The Conservative Party

[metalblue]

Hey you don't have to believe me - read what Parliament itself had to say - Whilst you are happy to have your taxes wasted in a chumocracy I am willing to be nobody elected them to do so - I also expect few are surprised

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committees.parliament.uk

Covid spending: Watchdog finds MPs' contacts were given priority

The spending watchdog found £10.5bn was spent on pandemic-related contracts awarded without competitive tender.

www.bbc.co.uk

Which bit? The part on how they say the tories are knee deep in corruption...oh wait no they didn’t say that.

So I presume you now want to change track and go on the “non-competitive tendering” angle. All that means is the government went to suppliers and said we will have 1m gloves from you (or whatever) and paid what was asked rather than saying “this government wants to buy 1m gloves please show your best pricing” to 20 different suppliers to get the best value for money. If you think that’s something you want to complain about then crack on. The objective was to ensure we had PPE (which we did) I don’t give two shits about money spent to save lives but clearly you do.

 

[Marlo]

He just made that up. The government didn’t act unlawfully in awarding contracts. It acted unlawfully in not disclosing the details within the 30 days of awarding them. How did this cockwomble become a lord of the realm??... if this is the standard we can all expect our gongs shortly. I anticipate a retraction/ correction from his lordiness hobnob ... haha who am I kidding of course I don’t. And what sort of bellend has a Twitter address of “@lord.....” needs a kick up the **** this one

After hearing the judgement Matt Hancock was heard saying “Sorry your honour I was, you know, a bit fucking busy”

Now show me clear examples of cronyism and I’m all ears but this is just a publicity stunt.

I am sorry I work in scientific testing an the problem is far bigger than your estimation. The issue is that they awarded contracts to people who had no business getting the contract or who had in the past been proven hopeless operators. A specific example is their use of the company Randox for T&T, this is a company that is currently under investigation for falsifying forensic results and has had its testing accreditation stripped. A cursory look would tell you that this company should never have been near such important testing and lo behold they made a balls of it. Thankfully though they are well connected to the tory party.

Forensics 'manipulation' could affect 10,000 criminal cases

Scandal has caused drug driving cases to be dropped and deaths referred to the Court of Appeal

www.google.com

Coronavirus tests pulled over safety fears supplied by Tory donor firm

EXCLUSIVE Ministers halted the use of test parts supplied by Randox Laboratories with immediate effect and until further notice

www.google.com

By giving contracts to firms who are either unproven or had a proven track record of serious failure it undermines the effort against COVID, endangers lives and wastes money. In far too many cases the only commonality between companies that got the contracts is links to the tory party or in certain cases individual in government.

Friend of Matt Hancock Wins £14.4 Million PPE Contract

The firm is owned by the wife of a horse breeder who has donated thousands to the Health and Social Care Secretary, reports Sam Bright

bylinetimes.com

As above, this is not the award of a contract to a competent supplier who will deliver the job and you just happen to have a close relationship with. People can accept and get over that, but giving it to your mate who fucks it up while making a fortune is the issue. The consequences of this can be seen in T&T, the system is still a shambles.

 

[meltonblue]

What a load of old tripe.

The government were inundated with over 15,000 offers of help for PPE and equipment so to help manage this they setup a high priority lane. 47 contracts were awarded (out of 493 potential supplies put through the high priority lane) worth £1.7bn from this Lane. 7 referrals came from Peers of all parties, 12 from MPs of all parties, 18 from officials and 5 unknown (although 1 was by error). In total 25% of the original referrals in came from opposition MPs and peers so it is reasonable to assume that 5 contracts were awarded by referrals from non-Tory MPs and peers versus 14 that came from Tory MPs and peers.

IN PARALLEL there was the regular supply chain route which was also procuring PPE and equipment

BOTH supply routes went through the same 8 stage audit process. It is correct that, despite going through the same process, more contracts were awarded (by %) from the high priority lane for reasons unclear.

The total of all PPE contracts awarded during this time was £18bn. So we know that £1.7bn from the high priority lane leaving £16.3bn being acquired with the normal supply chain.

Finally we know the government overpaid by about £10bn by on like for like supplies due to MARKET conditions.

So your conspiracy theory is really just a load of old bollocks really, isn’t it? But yeah I know fuck all so you must be right eh?

Where are you getting those figures from? The total of ppe contracts wasn’t 18 billion, PPE accounted for about 12 billion of the total. I’m more interested in the referral source of the successful contracts though, where have you got that from? Genuinely intrigued as the NAO couldn’t report on that.

We also don’t know that they overpaid solely due to market conditions. We know that would have had a significant impact but we can’t say how much due to the lack of transparency in the contracts. That’s what the NAO found.

Bear in mind the issues aren’t solely linked to those that went through the high priority lane too.

 

[metalblue]

I am sorry I work in scientific testing an the problem is far bigger than your estimation. The issue is that they awarded contracts to people who had no business getting the contract or who had in the past been proven hopeless operators. A specific example is their use of the company Randox for T&T, this is a company that is currently under investigation for falsifying forensic results and has had its testing accreditation stripped. A cursory look would tell you that this company should never have been near such important testing and lo behold they made a balls of it. Thankfully though they are well connected to the tory party.

Forensics 'manipulation' could affect 10,000 criminal cases

Scandal has caused drug driving cases to be dropped and deaths referred to the Court of Appeal

www.google.com

Coronavirus tests pulled over safety fears supplied by Tory donor firm

EXCLUSIVE Ministers halted the use of test parts supplied by Randox Laboratories with immediate effect and until further notice

www.google.com

By giving contracts to firms who are either unproven or had a proven track record of serious failure it undermines the effort against COVID, endangers lives and wastes money. In far too many cases the only commonality between companies that got the contracts is links to the tory party or in certain cases individual in government.

Friend of Matt Hancock Wins £14.4 Million PPE Contract

The firm is owned by the wife of a horse breeder who has donated thousands to the Health and Social Care Secretary, reports Sam Bright

bylinetimes.com

As above, this is not the award of a contract to a competent supplier who will deliver the job and you just happen to have a close relationship with. People can accept and get over that, but giving it to your mate who fucks it up while making a fortune is the issue. The consequences of this can be seen in T&T, the system is still a shambles.

T&T is a shambles, no doubt. Even under the best light I can only see that the government thought they “could do better” than what was already available which makes absolutely no sense right? Why would you spend time building a system when there are others being built or available? Perhaps there are some technical reasons for this but I doubt it would be quicker to build something from scratch versus adapting something else (but happy for some boff to tell me otherwise on this)

As said previously if there is any corruption anywhere (be it PPE or T&T or anything related), they need dragging off to prison. No question because they would have abused their position and the pandemic and that is in no way remotely acceptable.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Which bit? The part on how they say the tories are knee deep in corruption...oh wait no they didn’t say that.

So I presume you now want to change track and go on the “non-competitive tendering” angle. All that means is the government went to suppliers and said we will have 1m gloves from you (or whatever) and paid what was asked rather than saying “this government wants to buy 1m gloves please show your best pricing” to 20 different suppliers to get the best value for money. If you think that’s something you want to complain about then crack on. The objective was to ensure we had PPE (which we did) I don’t give two shits about money spent to save lives but clearly you do.

No - I just want a govt that spends the right amount of money to save the maximum amount of lives...........you are screaming and waving your arms about in defence of a govt procurement shambles like as not tainted by corruption and favouritism. Fine be like that - just imagine what could have been done and still be done with all that wasted money.

 

[metalblue]

Where are you getting those figures from? The total of ppe contracts wasn’t 18 billion, PPE accounted for about 12 billion of the total. I’m more interested in the referral source of the successful contracts though, where have you got that from? Genuinely intrigued as the NAO couldn’t report on that.

We also don’t know that they overpaid solely due to market conditions. We know that would have had a significant impact but we can’t say how much due to the lack of transparency in the contracts. That’s what the NAO found.

Bear in mind the issues aren’t solely linked to those that went through the high priority lane too.

National Audit Office

I took

“10 By 31 July 2020, over 8,600 contracts related to government’s response
to the pandemic had been awarded, with a value of £18.0 billion.”

However you correctly point out 80% was for PPE and I conflated the 2. My apologies, and genuinely thank you for correction

I’ll dig out source for £10bn of like for like year on year purchase costs as I’m questioning myself now ;)

 

[meltonblue]

National Audit Office

I took

“10 By 31 July 2020, over 8,600 contracts related to government’s response
to the pandemic had been awarded, with a value of £18.0 billion.”

However you correctly point out 80% was for PPE and I conflated the 2. My apologies, and genuinely thank you for correction

I’ll dig out source for £10bn of like for like year on year purchase costs as I’m questioning myself now ;)

No worries. How about the source of the referrals? As that’s what the NAO struggled to get to and is potentially the interesting bit.

 

[Marlo]

T&T is a shambles, no doubt. Even under the best light I can only see that the government thought they “could do better” than what was already available which makes absolutely no sense right? Why would you spend time building a system when there are others being built or available? Perhaps there are some technical reasons for this but I doubt it would be quicker to build something from scratch versus adapting something else (but happy for some boff to tell me otherwise on this)

As said previously if there is any corruption anywhere (be it PPE or T&T or anything related), they need dragging off to prison. No question because they would have abused their position and the pandemic and that is in no way remotely acceptable.

Exactly. Your reasoning is sound and logical and what should have been done for PPE and T&T. It is fair easier and better judgement to go with a company or person with proven expertise instead of trusting a bad supplier cause of his close political links. The same problems in T&T are evident in PPE, by contrast the vaccine success has been driven by experts at Oxford University and AZ. Thank god they went direct to the best people without consideration for their political ties. We have some best scientific centres in the world, genuinely the UK is a powerhouse in scientific research, testing and manufacturing yet we have benched a huge amount of expertise for favour of politically close incompetent companies.

In relation to your second point what do you consider corruption, where is your bar? If it is that Matt Hancock has taken a brown envelope off someone out the back of Downing Street, then no that is probably not going to happen. What about if his contracts unfairly awarded push up the revenue of these companies, then when he leaves government he takes a position on the board of 7 different companies each paying him a million a year for one day a weeks work. Is that corruption?

The problem with the current government is there is a huge amount of smoke around a number prominent figures. There also seems to be little accountability from Johnson awarding his mistress contracts in IT and she could barely turn on a computer, Rees Mogg involved in a hedge fund (how that is legal I will never know) to Jenrick sitting beside someone at dinner an then magically they get a favour done. The monetization of political positions is a huge problem, it is not unique to the tory party (Blair is a good example) or the UK but this cabinet are especially blatant.

 

[urban genie]

The reckless cunts have learnt fuck all over the last year.

Leaks of what they will be doing over the next few weeks being fed to some press to see public reaction.

Giving false hope and security when we are still way off a safe level of cases to consider any easing of lockdown.

This March 8th reopening of care homes and schools is so flawed without the relevent people involved vacinated.

Easter is 2 weeks after march 8th, stay closed till then and roll out mass vacination in the schools of all staff re-opeing after the hoildays

 

[metalblue]

No worries. How about the source of the referrals? As that’s what the NAO struggled to get to and is potentially the interesting bit.

£1.7bn of PPE contracts went through VIP 'high-priority lane'

https://www.cips.org/The%20value%20of%20government%20contracts%20for%20personal%20protective%20equipment%20(PPE)%20that%20went%20through%20the%20VIP%20%E2%80%9Chigh-priority%20lane%E2%80%9D%20was%20%C2%A31.7bn,%20according%20to%20MPs.ashx?width=300&quality=80

www.cips.org

Figure 6 in this NAO document shows the source (albeit not all sources were recorded so there is an element of working with the data we have)

“
Fewer than 250 sources for these leads were recorded: 144 leads came from
the private offices of ministers, including referrals from MPs who had gone
to ministers with a possible manufacturer in their constituency and where
private individuals had written to the minister or the private office with offers of help; 64 leads were direct from MPs or members of the House of Lords not in government; 21 leads were from officials, such as a Department of International Trade network that was looking for sources worldwide, and the private office of the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health & Social Care; and three leads were from other identified sources that did not fall into the categories above.”

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www.nao.org.uk