T.R.O.Y. wrote:I've lost faith in your ability to understand this issue. Every time cronyism is mentioned you read it as corruption and don't seem able to distinguish between the two.
It's a bit like the Anderson saga, actions don't have to be illegal to negatively affect the country or football club respectively.
Could care less if you have faith in me or not the simple fact is you can DO something if it is ILLEGAL but you can't do anything if it is immoral.
Cronyism might be immoral, Anderson might have acted immorally but there's nothing you, me or anyone else can do about it but whinge and bitch endlessly whereas illegality CAN be stopped and dealt with.
It's a game, as long as you don't break the rules you can do what you like to win.
If you don't like the rules then either get them changed or simply don't play.
Do you think there's no cronyism in your beloved Labour Party - of course there is - look at the unions threatening to withdraw their funding if they don't get the people they want in power in the Party and voting the way they want them to - minimum wage in 1998 was introduced only because the unions got the Labour Party to vote it through to benefit their members - it was never going to be done under the Conservatives was it?
You just can seem to grasp that it is all a game - both sides do exactly the same things, they look to others to help them get power in return for 'favours' once they achieve power and work together to stay in power - the two rules of politics I keep banging on about.
As long as no laws are broken nothing can be done about it hence why I always bring everything back to reality ie if they've broke the law chuck them in jail if they haven't then what you going to do about it other then bitch?
Maugham's made it seem that large scale corruption has been going on with the way he's run his social media campaign (in my opinion - just to cover myself) but when you take apart all that he's said there is nothing there - company with links to someone in power awarded massive contracts legally and those with the links disclose their interest and have nothing to do with awarding of the contact.
How is that wrong especially when all contracts are legally enforceable if something goes wrong.
Or do you just go around with pitchforks and as soon as someone shouts witch you go and burn them!
The real word doesn't work that way and that's why Maugham isn't claiming anything illegal has gone on - he's far too smart to do that - he merely spins it in such a way that people think it must have, whilst Maugham instead is simply after a Judicial Review.
Now a Judicial Review is basically the court ruling if a public body - in this case the government, have exceeded their powers - should they have invoked Emergency Procurement Powers.
What is interesting (to me at least) is IF the courts do find that to be the case then what Remedies they have which are basically a -
1 - Quashing order - stop doing
2 - Prohibiting order - do it right from now on and not what you have been doing
3 - Mandatory Order - which if the government hasn't been doing something and they should have - to start doing so
4 - Declaration - basically a statement the government was right/wrong and allow in theory for legal action for any damages incurred by anyone
5 - Injunction - stop doing what you have been doing.
6 - Damages - a very limited definition of what claims that can be made such as negligence or breach of statutory duty
7 - Discretion - which means even if the judicial review finds in favour it does amount to anything that has happened being unreasonable by the government.
In short all that lot means is that when it eventually hits the court for review the government would have already stopped using Emergency Procurement, no company would have acted illegally by having been awarded contracts under Emergency powers and nothing much will be gained other than a ruling that government did/did not do the right thing at the time.
It all about putting a black mark about the government and nothing at all to do with if there's been any dodgy doings going on at all!
PAC will look more closely into that but unless evidence is provided of corruption or profiteering then they have no powers to take it any further and if there is no evidence then no laws have been broken.
The government has an 80 seat majority and the next General elections aren't until 2024, so they won't fall even if the judicial review goes against them - and fwiw issuing Emergency Powers in response to a worldwide pandemic engulfing the NHS at the time doesn't seem that unreasonable to me at least.
Johnson might go but he probably will be gone long before the judicial review anyway I suspect.
Not sure what anyone actually gains from all this apart from Maugham scoring brownie points against the government he clearly seems to despise?
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