Nepotism/Cronyism Watch

Cummings doesn't hold back on hearing the outcome - but he did pick up on a point that I noted too..

Also important & missed by media so far: Court of Appeal sends unmistakeable signal that it thinks *Kimono shd NOT have been given standing for this JR* & signals a future case shd kick him into touch

— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) January 18, 2022

...and that is GLP's standing in these cases (it means their right to bring such cases).

In law you have to have some 'involvement' in bringing a case to court but GLP has none and has argued and up to now been allowed by the JR judges to proceed.

In the appeal courts summation (see point 6) the judges are clearly suggesting that if the government had simply appealed the case on GLP's standing they would have ruled in the governments favour that in law, they do not (at least in this case).

That's why Cummings points it out in his tweet!

Maybe the game may be up for GLP strategy of brining all these crowd funded JR, which all that  I'm aware of have basically achieved nothing much other to make the government look bad (they are more than capable of doing that themselves as we see daily!) and get mugs their followers to donate eye watering amounts of money (non returnable!) to them!


Also worth noting that GLP will now have to pay the governments legal costs for both the appeal AND the original court case.

Even though the money is crowd funded that's going to put a big dent in their finances!

Thought I'd throw in Maugham/GLP's response to the news of a Met inquiry...

NEW: Cressida Dick has finally confirmed the Met will investigate parties held in No 10 Downing Street and Whitehall, after we initiated legal proceedings against themhttps://t.co/AX2IYFCR4a

— Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) January 25, 2022

So GLP/Maugham's giving the clear impression in the tweet that the police have only got involved because they were scared of having to face his JR...

Yeah of course that's the real reason...



This is what I said previously about how GLP 'plays' those who are daft enough to unquestionably follow them...

Sluffy wrote:Anyway he's making a fuss about the Met Police - and started a JR and ka-ching, ka-ching, the money has come flooded in for him again!

Money for old rope really isn't it?

All this will be long over by the time it ever comes to court, Johnson almost certainly will no longer be PM, probably left politics completely by then - yet Maugham will have another hefty wodge of cash in the GLP bank account that he doesn't need to give back.

He plays this trick every time and mugs like you fall for it every time too and give him your cash again!!!

https://forum.boltonnuts.co.uk/t23411p360-how-is-the-tory-government-doing#435144

Maugham/GLP haven't (and won't) have a JR on this, yet they've raised loads of NON RETURNABLE public donations to do so AND now claim a huge victory for them in the Met launching an investigation - the Met did so solely on the evidence and information Sue Gray had uncovered and absolutely nothing at all to do with GLP 'threat' of a JR on them.

In GLP's 'victory' speech which is linked to on their text, they again conveniently provide a link for people to publicly fund them.

And there will be plenty who will!!!

And ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, the money will come flooding in for him again!

He plays this trick every time and many, many seem to fall for it every time too!

Their money to do with how they like.

I can't help thinking of this old saying though...!

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_fool_and_his_money_are_soon_parted#:~:text=English-,Proverb,their%20hold%20on%20acquired%20wealth.[/quote]


Oh look, what now has been tweeted...

What a surprise...

Share if you agree.

https://t.co/IxiEd1py2K pic.twitter.com/d5KTTxvM2E

— Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) January 25, 2022

Fwiw I've noted that in the past GLP always seemed to set up 'JR' specific case links - but they now seem to only seek 'general' funding?

Almost as though they don't want to be seen to be crowdfunding for JR's that they have no serious intention of pursuing...?

Would that be possible misrepresentation if they had been doing such I ask myself?

All just my opinions of course - I don't want any solicitors letters heading my way!

Another interesting story that I read today, which is basically the government buy's millions worth of PPE that turns out to be dud - a massive waste of money and risked the life of NHS staff who had used the PPE before it was realised they were defective.

You've heard this one before you say - but in fact no you haven't.

You've heard an almost identical story which GLP raged and ranted about because it was passed through the VIP lane by a Tory MP and there was some possible connection with a friend of a friend who was somehow alleged to be involved in the company that was awarded the contract - but in this case, the contract didn't get referred by a Tory MP, it didn't go through the VIP lane and there is no connection with some mythical friend of a friend link.

Has GLP ranted about this case - which after all equally wasted millions of tax payers money - isn't that the point they are 'crusading' over after all?

Nope, not a peep out of them so far...

No sleaze, cronyism or corruption of the Tory party can be attached to this one - so absolutely no interest from Maugham/GLP...

No political mud can be thrown at the Conservatives, so it simply doesn't fit in with their true agenda.

Story here -

Covid: Warnings of 'counterfeit' NHS face masks were dismissed

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60142915

Covid-19: Government writes off £8.7bn of pandemic PPE

The government has written off £8.7bn it spent on protective equipment bought during the pandemic, accounts show.

The Department for Health and Social Care documents show items costing £673m were unusable, while £750m of equipment was not used before its expiry date.

The largest write-off - £4.7bn - was because the government paid more for it than it is currently worth, now that global supplies have recovered.

No 10 said the purchases were justified - with 97% of items suitable for use.

A further £2.6bn of equipment was judged to be unsuitable for use in the NHS, the 2020/21 accounts show, but the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) believes it could still be sold or given to charities.

No 10 said "we stand by the decision to purchase the items that we did", saying the approach was "justified" to get PPE to the front line.

"We were acting in a highly competitive global market with many countries imposing export bans and obviously we were seeking to secure PPE for frontline clinicians," the prime minister's official spokesman said.

The spokesman gave the example of protective aprons, saying they were now worth about a third of the price they were selling at in the earlier stages of the pandemic.

But he said it was important to ensure there were sufficient supplies at the time.

The spokesman said that "97% of PPE ordered was suitable for use and we're seeking to recover costs from suppliers wherever and whenever possible".

No 10 said the government was now able to "mitigate" similar problems in the future by "massively increasing our onshore-based PPE production".

Labour's shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Pat McFadden, said that coming after disputed reports of billions written off due to fraud in Covid support funds, this would be "galling to hard-working households" facing tax rises.

"These levels of waste destroy any claim the Conservatives have to be careful stewards of the public finances," he said.

Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper said the government was "inept", adding: "They cannot be trusted with our money and are totally out of touch."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60176283

I know Sluffy will claim this is all above board but it just smacks of complete incompetence at the highest level of the civil service.

Norpig wrote:I know Sluffy will claim this is all above board but it just smacks of complete incompetence at the highest level of the civil service.

Hasn't the government recently written off a lot of the COVID loan fraud as well?

Norpig wrote:I know Sluffy will claim this is all above board but it just smacks of complete incompetence at the highest level of the civil service.

It really isn't like that at all.

Forget all the political hype and think of it a bit like buying a house when there is a property boom on.

You want to buy a house next door to your granny say and when your granny bought hers it cost hardly anything compared to todays house values - but house prices are going up every day and you have to buy now or it will be soon outside what you can afford - so you go to your bank get the biggest loan you can get and buy it - good for you.

But the next day the property market crashes, house prices fall off a cliff and the house at the other side to your granny comes up for sale and is sold for a fraction for what you have recently paid for yours.

You are in negative equity, having to pay for a house that is now worth very much less than you could sell it for.  

You're now stuck with it.

That's basically what has happened to the government and every other government in the world - it isn't just us you know - bought at the top of the market and the market has now collapsed - so if you like the kit we have in stock is now negative equity - and all the government is saying is that if 'we' sold it now, we wouldn't get our money back, so they are 'writing' the stock value down to the current market prices - that's what most of this is about.

What was the alternative - that we didn't buy any PPE when the pandemic was on because it was too expensive?  Of course we had to pay the going rate at the time - no one can be blamed for doing that can they?

Did we buy too much PPE - yes it seems we did - but so did every other country too - no one knew how long this thing would be a killer and as long as it needed to be dealt with, the NHS had to have the PPE available in stock.

Nobody would making this an issue now if we were still having thousands of people dead and dying from Covid each day from Covid and the NHS stretched to capacity and the country having to go into repeated lockdowns to save it from collapsing would we?  Things changed though we invented a vaccine and killer Covid has turned into a common cold like Covid called Omicron instead.

Did we buy some dud kit - yes we did, mistakes were made due to the rush to acquire PPE from anywhere but those mistakes accounted for only 3% of all the PPE stock purchased.

Do you think 97% of things done right is quite an achievement in the face of a worldwide pandemic with every country in the world trying to get their hands on PPE?

It seems amazingly good to me (almost too good to be true to be honest).

But the ONS, PAC and the JR judge have all been provided with evidence during their various individual inquiries and investigations to date that this percentage is in fact true.

I may as well chuck in here that the same people making all this an issue in the public eye are the same ones telling us all about this mountain of sleaze, cronyism and corruption that has supposedly happened - yet now TWO YEARS from all this kicking off - not one shred of hard evidence has ever been found.

I wonder why that is?

Might it be because all of it didn't really happen and might the story here really be that 97% of PPE bought during fierce worldwide competition during the pandemic is perfect rather than 3% wasn't?

It might well be 97% was fine but we wasted nearly 9 Billion pounds of tax payer money! If i was that incompetent in my procurement job i'd be unemployed by now.

Norpig wrote:It might well be 97% was fine but we wasted nearly 9 Billion pounds of tax payer money! If i was that incompetent in my procurement job i'd be unemployed by now.

Maybe then think of it this way perhaps.

I assume you have some authority to purchase drugs for the hospital.

A new wonder drug comes on the market and it costs £100 per tablet.

You order 100 tablets x £100 per tablet = £10,000 worth.

Next year you still have 10 left in stock which you paid £1,000 (10 x £100) but the price of the tablets have now fallen to 1p per tablet so the worth of your stock is now just 10p (10 x 1p) and not £1,000.

Have you therefore been incompetent in your procurement job?

Would you be sacked because the value of the goods that you bought at the market price at the time has drastically fallen through no fault of your own?

That's basically all that has happened here.

Norpig wrote:It might well be 97% was fine but we wasted nearly 9 Billion pounds of tax payer money! If i was that incompetent in my procurement job i'd be unemployed by now.

This is what happens when you prioritise personal relationships over competence.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Norpig wrote:It might well be 97% was fine but we wasted nearly 9 Billion pounds of tax payer money! If i was that incompetent in my procurement job i'd be unemployed by now.

This is what happens when you prioritise personal relationships over competence.

These personal relationships that you mention - have you any proof?

I'm just asking because the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the judge at the Judicial Review didn't find any evidence of such a thing existing???

You know, the ones who have the power to look into these things and take actions to prosecute those who allegedly have done.

Or is it just something you believe to be true because it says so on social media...?

You bang on and on about social media, the only person who regularly posts from Twitter on here is you.

And please don't try and manufacture an argument with me because Lust is ignoring your wind ups.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:You bang on and on about social media, the only person who regularly posts from Twitter on here is you.

And please don't try and manufacture an argument with me because Lust is ignoring your wind ups.

Hahaha.

Manufacture an argument with you!!!

That's really rich coming from the master of manufacturing arguments from nothing, himself!

And yes I do post tweets on here - nearly all of them factual or to demonstrate how the likes of Maugham plays mugs like you who believe everything they read on social media is true!!!

Seems some of these 'private' 'WhatsApp' messages that Maugham/GLP claims as proof of all this sleaze and cronyism have turned up and shows NO proof at all about sleaze and cronyism - well fancy that...

They show Patterson 'lobbying' in respect of a private company he was being paid as a consultant - but it shows no evidence at all of MP's influencing the civil servants making the decision to award the contracts.

Owen Paterson's private messages about Randox testing released

In a statement, the Department of Health and Social Care told the BBC the government "took every possible step to build the largest diagnostic industry in UK history rapidly and from scratch".

"Building the scale of testing needed at an unprecedented speed required extensive collaboration with businesses, universities, and others, to get the right skills, equipment and logistics in place as quickly as possible.

"There are robust rules and processes in place to ensure that conflicts of interest do not occur and all contracts are awarded in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines. Decisions on whether to award contracts are taken by officials and approved by ministers.

"The documents given to the House show no evidence of any breach of these principles."


Full article here -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60260220

No sleaze?! What would you class lobbying as?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:No sleaze?! What would you class lobbying as?

Lobbying is entirely legal and used by everyone who wants to influence any government decision irrespective of which party is in power - don't you know even basic stuff like this???

Here is Parliaments own explanation of what lobbying is and how you go about it!

https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/lobbying-parliament/

Ha clutching at straws again - you need me to spell out that Paterson was paid to do this?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Ha clutching at straws again - you need me to spell out that Paterson was paid to do this?

Clutching at straws?

What are you on about???

Paterson didn't do anything wrong by being paid to lobby on behalf of a company - a vast majority of MP's in every political party do exactly the same.

Where Paterson did go wrong was that he broke the rules in which Lobbying is allowed to be carried out -

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/commons/hoc-code-of-conduct/

Even though he did break the rules and Johnson led a cover up to save him which deservedly went catastrophically wrong for him, the evaluation and awarding of the contract was - as always - undertaken by civil servants and not by MP's.

This is the head Civil servant dealing with the issue at the time...

https://www.gov.uk/government/people/alex-chisholm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Chisholm


Contracts with Randox were ultimately signed on 30 March, and renewed on 30 September. However, Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service and Permanent Secretary for the Cabinet Office Alex Chisholm noted that he was “disappointed” that a competitive tendering process had not been established in the meantime, and that directly renewing the Randox contract was the “only viable option”.



From the The Department of Health and Social Care -

The Department of Health and Social Care said: “As the public would expect, at the start of the pandemic we took every possible step to build the largest diagnostic industry in UK history rapidly and from scratch – which has helped to stop the spread of COVID-19 and keep people safe.

“There are robust rules and processes in place to ensure that conflicts of interest do not occur and all contracts are awarded in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines. Decisions on whether to award contracts are taken by officials and approved by ministers. The documents given to the House show no evidence of any breach of these principles”.


From Randox -

A Randox spokesperson said: “It is clear from these papers that Randox contracts were awarded in full compliance with Government procedures and protocols in place at a time of the emerging pandemic.  

“The awarding of the contracts reflected Randox’s extensive diagnostics capabilities within the UK and 40 years of experience in that field… Randox’s laboratories expanded rapidly in order to operate at scale and were the first laboratory to report over 100,000 PCR results in a day. It is clear from these papers that the company has delivered a vital and core part of the UK’s testing capacity. Randox remains proud of its performance and delivery of COVID-19 testing throughout the pandemic”.

From Hancock -

A spokesperson for Matt Hancock said: “The extensive transparency publication proves Matt did nothing wrong… Matt cannot control who contacts him, but he followed protocol and Owen Paterson’s lobbying was flagged to officials.

“To suggest Matt should have ignored the UK’s biggest existing testing capacity because he was being contacted by Owen Paterson is absurd and would have been a dereliction of duty.

https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/03/government-releases-private-messages-between-owen-paterson-and-matt-hancock-over-randox-contracts/


Where's the smoking gun then???

There isn't one.

Because MP's don't award contracts - civil servants do...

You claimed these exchanges showed no sign of sleaze - I doubt you even glanced at the files to be honest.

Paterson was a paid consultant (lobbyist) for Randox pressurising Hancock (and in turn PHE) to finalise his deal.

It is entirely selfish, immoral behaviour (SLEAZE) aimed at justifying his ludicrous salary to his paymasters - when his priority should be his constituents.

It also highlights the vast benefit to these companies of having the likes of Paterson on their payroll to give them access other companies could never dream of.

AKA what you’ve spent over a year trying to claim never happened.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:You claimed these exchanges showed no sign of sleaze - I doubt you even glanced at the files to be honest.

Paterson was a paid consultant (lobbyist) for Randox pressurising Hancock (and in turn PHE) to finalise his deal.

It is entirely selfish, immoral behaviour (SLEAZE) aimed at justifying his ludicrous salary to his paymasters - when his priority should be his constituents.

It also highlights the vast benefit to these companies of having the likes of Paterson on their payroll to give them access other companies could never dream of.

AKA what you’ve spent over a year trying to claim never happened.

Eh???

You don't seem to grasp it do you?

He could lobby Hancock, Johnson or even God Almighty 24 hours a day, seven days a week if he wanted to - but it wouldn't change a thing - they aren't the ones who make the decision to award the contact!!!

Alex Chisholm is the civil service who is!

In order for there to be any sleaze then Chisholm would have to have been involved!

It's as simple as that.

What can't you understand???