Nepotism/Cronyism Watch

Yes we need a separate thread to keep up to date with the level of corruption we are seeing with the Boris regime.

Today let us look at Kate Bingham, appointed by Boris as head of Britain's vaccine task force without any proper process or knowledge of vaccines. However she is married to a Tory minister who was at Eton with Boris, went to school with Boris' sister and was at Oxford with Boris.

She leaked confidential commercially sensitive government information to her financier chums and lied about it to a joint select committee.

She has wasted £670,000 of taxpayer money on a team of boutique public relations consultants who merely duplicate work done by about 100 communications staff at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Of course she has not given up her role as managing director of a private equity firm and you have to wonder whose interests she is actually serving.

[source: Sunday Times 8 November 2020]

I think you need to choose your words very carefully if you want to have threads like this one - including its title!

I wouldn't think for one moment that what is said on here would be high profile or worthy enough to prompt liable action against the poster or the site but firstly I'm not willing to take the risk and secondly there's a whole world of social media only too happy to post hatred on and this site is not here for that purpose!

The simple definition of corruption as I understand it to be is to do something highly 'dodgy' to personally benefit from - so in the example above I can't see how 'Boris' or the Tory government 'benefit' from the events listed so as far as I see it the thread title is incorrect and probably more accurately should be described as being much closer to nepotism rather than corruption, and thus I will change the thread title accordingly.

I trust that is fair and reasonable to everybody.

If its been reported in the Sunday Times then it will have been shared hundreds if not thousands of times by now so don't think the lawyers will be contacting you just yet Sluffy.

As for corruption, sounds like a usual Tory tactic to me so no issue from me calling it what it is.

Sluffy wrote:I think you need to choose your words very carefully if you want to have threads like this one - including its title!

I wouldn't think for one moment that what is said on here would be high profile or worthy enough to prompt liable action against the poster or the site but firstly I'm not willing to take the risk and secondly there's a whole world of social media only too happy to post hatred on and this site is not here for that purpose!

The simple definition of corruption as I understand it to be is to do something highly 'dodgy' to personally benefit from - so in the example above I can't see how 'Boris' or the Tory government 'benefit' from the events listed so as far as I see it the thread title is incorrect and probably more accurately should be described as being much closer to nepotism rather than corruption, and thus I will change the thread title accordingly.

I trust that is fair and reasonable to everybody.

I am not trying to cause problems for the site and fwiw I have no objection to a change of name but I do not think nepotism fully covers what Boris and his chums are doing. Nepotism is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as "the act of using your power or influence to get good jobs or unfair advantages for members of your own family" and I would prefer a change to Nepotism and Cronyism Watch. Is that acceptable?

Norpig wrote:If its been reported in the Sunday Times then it will have been shared hundreds if not thousands of times by now so don't think the lawyers will be contacting you just yet Sluffy.

As for corruption, sounds like a usual Tory tactic to me so no issue from me calling it what it is.

Did the article in the Times mention corruption, I've not read it, there has been no link provided to it despite me constantly asking people to post them to the external articles they are referring to?

I would doubt very much the article mentioned corruption.

And similarly you fall into the same trap - you may well have your own views on the Tory government but whatever you think of them acting corruptly is against the law, so I doubt very much they are doing that - nepotism possibly but corruption unlikely.

If you believe it to be then contact the police.

That's what they are there for to deal with law breakers!

xmiles wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I think you need to choose your words very carefully if you want to have threads like this one - including its title!

I wouldn't think for one moment that what is said on here would be high profile or worthy enough to prompt liable action against the poster or the site but firstly I'm not willing to take the risk and secondly there's a whole world of social media only too happy to post hatred on and this site is not here for that purpose!

The simple definition of corruption as I understand it to be is to do something highly 'dodgy' to personally benefit from - so in the example above I can't see how 'Boris' or the Tory government 'benefit' from the events listed so as far as I see it the thread title is incorrect and probably more accurately should be described as being much closer to nepotism rather than corruption, and thus I will change the thread title accordingly.

I trust that is fair and reasonable to everybody.

I am not trying to cause problems for the site and fwiw I have no objection to a change of name but I do not think nepotism fully covers what Boris and his chums are doing. Nepotism is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as "the act of using your power or influence to get good jobs or unfair advantages for members of your own family" and I would prefer a change to Nepotism and Cronyism Watch. Is that acceptable?

nepotism
/ˈnɛpətɪz(ə)m/

noun
the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.

https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Google’s English dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages.

Oxford Languages is the world’s leading dictionary publisher, with over 150 years of experience creating and delivering authoritative dictionaries globally in more than 50 languages.

What is included in this English dictionary?

Oxford’s English dictionaries are widely regarded as the world’s most authoritative sources on current English.

Hot property Tory MPs, get one on your board and you are pretty much guaranteed to land a big government contract it seems.

Owen Paterson, MP for North Shropshire, earns £100k a year as an adviser to little known health firm Randox - they’ve won half a billion pounds in uncontested contracts to supply COVID testing kits. The latest contract is worth £347 million and was won in spite of them having to recall 750,000 testing kits earlier in the year when spot checks revealed some of their kits weren’t even sterile.

Yet another piece of evidence debunking the claim ‘no government could do a better job in these circumstances’. Very important decisions are being taken with the promise of money making, neither of which should be decision making factors on an issue of health.

Who claimed 'no government could do a better job in the circumstances'?

If that's aimed at me then I've never claimed that to be the case, what I have said though is that I would imagine whoever was in government at the time would do more or less what this government did namely, have to start with the same knowledge of the virus (which turned out to be false) to base their decisions on and have the same amount of PPC in store to protect frontline staff with (which was woefully inadequate for the volume of need that was envisaged) the urgent and desperate need to obtain more (in a market place where every other country on earth was attempting to do the same) and at the same time to free up urgently bed space to treat the tidal wave of Corona cases being admitted to hospital (by sending the end of care life bed patients back to their care homes in order to try to safe those with their whole lives in front of them rather than behind them).

Mistakes were bound to be made, decisions taken that turned out not to be the best ones, unscrupulous people taking advantage of the circumstances.  

Any government would have the same mountains to climb and non would do it perfectly.

It might be worth reflecting on the opinion of Lord Sedwill, the Head of the Civil Service at the time and who...

" stepped down as the UK's top civil servant following reports of tensions between him and senior members of Boris Johnson's team".

...so is clearly no an apologist for them!

This is what he said summarised by the BBC interviewer Laura Kuenssberg

In his first interview since leaving one of the biggest jobs in the country, the man who was paid to give quiet careful advice is diplomatic with his language, certainly, but clear nonetheless.

While he takes pride in some of the government's response to the pandemic, he said there is a genuine question about whether it could have been better prepared and admitted it lacked the "exact measures" for a disease of this kind.

The picture he gives of the heart of government in the most intense moments in the crisis is of a tense place, where ministers and officials were scrambling to keep up with a changing reality where the nation's health and economy were both genuinely in danger.

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

For all that ministers have fumed privately, and hinted publicly, he is adamant that the government coped fairly well during a once in a generation crisis, not withstanding "genuine questions" about just how prepared the UK really was.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54617148



The bloke is impartial, professional, highly intelligent, clearly not a lackey or a kowtower of Johnson et al and was right in the middle of what was going on and would have known everything worth knowing - and even he says the government coped fairly well in the circumstances.

I doubt anybody could really have done significantly better in the circumstance and those who clearly do have no idea of how the system actually works in the real world rather than some mythical perfect world they must think we live in.

Sluffy wrote:Who claimed 'no government could do a better job in the circumstances'?

If that's aimed at me then I've never claimed that to be the case

Hmm not convinced about that, but i won't be trawling through threads looking for it. 

What are your thoughts on the thread topic, and how public money has been spent so far?

I could care less if you are convinced or not, I've spent over half my life working in the public sector under both Labour and Conservative control and I've seen enough to know there is no such thing as a perfect way of dealing with anything, so I certainly wouldn't dream of suddenly championing any government dealing with a worldwide pandemic that we haven't seen the likes of since Spanish flu a century ago!

To answer the question you raise I've seen how both political systems have wasted vast sums on what can only be described as political vanity schemes rather than on true need and that corruption goes on under both political flags.

I well remember the national headlines of the time of corruption with the Poulson affair involving both the Labour and Tory party's - so there is nothing new under the Sun to see here this time around.

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

What is more remarkable imo is how many public servants are actually honest and more often than not will report and stop corruption when they discover it.

Maybe values have changed somewhat since my time but I would still like to think the core of this country's administrators and those in authority and positions of power are still in the main honest and decent people.

I've no doubt some/many have taken advantage of the pandemic to enrich themselves by various means, some opportunist and honest, some deceitful and dishonest but when the house is on fire and your kids are trapped inside you don't stop the firemen entering to put out the flames whilst you check to see if they are on the Child Sex Register first.

Probably not the best analogy I could have come up with but I think it get's my point across - deal with the emergency first and everything else after the flames have been put out and the children been saved.

We had no PPC, we had to get PPC at all cost, money was thrown at the problem, PPC was sourced and delivered in the nick of time, now lets look if anybody robbed us.

Isn't that better than run out of PPC whilst every contract was being examined to see it it was legitimate before being awarded and in the meantime see the frontline doctors and nurses die because they had no PPC protection?

These were exceptional times, requiring exceptional actions and not everything was done perfectly.

As for how any politician views how public money should be spent then you only need look at the parliamentary expenses scandal of a few years back!

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

Very few came out of that smelling of roses did they?

If the then head of the Civil Service during Covid states that government copied fairly well, then that's what I believed actually happened.

They got more things right than wrong but clearly shit happened during the period and once this is over someone will undoubtable held to be accountable if corruption on the scale you believe it to be actually happened.

Agree with you in the expenses scandal, outrageous that. Not sure why you’re bringing it up though? Surely you can look at this topic in isolation and not as a party political issue? Or brush it off because we’ve seen governments waste money before?

The question is why are they awarding these contracts to company’s that have failed? If it’s because of cronyism it’s a massive issue. So do you think it is cronyism or not?

We've done all of this before.

Contracts were awadred under emergency powers - so no apparent illegality there then, whoever got awarded one.

Have they even failed?

Yes we hear (or should that be here...) that things have gone wrong with the contracts but whose fault was that, the client's or the contractors?

If it was the contractor what measures have they done to rectify the situation to the satisfaction of the client?

In effect social media/the press are only presenting one side of the story, I'm sure it doesn't simply end where they've left it, ie some crony given countless millions to a make believe company for goods not supplied or faulty - the end - that just doesn't happen in real life, even during a pandemic.

And I brought up scandals that effected all political parties in the past to show that they are all the same - do you really think dodgy stuff didn't go on as well under the last Labour government - Peter Mandelson say for instance?

I have no time for anyone involved in corrupt and illegal practices whatever their political allegiance might be or whoever they are related to or know and all should be subject to the full powers of the law if they have, and fwiw I've been a prosecution witness in a number of court cases throughout my career and have refused to sign off council own in house end of year accounts because I didn't believe them to be true, so I don't even take 'sides' if you will.

Theses issues that you read on social media or in the papers, have they been reported to the police, if not then why not?

Is it perhaps because they aren't telling the full story perhaps?

And if they have told the full story and the police have not acted, then why aren't they reporting this also?

I suspect people have used their circle of friends/contacts to get things done urgently - isn't that what we all would do if we needed immediate help/action? I suspect that some of the ways this help was given 'shell' company's for instance, were used to expedite things due to time constraints/the urgency of the situation.

I don't doubt premium prices were charged - but that was probably the international market rate at the time anyway. And I don't doubt cockups were made and delivery times not met - but I don't doubt means to rectify these things weren't made - payments withheld, deductions taken off future orders, etc, etc.

But I strongly doubt anybody has ridden off into the Sun with millions of pounds without holding up their end of the contract and nothing more said or done simply because they knew someone sister from school forty years ago or whatever!

That simply doesn't happen.

There most certainly was better ways of dealing with this pandemic.  And there are plenty of examples.  New Zealand.  Australia.  And more where the cases have been kept minimal and normal life almost resumed due to the fact they did what they needed to do straight away.

This government has done an absolute piss poor job.  Less ppe, lockdowns, economic downturn would have been needed if we had done a proper lockdown and shut our borders off fully.  

Instead we have relied on substandard ppe (i know this first hand) and that contracts have been given to friends of friends of the government with no prior experience.

Hospitals have been over run because we didn't handle the lockdown  correctly to start with.  And having to keep locking down and local lockdowns and all that bollocks has almost started a civil war akin to what is going on in America because people are getting fed up.

All this is the fault of the government.  End of.

Yes I’ve already said expenses was outrageous, Jacqui Smith in particular sticks out. Can never take her seriously knowing what she pulled.

Again though, I don’t think it’s relevant to this. I’m not arsed what party they’re in, we’re battling a pandemic and big decisions need to be taken. If we’re choosing our partners (and I did explain in my example how one had failed if you check back) in this battle based on Tory MPs and their families making a buck then clearly that’s not helpful to the response.

As far as I’m aware there’s nothing illegal going on so no crime for the police to investigate. But poor decision making processes could be inhibiting our response.

y2johnny wrote:There most certainly was better ways of dealing with this pandemic.  And there are plenty of examples.  New Zealand.  Australia.  And more where the cases have been kept minimal and normal life almost resumed due to the fact they did what they needed to do straight away.

This government has done an absolute piss poor job.  Less ppe, lockdowns, economic downturn would have been needed if we had done a proper lockdown and shut our borders off fully.  

Instead we have relied on substandard ppe (i know this first hand) and that contracts have been given to friends of friends of the government with no prior experience.

Hospitals have been over run because we didn't handle the lockdown  correctly to start with.  And having to keep locking down and local lockdowns and all that bollocks has almost started a civil war akin to what is going on in America because people are getting fed up.

All this is the fault of the government.  End of.

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?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Yes I’ve already said expenses was outrageous, Jacqui Smith in particular sticks out. Can never take her seriously knowing what she pulled.

Again though, I don’t think it’s relevant to this. I’m not arsed what party they’re in, we’re battling a pandemic and big decisions need to be taken. If we’re choosing our partners (and I did explain in my example how one had failed if you check back) in this battle based on Tory MPs and their families making a buck then clearly that’s not helpful to the response.

As far as I’m aware there’s nothing illegal going on so no crime for the police to investigate. But poor decision making processes could be inhibiting our response.

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.

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.

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.

You love a dig don't you sluffy

Being on the front line I see a lot more of what is being said is acceptable by the government and it just isn't.  But you carry on.

There is absolutely no need!

y2johnny 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.

You love a dig don't you sluffy

Being on the front line I see a lot more of what is being said is acceptable by the government and it just isn't.  But you carry on.

There is absolutely no need!

Was it a dig I made because I thought I was simply refuting what you had previously posted -

y2johnny wrote:Instead we have relied on substandard ppe (i know this first hand) and that contracts have been given to friends of friends of the government with no prior experience.

Do you know that to be fact rather than hearsay you've read or heard from off social media?

My money's on the latter.

And being on the front line I'm sure you can tell us where all these people have caught Covid from, was it from something the government did/didn't do or was it perhaps from some family member or friend who didn't social distance and keep to their own social bubble?

Or maybe some nutjob like this bloke from Bolton - video here -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-manchester-54730059

y2johnny wrote:All this is the fault of the government.  End of.

You still absolutely certain about that?

Sluffy wrote:

Was it a dig I made because I thought I was simply refuting what you had previously posted -



Do you know that to be fact rather than hearsay you've read or heard from off social media?

My money's on the latter.

And being on the front line I'm sure you can tell us where all these people have caught Covid from, was it from something the government did/didn't do or was it perhaps from some family member or friend who didn't social distance and keep to their own social bubble?

Or maybe some nutjob like this bloke from Bolton - video here -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-manchester-54730059



You still absolutely certain about that?

I already agreed with you that there are a lot of bellends sluffy, and yes they are the ones spreading it.  

The government advice to the NHS bordered on insanity in the beginning.  Dipping masks AND filters into a cleaning solution to decontaminate the masks.  The government obviously didn't seek advice from a professional as liquid damages the filters......this was government advice.

The masks the government supplied (I can't think of the correct term, my brain isn't working) had to be ruled out by the hse as they are basically glorified face coverings.  Millions was spent on these.  Again, not social media hype, both examples are first hand experience.

I've been extremely strict about lockdown, to the point I'd rather the schools closed even, as I know first hand someone who got it from their kid picking it up from school.  What we are in now ISNT a lockdown.  What we was in previously WASNT a lockdown.  The messages are always mixed/lost/or delivered too late to the point even the government don't know rules themselves.

Whether the government is doing a good job or not is obviously a matter of opinion.  And my opinion is that they aren't.

With regards to the supply and contracts, I do hope the truth will come out....maybe tenbob can give Vince a break for a few days and look into some of the companies sprung up overnight or who deviated from their current business into something completely different.

There is quite a lot of them.