How is the Tory government doing?

Just to go back to the judicial review of the PPE contracts for a moment the judge pointed out that the scope of the review was limited to whether or not the procurement procedures were followed - which is correct.
There is nothing that I am aware of in the procedures that says that the government should get value for money (as that's intangible and open to interpretation) however there are other elements which are pertinent e.g scope of the procurement (you can't set up a procurement for machine parts but accept a tender to supply carrots for example) - so there is scope for a legal argument to explore whether "fit for purpose" falls foul of this. However the gov will argue that at the time they couldn't assess whether or not what they were buying was fit for purpose - despite that being the purpose of due diligence - which they didn't undertake due to "special circumstances"
Lots of legalese and wrangling to be done but frankly if the government makes a case for it being special circumstances there is no case regardless of the obvious potential moral issues.
I say this as I was involved in winning several (albeit relatively small and predominantly <£1m) government contracts which didn't go out to tender as nobody else could offer the specific service so I know there's legal precedent.

wanderlust wrote:Just to go back to the judicial review of the PPE contracts for a moment the judge pointed out that the scope of the review was limited to whether or not the procurement procedures were followed - which is correct.
There is nothing that I am aware of in the procedures that says that the government should get value for money (as that's intangible and open to interpretation) however there are other elements which are pertinent e.g scope of the procurement (you can't set up a procurement for machine parts but accept a tender to supply carrots for example) - so there is scope for a legal argument to explore whether "fit for purpose" falls foul of this. However the gov will argue that at the time they couldn't assess whether or not what they were buying was fit for purpose - despite that being the purpose of due diligence - which they didn't undertake due to "special circumstances"
Lots of legalese and wrangling to be done but frankly if the government makes a case for it being special circumstances there is no case regardless of the obvious potential moral issues.
I say this as I was involved in winning several (albeit relatively small and predominantly <£1m) government contracts which didn't go out to tender as nobody else could offer the specific service so I know there's legal precedent.

No, Judicial Reviews are not like that at all.

In simple terms it is whether the actions of the government have correctly been applied in accordance with legislation (the law).

The complainant (GLP) in this case must submit in writing where they believe the government acted beyond/or failed in carrying out, its legal powers and the government must reply back in writing its rebuttal for the Judge to consider before a Judicial Review is even granted.

At this stage the judge can strike out some or all of the claims of the complainant.

The JR will only be allowed if some of the points the complaiant alledges still remain standing.

The JR will then go forward to examine those points alone - and nothing else.

What the judge did today (well yesterday now) was rule that the issues GLP presented to her that were outside of the terms of referrence that she granted the JR for.  

Or in otherwords if GLP had wanted to make that a part of their case they should have included it as part of their original submission - which of course they hadn't.

The JR was granted on just three of the grounds GLP put forward namely, breach of duties of transparancy and equality of the governments 'new approach' to procurement (this would be the application of emergency procurement legislation and the length of time and breadth of contracts it was applied to), insufficient reasons for contract awards and irrationality in terms of insufficient financial or technical verification and the use of the High Priority Lane (HPL) for some suppliers.

What this means simply is that the judge wants a more indepth look at these three issues before reaching her decision on these matters - thus the price of the goods and whether they were value for money (VFM) fell outside of what she was doing the Judicial Review for - and not as you seem to be suggesting - as VFM IS an integral part of the contract evaluation process - and fwiw if anyone had set up a procurement process for machine parts and awarded a contract for carrots from it (as you bizarrely put it) they'd be arrested for fraud! - I'll let that one pass as your attempted explanation being faulty rather than you missunderstanding the process completely.

I will take issue with you on your remarks about due dilligance (DD) though, even under emergency legislation DD (which includes Value For Money) is required to be undertaken and WAS carried out.  It is actually a fact that hasn't been much mentioned because it doesn't fit in to all the hype about sleaze that is being spun around the case but there was about a 90% REFUSAL rate in respect of contract awards in the High Priority Lane - only 47 out of 493 received went on to be awarded a contract (fwiw - twice as many contracts (104) were awarded outside of the HPL).

You'd think it was 90% granted with all the spin and innuendo that Maugham and his mates had been insinuating about sleaze wouldn't you???

You are absolutely correct in what you say in respect that there is no case if the government proves it enacted emergency powers and acted in accord within the legal requirements demanded of them and as I've said above sometime last week, the GLP case seems to be based on the hope that judge will agree with them that the emergency legislation should have been repealed sometime immediately after the first lock down last April/May time - we of course were required to have multiple regional lock down and second and third waves since then - and the subsequent need for PPE arising from those Covid cases.

I'm not making light of GLP case though as the judge clearly wants to look deeper into three of the several issues they initially raised - the case as the judge herself states - “The case concerns the decision-making process carried out by the defendant" - otherwise the case would have been thrown out at the pre-trail stage - but the public hype from Maugham/GLP about morals and sleaze that they are still peddling are NOT the issues they have brought the case to JR about - but you'd never know that from their social media and press releases to the national newspapers!


And as a PS, the bit the judge threw out about how much PPE kit failed - GLP obviously wanted to make an issue of it here - but from the Audit Office review of PPE procurement undertaken last year it states that only 0.5% of volume actually failed - which considering normal acceptable failure rate under the normal tendering process is 5% is quite remarkable!

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Investigation-into-government-procurement-during-the-COVID-19-pandemic-Summary.pdf

I should add that equipment 'failure' isn't the end of the process - if the fault is with the manufacturer, they wouldn't be paid for the faulty goods - the GLP seemed to want to make it look as though the government had simply bought 'bad' goods and got 'stuck' with them and wasted millions on it!

wanderlust wrote:We already know that the Government acted unlawfully - this is all about damage limitation.

On the 19th February the High Court ruled that the Secretary of State acted illegally on grounds 1 and 2 (so in reality it was round 1 to GLP!) but not 3 and 4 where GLP tried to push the boat out and go for "acting in pursuant of an unpublished policy" (making up the rules to suit) and acting on that policy, so the judicial review arose out of this decision. There's no way the judge will go against the earlier decision so it's really a matter of confirming the Government was guilty on the first two charges but not letting GLP extrapolate it into a perceived "evil plot" - whether or not it was in reality. The High Court also ruled that it shouldn't be televised so although the Government has already been proven to be in the wrong, the courts are doing a sterling job of ensuring that bad press and public awareness is minimised.


failure to comply with reg. 50 (ground 1); failure to comply with the Transparency Policy and Principles without justification (ground 2)

No, again you are completely wrong and showing your own political bias and prejudice and your lack of understanding of the Judicial Review process.

Each JR are separate and distinct cases apart from each other - they are not linked as such - the current JR is about decision making and nothing to do with the reporting contract awards within a set period of time.

The JR decision above in your post refers only to the governments failure to report contract details within a set period of time (the reporting period deadlines were set prior to a the pandemic - in a period of normality if you will).

The governments case was that it 'tried' to comply with the legal required timescales but simply were swamped with the need to prioritise aquring, evaluating and awarding the PPE contracts and insufficient resources to collate and publish the required paperwork to do the final admin task of publishing the contract award details as per its legal requirement to do so.

The judge actually struck out the parts of the Good Law Projects case at the Judicial Review that the government had deliberately made it a policy not to meet the reporting deadlines thus there was no intent to hide or withold any required factual information (as was the contention GLP had tried to make).

There were actually TWO different reporting requirements for each contract award publication and the judge ruled that factually they simply were not met in in the timescale required in law.  

This is why that although the government lost the JR there was no call by the Labour Party or others (apart from the few usual suspects) for Hancock to resign.

...Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would not call for Mr Hancock to resign over the court ruling, saying it was "not what the public really want to see".

But he told Sky News there had been "a lot of problems... on transparency and on who the contracts went to", as well as "a lot of wasted money [which is] a real cause for concern".

Under the law, the government is required to publish a "contract award notice" within 30 days of the awarding any contracts for public goods or services worth more than £120,000.

But in his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain said: "There is now no dispute that, in a substantial number of cases, the secretary of state breached his legal obligation to publish contract award notices within 30 days of the award of contracts.

"There is also no dispute that the secretary of state failed to publish redacted contracts in accordance with the transparency policy."

The judge called it an "historic failure" by the department, adding: "The public were entitled see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded."

Asked by the BBC's Andrew Marr if he would apologise following the ruling, Mr Hancock said the contracts had been published "just after a fortnight late" on average, "because my team were working seven days a week, often 18 hours a day, to get hold of the equipment that was saving lives".

The health secretary said "of course contracts like this need to be published" and the judge's comments about ensuring transparency were "100% right".

But he said: "People can make up their own view about whether I should have told my team to stop buying PPE and spend the time bringing forward those transparency returns by just over a fortnight or whether I was right to buy the PPE and get it to the frontline.

"You tell me that that's wrong. You can't and the reason you can't is because it was the right thing to do and legal cases about timings of transparency returns are completely second order compared to saving lives."

Mr Hancock added: "There is no health secretary in history that would have taken the view that they need to take people off the project of buying PPE in order to ensure nine months later the health secretary didn't have a slightly bumpy interview on the Marr programme.

"It is not what it is about, it is about doing the right thing."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56145490

No. Again you are completely wrong - this time by saying I was wrong and then repeating the points I made which is a recurring theme.

Fact is that Hancock was found guilty on 2 counts and that is now a matter of fact so next time you write nonsense like “first round to the government” check your facts because this is round two.

wanderlust wrote:No. Again you are completely wrong - this time by saying I was wrong and then repeating the points I made which is a recurring theme.

Fact is that Hancock was found guilty on 2 counts and that is now a matter of fact so next time you write nonsense like “first round to the government” check your facts because this is round two.

You're a nutjob.

Fwiw I said 'first blood to the government' and I said it as being the first 'advantage' gained in the Judicial Review that has just started.

It isn't "round two" at all - this Judicial Review didn't depend on (or flow from) the last one, they are all independent to each other - if the government had won the previous one it wouldn't have meant that this one would not have happened and conversely the findings on non compliance of publication of contracts within 30 days has absolutely no bearing or influence on this review whatsoever!

Judicial Reviews merely focus on a specific point of law and see if the actions of the 'executive' that administrered it, used it correctly.

The 'judicary' are 'reviwing' the 'executives' actions as a means of checks and balance of democracy - our constitution being based on three powers - legislative (Parliament creating laws) executive (the party in power using those laws to achieve their aims) judiciary (seeing that the laws are apllied fairly and equally to all).

This is basic stuff as to how and why the country runs as it does and has done so for centurys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_in_the_United_Kingdom

The Judicial Review has very limited powers of remedy - it is really used to 'stop' something that had been going wrong or 'start' something happen that hasn't been - from the review onwards - so for instance the only thing that really came out of the JR on the non compliance of government publishing contracts awards on time was the judge telling them to do so in future.

The use of JR's by GLP is simply their strategy to 'embarrass' the government - to which for people who don't understand the system like you, is clearly working - as even if the government wins the JR, people will still believe the slurs of cromyism and sleaze - although the JR will find none - as reviews are on how points of law have been applied - nothing more nothing less.

As for repeating things you have said, I have to do so in order to explain TO YOU what they actually mean as clearly you haven't understand what was being meant when you had been saying them!!!

Great article (mentioning Bolton) on the government's failure to block arrivals from India. Well worth reading.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/lockdown-easing-johnson-modi-indian-variant-covid-matt-hancock

okocha wrote:Great article (mentioning Bolton) on the government's failure to block arrivals from India. Well worth reading.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/lockdown-easing-johnson-modi-indian-variant-covid-matt-hancock

The 20,000 or so people who arrived from India and were forced to hang around for 6 hours apparently mingled at Heathrow with arrivals from other countries whilst they were waiting - which renders any chance of tracing them even more difficult than it would have been otherwise. Beggars belief.

PPE procurement China bribes scandal. - government knew at start of pandemic. Text evidence presented to judge in judicial review.

Also Natwest temporarily suspended Government's banking over concerns due diligence was not being undertaken in PPE procurement - presumably Sluffy put them right

wanderlust wrote:PPE procurement China bribes scandal. - government knew at start of pandemic. Text evidence presented to judge in judicial review.

Also Natwest temporarily suspended Government's banking over concerns due diligence was not being undertaken in PPE procurement - presumably Sluffy put them right

You're just on a mission to believe everything just as long as it fit's in with your preconceived hatred of the Tory Party.

Again you've taken as gospel what you've seen without hearing the other side of the story.

The report about the possible bribery was reported yesterday by Byline Times but to their credit they also treated the allegation (for that's all it is, no proof that anything actually happened) with some caution by stating this in their article -

"Bribery is obviously treated more seriously if a public official is involved, which is not known in this case. It is also not known whether the Government subsequently addressed this matter with Pestfix, or whether the bribe was ultimately sent in this instance".

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/05/18/controversial-ppe-supplier-admitted-agent-intended-to-bribe-officials-in-china/

Even the article you link to reports that the 'claim' is highly disputed -

"In a note to the court in advance of this week’s hearings, Alan Bates, representing Ayanda and PestFix said the allegation of bribery is “irrelevant” to the case, suggesting it had been raised for publicity.

“PestFix strongly denies that it, or any of its employees or representatives, has ever been involved in bribery”, he wrote. “A colloquialism (an off the cuff remark used in 'familiar' chat or banter) in a single text message is not a proper basis for the Claimants to make a serious allegation of this kind.”


It's has clearly been said, along with nearly everything else by GLP, for publicity because the judge simply won't even concern herself about it because the JR is focused solely on did the government correctly apply their decision making to the letter of the law when awarding the PPE contracts - nothing more, nothing less.

The remarks about the bank are also spurious to the JR - and fwiw Natwest must have been satisfied that DD WAS being undertaken otherwise they would not have removed their suspension of service.

I don't know how someone like you with such clear hatred in their heart gets on with their life?

Something in your past has clearly made you immensely bitter and angry and it clearly has been eating away at you for years.

I feel sorry for those who have to endure your output of hatred and prejudice in their real lives.

They can't just laugh at you as I simply do on here.

I don't hate the Tories at all. I just don't like them. I think they personify self-interest and are incompetent in pursuing an agenda designed to benefit a minority with occasional dishonesty thrown in when required - even though the majority currently don't want to believe otherwise. And I believe that eventually they'll get found out.

Obviously the pandemic has provided a smokescreen for many of their activities which allow them to make fundamental changes that largely go under the radar - like the 1034 tax rises - but because they have been fiddling around the edges picking off small groups of society there has been no public outcry.

For example....personally I've been affected by changes they've made to mental health provision (cue the obvious) and the planned reform of the mental health act. One of my sons was on a community treatment order which meant that by law he had to take medication (fortnightly depot of antipsychotics) to keep him stable, but they changed the law to make it optional and so he decided he didn't want them any more. As a result he's become increasingly paranoid, aggressive and delusional/borderline suicidal which has impaired my ability to support him and now I get 30+ calls and texts a day mainly telling me to fuck off which is hard to bear as for the last 3 years he's been making progress and we've enjoyed a good relationship. The shrink says there are now thousands of people who've been taken off CTOs around the country and whichever way you stack it up, saving a few million on the cost of medication is peanuts compared to the cost of the people/carers/NHS/Police etc who have to pick up the pieces.

In their attempts to cut down public expenditure in mental health provision they have hurt no more than several thousand individuals and their families - not enough for the general public to get make a fuss about it - but have inadvertently increased the actual cost. Because like many of their policies public opinion and popularity is their guiding principle rather than the efficacy of what they actually do. And that's a sad state of affairs.

wanderlust wrote:I don't hate the Tories at all. I just don't like them. I think they personify self-interest and are incompetent in pursuing an agenda designed to benefit a minority with occasional dishonesty thrown in when required - even though the majority currently don't want to believe otherwise. And I believe that eventually they'll get found out.

Obviously the pandemic has provided a smokescreen for many of their activities which allow them to make fundamental changes that largely go under the radar - like the 1034 tax rises - but because they have been fiddling around the edges picking off small groups of society there has been no public outcry.

For example....personally I've been affected by changes they've made to mental health provision (cue the obvious) and the planned reform of the mental health act. One of my sons was on a community treatment order which meant that by law he had to take medication (fortnightly depot of antipsychotics) to keep him stable, but they changed the law to make it optional and so he decided he didn't want them any more. As a result he's become increasingly paranoid, aggressive and delusional/borderline suicidal which has impaired my ability to support him and now I get 30+ calls and texts a day mainly telling me to fuck off which is hard to bear as for the last 3 years he's been making progress and we've enjoyed a good relationship. The shrink says there are now thousands of people who've been taken off CTOs around the country and whichever way you stack it up, saving a few million on the cost of medication is peanuts compared to the cost of the people/carers/NHS/Police etc who have to pick up the pieces.

In their attempts to cut down public expenditure in mental health provision they have hurt no more than several thousand individuals and their families - not enough for the general public to get make a fuss about it - but have inadvertently increased the actual cost. Because like many of their policies public opinion and popularity is their guiding principle rather than the efficacy of what they actually do. And that's a sad state of affairs.

I'm obviously sorry to hear about your son - I'm sure we all are - although I had previously known about it from what you had wrote about him and his issues over on WW (even though you have many times denied that poster was in fact you...).

Fwiw I would never have disclosed your personal issues on here, despite your clear lies and frequent abuse of me.

I think it was abundantly clear that something of great significance to you has shaped your view of the world, even before knowing what that was.

I like to believe that I can remove emotion and self bias when making my analysis on things, clearly you can't and that is obviously where we clash on here, you think with your heart and I my head.

I'm sorry your son is unwell, I have a child myself and she is the most precious thing in my life, so his illness must be a heavy burden for you to shoulder and must be taking a great toll on you, whether you realise that or not.

I can't tell you how to live your life but even the law of averages would show that not everything the Tories do is wrong and bad and perhaps you are 'looking' for the things they do that reinforce your view of them and are blind to the things they do, that don't?

I'm not political, they are all the same to me, I just simply don't believe all I read or become emotive about it - instead I look to the facts and try to explain what is 'actually' happening rather than what people want to 'believe' is happening.

Fwiw this is the outline of the governments case presented to the JR - which is 117 pages long and which I have read - and this outline doesn't even contain the witness statements (all from the Civil Servants - which I have read separately too) who created the PPE contract award structure and were the ones who administrated the whole system from receipt of bids, through evaluation/rejection, due diligence, and award - non of which any politician had any say in).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1smJ7jPmvmt1xjAXShkqrxgnZJ01UUyE8/view

I don't expect anyone to read it other than those like myself with specialist interest in stuff like this but I can say that there is NO cronyism or corruption found in the awarding of the contracts (those who awarded them didn't even know which had come from the VIP lane and which had not!) by those who actually did the job from begining to end.

Any judgement the judge will make will be on if the civil servants correctly interpreted and enacted the letter of the law correctly - there will be no revalations of cronyism despite what you read from the Good Law Project and which people desperately want to believe.

Anyway the main thing is that I wish your son well and I wish you well too, you carry a heavy burden and it is taking its toll on you.

May things get better for you both soon.

Christ, even after that you couldn’t resist being a dickhead.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Christ, even after that you couldn’t resist being a dickhead.

Maybe I've always been a dickhead but if so I've always been a honest and caring one.  

One that always knew about his son's problems (because he put them in the public domain on another site!!!) but never used them on here - although he frequently lied to my face - because I know when internet squabbles end and real life begins.

One that showed him compassion and sympathy when all I've ever had from him have been insults and ridicule.

One that responded to his post whilst you are too up yourself having a pop at me that you forgot to show him any thought or empathy what so ever!!!

In which case I'd much rather be a dickhead than someone so self absorbed in pulling up others yet being ignorant entirely of their own shortcomings?

You couldn't even be bothered to post the poor bloke going through hell, your best wishes...

Who'd ever want to be like you are???

wanderlust wrote: One of my sons was on a community treatment order which meant that by law he had to take medication (fortnightly depot of antipsychotics) to keep him stable, but they changed the law to make it optional and so he decided he didn't want them any more. As a result he's become increasingly paranoid, aggressive and delusional/borderline suicidal. 

I've only just seen your post, Wanderlust, and really feel for you. That's an awful thing for anyone to have to suffer.

I hope you find it helpful to speak out about your experience. 

Prince Harry also clearly felt it therapeutic to express his feelings openly, in a way that might help others in similar situations.

 Unfortunately, some of the reaction in the mainstream media and elsewhere shows little understanding or genuine sympathy.

Best wishes to you, Lusty. I hope you can find some peace of mind.

I'm fine thanks. I've lived with his issues for the last 20 years so it's just part of life albeit frustrating that he never quite manages to get his life under control or make use his considerable musical talent.
A bit like supporting the Wanderers - I live in hope and there are good days

Interesting Brexit development in the last few days. The Government is offering Australia a free trade deal which is a bit of a shocker to the Tory-centric farming community.
The pre-Brexit deal with Australia imposed a 15% tax on Ozzie beef and lamb which the Tories propose to phase out over the next few years.
With Australian farmers producing on a comparatively humungous scale compared to their British counterparts, it's likely that without import duty, they'll be able to undercut British produce substantially - causing panic in the farming community who anticipate many Brits will go out of business.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the government's strategy has a strong focus on propping up their working class vote share rather than appeasing their traditional base and that in undermining smaller traditional sectors like meat farming and fishing their vision for Britain is to be an even bigger  net importer (as opposed to the "Buy British" concept of the late 60s promoted by Robert Maxwell)

Surprising then that Boris publicly backed the Daily Express "Buy British" campaign as recently as December.

I always reckon the blunders from No. 10 have for a long time been numbering almost one a day, but yesterday recorded a world-beating three, as most of the newspapers and broadcast media note.

Anyway, Max Hastings expresses Boris' failings better than most in this beautifully written account that should be copied and posted everywhere until the message hits home with the electorate:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/clock-is-ticking-on-johnsons-people-pleasing-knpsbffj8

Cummings is giving Boris and Hancock both barrels at the moment! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-57245479

Norpig wrote:Cummings is giving Boris and Hancock both barrels at the moment! 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-57245479

This bit made me laugh!!!

Mr Cummings painted a vivid picture of the atmosphere in Downing Street on one "crazy" day when the government was considering a national lockdown.

On the morning of 12 March, said Mr Cummings, the "national security people came in" and said "Trump wants us to join a bombing campaign in the Middle East tonight" and this "totally derailed" meetings about coronavirus.

At the same time, "the prime minister's girlfriend was going completely crackers" over stories in the press about her dog.

Part of the building was talking about bombing Iraq, part was talking about household restrictions, and "the prime minister's girlfriend was going completely crackers about something trivial," Mr Cummings told the committee.



Being serious for a minute though, you've got to sort out the truth from the spin with Cummings - he's got his own personal agenda in play here - he's the one who looked the whole nation in the eye and told us a big fact lie over Barnard Castle - and never even blinked when doing so.

I don't doubt there is plenty truth it what he says but I don't doubt either he's painting the picture how he wants us to see it and possibly not how it always actually was at the time.

The sad fact is was that we had Boris as a leader when we really needed another Churchill as the crisis struck us.

Seeing our country had decided to give us Corbyn and Johnson as a choice for PM only the year before, then as the old saying goes we got what we deserved.

If that doesn't open people's eyes over politics on here then I guess nothing will.