior officials at the Cabinet Office and Department for Health and Social Care. If you have evidence on these questions please submit it here before 6.00pm Wednesday 2 December.

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/731/covid19-government-procurement/

Great to see, thanks for posting.

It is fact that since coming to power the Tories have handed out massive contracts to their supporters, have fired dissidents and appointed cronies in their place.
It is also true that the PAC will assess value for money etc of those contracts and various bodies will at some point in time assess if there is anything criminal in what they've done but having introduced "emergency procurement legislation" it's unlikely that many will be found guilty - with the possible exception of the contracts awarded to e.g. Faculty prior to the legislation being introduced.
However this is first and foremost a moral question. And I guess there has to be a VFM question in the absence of competitive tendering.

wanderlust wrote:It is fact that since coming to power the Tories have handed out massive contracts to their supporters, have fired dissidents and appointed cronies in their place.
It is also true that the PAC will assess value for money etc of those contracts and various bodies will at some point in time assess if there is anything criminal in what they've done but having introduced "emergency procurement legislation" it's unlikely that many will be found guilty - with the possible exception of the contracts awarded to e.g. Faculty prior to the legislation being introduced.
However this is first and foremost a moral question. And I guess there has to be a VFM question in the absence of competitive tendering.

Found guilty of what exactly?

It's not a crime to be a supporter of the Conservatives AND to be awarded a contract.

It's not a crime to know someone a contract is awarded to providing both parties declare an interest and take no part in awarding the contract.

Any contracts awarded before emergency legislation came in would have had to be won under the tendering procedure applicable at that time.

And all contracts are legally required to have an 'offer' and 'acceptance' or in other words you if you say you are going to provide a specified amount of PPE  at an agreed price of say £350m and you don't, then you don't get paid and/or you are obliged in law to refund any monies in excess of the goods you delivered and that have been accepted, back.

You can't just walk off with all the money for providing a load of faulty stock it as people somehow seem to believe???

And also it isn't even a moral question as you and others seem to 'add' to your views/arguments in respect of Contract / Company Law - it is purely a legal one.

Nobody has ever won a case in respect of the law simply on a moral ground - that's something people who clearly know nothing about the law think/believe should be there, when in fact it isn't and never has been.

Value for money is not even an issue in the law of contract and is covered under the common law 'caveat emptor' - let the buyer beware.

The Public Accounts Committee will look for VFM but that's for the government to defend why they agree orders at such prices and not the contractor who set those prices.

Also on a different theme how many company's out there are even able to deliver on £350m government contracts?

It's not as though I happen to catch wind of a contract for £350m of PPE being offered and think to myself, 'I'll have that', I would need contacts to be able to source such supplies if I couldn't manufacture them myself and the factory's wouldn't just say ok Sluffy, we'll knock you up £350m worth of stock, just pay us when you get paid, would they?

What I'm trying to say here that emergency or not, there's only going to be a limited amount of people/company's able to take on such contracts and it really isn't that inconceivable that the people who own them are already known to various MP's in the local constituencies where they live or where their factory's might be based and that which ever government was in power at the time of the pandemic would all have to 'fish' in that relatively small pond, whether they be Tory, Labour or Monster Raving Loony Party.

Millionaires associating themselves/networking with politicians isn't really such an odd or sinister thing when you come to think about it really is it?

People just believe what they read on social media and if it fits with their own political prejudices, then bingo - it must be true and that it is just all mass corruption perpetrated by a loathsome Tory government.

Do people never question what they read anymore and simply swallows what social media tells them instead?

Sluffy wrote:

I don't believe everything I read in the papers, do you?

Lord Sedwill was the Head of the Civil Service at the time who in the private sector if you are more familiar with that world is equivalent to the Chief Executive/Managing Director role and as such he wouldn't be involved in the day to day stuff but certainly would be the one answerable when things go wrong and as such would have been very much involved in the suspension of normal tendering procedures and the replacement of them with emergency powers and also getting to the bottom of all the allegations of contracts being wrongly awarded and/or not delivered upon.

You show a staggering lack of knowledge about Contract Law if I may say so, implicit in any contract for sale of goods is that they have to be fit for purpose and any breech of that is enforceable by law - you certainly don't need any government minister having to say that, its already fundamental to any contract throughout the world.

Awarding contracts to anyone you know is also not an issue as long as a declaration of interest is made before the contract is awarded - you and the press reports/social media seem to be making out that it is something sinister/underhanded in someway - it is in fact common practise and those declaring their interests are simply excluded from the contract negotiations or awarding of them.

All government contracts are also able to be scrutinised by the all party Public Accounts Committee -

The Committee of Public Accounts is a select committee of the British House of Commons. It is responsible for overseeing government expenditures, and to ensure they are effective and honest. The committee is seen as a crucial mechanism for ensuring transparency and accountability in government financial operations, having been described by Professor the Lord Hennessy as "the queen of the select committees...[which] by its very existence exert[s] a cleansing effect in all government departments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Accounts_Committee_(United_Kingdom)

Don't you find it somewhat strange then that the only people claiming 'foul play' is social media and journalist with a particular political agenda and not the leader of Her Majesty's  Opposition Party or the 'Queen' of all Parliament's 'scrutinising' bodies?

My 'issue' if I have one, is that it seems to me yet again that the people with the least knowledge about the subject (social media) are making by far the most noise about it.

If there really was a major problem of corruption going on don't you think it would be front page news akin to what happened with Cummings that went on for days on end rather than some anti-government nutjob lawyer with a major bee in his bonnet about the government attempting to stir up some shit against them?

Sorry missed this earlier.

1. Im not claiming there's corruption, I've been very clear on that.
2. Labour are asking for this to be looked into - and most national papers are carrying the story. You're trying to dismiss valid questions as social media conspiracies again.
3. A staggering lack of knowledge on contact law - can't claim i have much knowledge on it (no doubt you do), but what's to know? They had to recall 750,000 units and either replace them or refund the value? Either way we lose out because there's a delay to testing kits.
4. Great to see the PACs are investigating it. Pokes a rather large hole in your dismissal of this as a social media hack job.

Interesting as the discussion on the PPE contracts that the Tories have given to their friends is, it has rather moved away from the blatant cronyism of appointing people like Dido Harding and Kate Bingham without any proper process and despite their manifest lack of knowledge and apparently the ability to do their jobs.

xmiles wrote:Interesting as the discussion on the PPE contracts that the Tories have given to their friends is, it has rather moved away from the blatant cronyism of appointing people like Dido Harding and Kate Bingham without any proper process and despite their manifest lack of knowledge and apparently the ability to do their jobs.

Don't you have to be a little forgiving to folks whose parents gave them names like Dido and Robinette?

xmiles wrote:Interesting as the discussion on the PPE contracts that the Tories have given to their friends is, it has rather moved away from the blatant cronyism of appointing people like Dido Harding and Kate Bingham without any proper process and despite their manifest lack of knowledge and apparently the ability to do their jobs.

Yes good point to be fair, im not as aware of Bingham but Harding was an awful appointment given her track record.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
Don't you have to be a little forgiving to folks whose parents gave them names like Dido and Robinette?

Dido is a cool name.

Dido was only one letter out.

Who is Dino?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Sorry missed this earlier.

1. Im not claiming there's corruption, I've been very clear on that.
2. Labour are asking for this to be looked into - and most national papers are carrying the story. You're trying to dismiss valid questions as social media conspiracies again.
3. A staggering lack of knowledge on contact law - can't claim i have much knowledge on it (no doubt you do), but what's to know? They had to recall 750,000 units and either replace them or refund the value? Either way we lose out because there's a delay to testing kits.
4. Great to see the PACs are investigating it. Pokes a rather large hole in your dismissal of this as a social media hack job.

1 - Your argument seems to be based on the government making poor decisions does it not?  If so I refer you to the impartial Head of the Civil Service at the time where he states that  he is adamant that the government coped fairly well during a once in a generation crisis.

Given a choice between your 'opinion' of what 'might' have happened and his 'knowledge' of what 'did', then I obviously believe him to actually know what actually happened!

You seem to be in denial about this presumably because it doesn't fit with your desired politically biased narrative?

2 - Some random points raised by Labour several months ago and occasional newspaper reporting of a campaign on social media from a lawyer with a massive axe to grind with this government does not constitute that this is all being continually driven from social media - particularly at this moment in time when Labour and the more reputable newspapers are well aware of a PAC inquiry scheduled for next month.

3 - Yes a substantial part of my professional qualification involved being taught contract law - and your flippant remark of "but what's to know?" clearly demonstrates your vast ignorance on the subject.

If you don't understand even the basics about contract law - and you clearly don't - then its pointless even discussing it any further with you as you clearly don't know what you are saying on the subject and how ridiculous some of the things you have said are.

Not your finest moment on Nut's I'm afraid.

4 - If you say so!

In the real world however the PAC inquiry was born out of the National Audit Office, Overview of the UK government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic
that was published on the 21st May, 2020

https://www.nao.org.uk/report/summary-of-uk-governments-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic/

The National Audit Office started this process last month by reporting this -

In our previous report, Overview of the UK government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we signalled our intention to report on how government has managed risks created by its response to the crisis. This report will set out the scale of COVID-19-related procurement, how procurement rules have changed and how the government is managing the risks associated with these changes.

https://www.nao.org.uk/work-in-progress/government-procurement-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

This just goes to prove that the social media campaign has never had any bearing or relevance on the inquiry of the many billions of pounds spent on Government procurement during the pandemic and fwiw is they are undertaking exactly what I said they would be doing when you and others were in hysterics and the beginning of the pandemic and screaming that the government wasn't being held to account.

Amazingly I do actually know what I'm talking about occasionally although it does feel a massive waste of my breath at the time.

Onwards and upwards though.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Who is Dino?

Fred Flintstone's pet I believe.