Nepotism/Cronyism Watch

I was referring to the BBC news at 10 handle. Not sure what you’re referring to in that case.

Anyway, if I come across the interview or a transcript I’ll let you know.

Otherwise happy for you to believe what you like and we stop dominating the forum for a bit. Think this topic is killing the site looking at the lack of other posts.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:I was referring to the BBC news at 10 handle. Not sure what you’re referring to in that case.

Anyway, if I come across the interview or a transcript I’ll let you know.

Otherwise happy for you to believe what you like and we stop dominating the forum for a bit. Think this topic is killing the site looking at the lack of other posts.

Seeing I put up the world's twitter link to Arco - which WASN'T the Arco we've been talking about, I thought it might have given you a clue about what I was referring to!

Fwiw I believe you didn't see the BBC interview and so something from someone on social media and believed it as gospel because it fits the narrative you (and to be fair countless others) want to believe is true without understanding how how government actually works, in particular the role of the civil service and it's political impartiality in carrying out its function.

The site is on it's knees because it's not fun and hasn't been fun for years, hatred and ignorance over issues such as Brexit and Anderson has ripped the humour out of it and people playing games behind the scenes and stirring shit up has added to the toxicity.

In a sense it seems to me to be a reasonable reflection of how society is in real life too and the idea of Nuts was somewhere to escape from real life and have a bit of fun for five minutes or so until we had to go back to it!

Well if so we've only got ourselves to blame.

I guess we get what we deserve.

Onwards and upwards hopefully.

What do you mean the world’s Twitter link? Arco safety is the company we’re talking about it’s a different company?

And yes Sluffy, I invented the BBC interview to get one over on you. If you don’t want to believe it that’s fine, bury your head in the sand as you always do when there’s evidence contrary to what you believe.

It’s all a conspiracy theory against you!

T.R.O.Y. wrote:What do you mean the world’s Twitter link? Arco safety is the company we’re talking about it’s a different company?

And yes Sluffy, I invented the BBC interview to get one over on you. If you don’t want to believe it that’s fine, bury your head in the sand as you always do when there’s evidence contrary to what you believe.

It’s all a conspiracy theory against you!

Exactly what I've just said on my post above as to why Nuts is on it's knees.

When you raised the issue of Arco (which I'd never heard of before and I suspect most others on here had not either even you I would think before you saw it on TV/read about them on social media) I looked up what I (and any other reasonable person) would have thought to be their Twitter account and found out it was already taken by another company of that name.

How is anyone supposed to know it has a variation on its name as a Twitter account seeing that it even calls itself 'Acro'??? -

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00133804

And fwiw I've never disputed there was an interview on the BBC just that I reckon you didn't watch it and that you've read something hysteria about it on social media instead and believed it to have been gospel without having any idea of what actually was said or the context it was said in.

Instead of just admitting that was the case you've again manufactured yet another spurious and pointless argument.

You say there is 'evidence' contrary to what I believe, then fine, let's see it, I've certainly no issues at all in finding out the truth but up to now  no one as provided any 'evidence' but simply loads and loads of innuendo.

In simple terms there are three levels of inquiry into this issue - a peer review - that's the civil service, examining what the civil service did - that was the Audit Office report.  The next is the 'political' inquiry, that will be undertaken by the PAC which commences in a couple of weeks, the third is a legal inquiry which would be undertaken by Judicial Reviews if they get that far and the judge doesn't throw them out for having no merit to their request for a review.

Up to now no 'evidence' has been shown as to wrong doing as so widely proclaimed about by Maugham et al since the pandemic struck.

The Audit Office findings DID show faults and omissions in the procurement system - we knew they would, the government had already acknowledge 'technical' breaches - BUT no smoking guns were found.

I'm happy to wait and see what the two remaining lines of inquiry's findings are rather than to prejudge the issue like you and the rest of social media seems to have done.

If there is any 'evidence' out there I'm sure they will find it as that is what they are set up to do.

If they can't then it would all have been nothing more than innuendo after all.

Bring on the 'evidence' I say.

Again, I’m not talking about evidence of criminal activity like corruption that would be very difficult to prove.

From what I’ve seen there’s evidence that public money hasn’t been spent well and its incompetence needs exposing.

Essential reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/20/trump-johnson-sleaze-covid-nao-report-money?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Again, I’m not talking about evidence of criminal activity like corruption that would be very difficult to prove.

From what I’ve seen there’s evidence that public money hasn’t been spent well and its incompetence needs exposing.

What 'evidence' is that then?

Are sure you are not mistaking 'evidence' for innuendo?

It's a fact the Ken Anderson was disqualified for being a company director for eight years for dodgy doings.  It's also a fact that after that time he became owner and sole director for BWFC but there's no 'evidence' that he did anything wrong whilst in charge but there's certainly been an avalanche of 'innuendo' that he did.

Should he be banned from being a director for another eight years based on this 'innuendo' because there's no hard 'evidence' he did anything wrong - just that people assumed he did based on putting two and two together and getting five.

Think of it this way, at the end of the day the 'person' who awards the contract is a civil servant, so they would have to be in with the cronyism to award a contract that didn't fit the criteria or wasn't the best they had available to them at the time - in criminal parlance it would have to had been and 'inside job' for the cronyism to have worked.

I don't believe such a thing happened, I don't believe the likes of people such as myself who do those types of job mix in the same world as MP's and millionaire businessmen.  I'm more than happy for to be proved wrong because such people if they exist should be rooted out and thrown in jail.

Let me walk you through the National Audit's Office 'Findings' because clearly you don't understand what they are actually saying...

Sluffy wrote:Findings -

On the 20 contracts inspected - For a Cabinet Office procurement for focus groups and communications with Public First, the Cabinet Office failed to document why it chose this particular supplier, why it used emergency procurement and failed to document any consideration of any potential conflicts of interest.

The Cabinet Office dealt with EXISTING contracts, so these are NOT the one's in via the VIP contact awarding section that nearly all the innuendo of contract awards of have emanated from - this is what I can find on this contract -

...Meanwhile, Public First was given £840,000 to assess the effectiveness of the government’s coronavirus advice, although it was also listed as being to prepare for completing Brexit.

The company is co-owned by James Frayne, who was employed by Mr Gove when he was education secretary, alongside Mr Cummings – now the prime minister’s chief aide.

Critics have protested the work was not advertised, there was no competition and that no official notice of the award has even been published.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-ppe-contracts-conservative-labour-covid-a9622131.html

The Findings go on to say...

Sluffy wrote:For three government contracts for data services with Faculty, the awarding bodies failed to document any consideration of any potential conflicts of interest in two cases and in one case failed to document why the supplier was chosen.

Again contracts to EXISTING suppliers and nothing to do with the VIP section set up and where most of the hoo-ha is over.

This is what I can find on this award -

Artificial intelligence company Faculty, which was awarded contracts worth almost £3m. Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew owned a £90,000 stake in the firm but has since relinquished it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54978460

A bit more here and to be fair it doesn't look good but this is more centred on Cummings and his authority rather than anything to do with PPE contract awarding and the VIP office -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/vote-leave-ai-firm-wins-seven-government-contracts-in-18-months

The next bit of the finding...

Sluffy wrote:For a DHSC contract for PPE with Ayanda, DHSC failed to consider a potential conflict of interest for a person associated with the company.

Now this IS from the VIP office contract awarding section and is one that Maugham has made a big song and dance about.

Let us see what may develop on this one although the report specifies the word 'potential' rather than 'actual' in respect of conflict of interests.

The final part of the findings relate to...

Sluffy wrote:The Cabinet Office asked the Government Internal Audit Agency to review six PPE contracts that have attracted media attention. The review found that while there was evidence for most controls being applied, there were some gaps in the documentation, such as why some suppliers which had low due diligence ratings were awarded contracts.

These cases are the ones which most people seem to believe would show all the dodgy dealings but the findings don't show that and even commented that " there was evidence for most controls being applied" so if these are seen to be the 'worst' and most controls were applied it gives me confidence in believing nearly all the others were too.

So although I'm not counting my chickens yet it would seem that the vast outrage over the awarding of billions of pounds of PPE contracts on the back of cronyism is simply not there.

Yes, mistakes have been made, we always knew that would be the case but the findings from the Audit Office highlights an issue with two existing contractors both not involved with PPE procurement and for contract values of around £4m in total.  The Ayanda PPE award where there might have been an issue in regards to "The deal was brokered by a businessman who was an adviser to the government's Board of Trade at the time", and the six most high profile cases (presumably those Maugham has been banging on about) where "evidence for most of the controls were applied".


This inquiry dealt with the fine detail if you will, as to what happened in the 'machinery' of awarding the contracts.  To my mind it seemed to have stood up well in general, certainly not looking at this time as to billions of pounds having been wasted as the innuendo people are believing as gospel.

We move on to the 'political' inquiry next and it will be interesting to see if the PAC has something more in its locker than just rhetoric?

No doubt we shall soon see.

okocha wrote:Essential reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/20/trump-johnson-sleaze-covid-nao-report-money?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This is just someone's opinion on the Guardian's public comment section.

In fact he's a Guardian journalist himself who wrote it ...

...wonder if he got preferential treatment in getting his comments posted up than mine...  ...isn't that cronyism if he did?...  ...again the Guardian establishment looking after their own...   ...how much did he get for saying such things...   ...his uncle and the editor of the Guardian play golf together...

Can you see how innuendo (and lies) can work to smear and create impressions that may well not even be true?

Thanks Sluffy. Not looking for a debate with you on this until new information comes out - think we’ve done it to death and I’m not totally convinced we’re on the same page here.

So just wanted to reiterate my position once more, keen to make sure that it’s as clear as possible when new information is released.

Sluffy wrote:

This is just someone's opinion on the Guardian's public comment section.

In fact he's a Guardian journalist himself who wrote it ...

...wonder if he got preferential treatment in getting his comments posted up than mine...  ...isn't that cronyism if he did?...  ...again the Guardian establishment looking after their own...   ...how much did he get for saying such things...   ...his uncle and the editor of the Guardian play golf together...

Can you see how innuendo (and lies) can work to smear and create impressions that may well not even be true?

Right, old chap: back to school for you to learn all about fact, opinion and assertion, so that your willingness to go to great lengths to prove your superior knowledge doesn't founder on basic interpretation and critical reading skills.

While you're there, it might be as well for you to take advantage of lessons focussing on spelling, grammar and punctuation, especially ones that show ways to compensate for what you say is dyslexia.

okocha wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

This is just someone's opinion on the Guardian's public comment section.

In fact he's a Guardian journalist himself who wrote it ...

...wonder if he got preferential treatment in getting his comments posted up than mine...  ...isn't that cronyism if he did?...  ...again the Guardian establishment looking after their own...   ...how much did he get for saying such things...   ...his uncle and the editor of the Guardian play golf together...

Can you see how innuendo (and lies) can work to smear and create impressions that may well not even be true?

Right, old chap: back to school for you to learn all about fact, opinion and assertion, so that your willingness to go to great lengths to prove your superior knowledge doesn't founder on basic interpretation and critical reading skills.

While you're there, it might be as well for you to take advantage of lessons focussing on spelling, grammar and punctuation, especially ones that show ways to compensate for what you say is dyslexia.

You posted it was "essential reading" and it turns out it's one blokes opinion based almost entirely from what GLP have already fed the masses to infer that Johnson's government is corrupt.

That may or may not be the case but up to now GLP has proved nothing (or anyone else it seems otherwise they would be screaming it from the rooftops by now!) and only fed us innuendo of dirty deeds, in respect of PPE procurement during Covid.

Until they find some hard evidence to it - and if there's anything in it I'd love it to be brought out and those involved punished - all they are telling us is nothing more factual than a fairy story!

And the next time you brining personal details about myself into your argument's I'll ban you.

Is that clear.

Infer means deduce or conclude (something) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.

Imply means indicate the truth or existence of (something) by suggestion rather than explicit reference.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet considering the many moans about it on here -

Legal action targets appointments of Dido Harding, Kate Bingham and Mike Coupe

Boris Johnson and his health secretary, Matt Hancock, acted “unlawfully” when appointing three key figures – including the head of NHS Test and Trace, Dido Harding – to posts in the fight against Covid-19, according to a legal challenge submitted by campaigners to the high court.

The Observer has seen details of documents from those pursuing the case – and initial responses from government lawyers – relating to the call for a judicial review into the appointment of Baroness Harding, who is a Tory peer, and into those of Kate Bingham to the post of head of the UK’s vaccine taskforce and Mike Coupe to the role of director of testing at NHS Test and Trace.

The case has been lodged jointly by the not-for-profit Good Law Project headed by Jolyon Maugham QC, and the UK’s leading race equality thinktank, the Runnymede Trust. If it is successful, it would represent a further serious blow to the credibility of the government’s handling of the pandemic and support claims that ministers have been running a “chumocracy”.

The claimants say the appointments were made without advertising the positions, and without the open competition normally insisted on for important public sector roles. Instead they suggest those identified and then appointed were installed in part because of their Tory connections. Harding and Bingham are both married to Conservative MPs while Coupe is a former chief executive of Sainsbury’s, and was a colleague of Harding’s at the supermarket.

The claimants question the experience and suitability of the three to carry out the roles and also say that because the positions were not advertised and are unpaid, the government was guilty of indirectly discriminating against others outside the very well-off, predominantly white group from which the three were chosen. They also say the government breached equality obligations for public sector appointments.

In relation to Harding’s appointment by Hancock in May to head the test and trace programme, the claimants say her experience “was not such that it was obvious without a selection process that she was uniquely qualified for the role”. Hancock and Harding already knew each other, partly through horse racing connections. Harding was appointed to a second role in September as head of the National Institute for Health Protection, again without an open competition or the role being advertised.

The claimants say Bingham, who has worked in the fields of venture capital and therapeutics, and was at school with the prime minister’s sister, Rachel, “has no experience of public health administration and no expertise in immunology”. Her husband, Jesse Norman, is a Tory minister and was a contemporary of the prime minister’s at Eton.

Referring to Coupe’s appointment the claimants say: “Mr Coupe’s most significant professional experience is as the former CEO of Sainsbury’s. He has no experience as a public administrator or in the health sector. He is a former colleague and friend of Baroness Harding, who worked with him at Sainsbury’s.”

The claimants are inviting the court to declare that the government acted “unlawfully” in the way it made the appointments. They are not seeking to remove the three from their posts, which they accept would be disruptive at a time of crisis, but to ensure that in future governments are bound to act fairly and lawfully.

A pre-action letter outlining the details of Good Law Project’s case has been sent to Johnson and Hancock. The government legal department has responded by defending all the appointments, saying the urgency of the pandemic necessitated swift, ad hoc and temporary appointments.

The legal department said they were not civil service roles so fell outside the requirements for full and open competition, and praised the administrative abilities and experience of those chosen. It also dismissed the claims of indirect discrimination as baseless, saying the claimants had failed to say precisely who had been discriminated against. The government’s lawyers say the case is “unnecessary and will soon be academic”.

Dr Halima Begum, director of the Runnymede Trust, said in her submission: “Corners must not be cut to the point where the government is discriminating against non-white and/or disabled people. Qualified individuals should all have an equal opportunity to compete for these vital jobs, no matter their background. They should also be able to afford to accept these jobs while supporting themselves and their families.

“Dispensing with open competition and failing to remunerate full-time positions builds a perception that important jobs are being given to an inner circle of wives and friends within Westminster. This is what people increasingly call the ‘chumocracy’.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/21/boris-johnson-acted-illegally-over-jobs-for-top-anti-covid-staff

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUFpH4eXblNzb987bpZo0XkWwS3gppoh/view

As a sort of background to the Runnymede Trust is a Race Equality Think Tank (their description not mine) who have got involved because all the three roles are unpaid so Harding, Bingham and Coupe are NOT being paid and THE Runnymede Trust says that's unfair and excludes blacks and disabled people who were not rich enough to do an unpaid job.

Also all this Judicial Review is seeking is for the judge to say the government acted illegally - nothing more!

Is me or does it all just seem to be all about scoring points against a Tory Government?

All part of a big game that I keep telling everyone that politics is about?

Oh and talking about cronyism is it only the Tories that do it?

I don't think so!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony%27s_Cronies

Also...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tonys-cronies-to-daves-faves-cameron-repays-some-old-debts-2137104.html

Ah you might say, that's a Conservative crony's not Labour ones!!!

Well not quite right, they are 50 Peers recommended by the three main political parties and I would draw your attention to one name on the list below from Labour, nominated by Ed Miliband namely that of a political advisor Stewart Wood who after the 2010 election helped run Ed Miliband's campaign to become Leader of the Labour Party, and served as an adviser to Ed Miliband, the Labour party's leader, from 2010 to 2015.

Stewart Wood - former Downing Street and HMT special adviser, lecturer at University of Oxford; previously Fellow of Magdalen College and co-founder of Nexus

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/latest-peerages-announced

Who he I hear you say, well non other than a Director of the Good Law Project!

https://goodlawproject.org/about/

How ironic eh?

It takes a crony to know a crony I guess!


Wood was made a Peer so he could serve in the Labour Party without standing for election simply because he was a mate of Miliband.

People who live in glass houses and all that!

No reaction from anyone to the above, I must say I'm surprised, I thought there would have been.

I was saving this next bit to throw into the pot when they had 'bit' but I'll post it up nevertheless.

Maugham set up the Good Law Project as a not for profit company - and to be fair to him he's had a load of free publicity about it and made the name very well known and clearly admired and respected by the many who follow it and its causes, so I guess it would seem a natural development for him to create another company to fight for consumer legal rights to go alongside the political legal rights championed by GLP and two months ago on the 18th September he opened a company called the Good Law Project (Consumer) Ltd - but this time it wasn't as a non-profit organisation - this one is to earn money from!

Nothing wrong in that but clearly the idealism of what he's done with GLP is being 'cashed' in on with a company with an almost identical name and owned by his high profile self.

Does that seem ethical, it's certainly not illegal - but isn't that similar to what his public issues are with the perceived cronyism he's leading a crusade upon - certainly seems to be in my opinion.

But wait last month on the 6th October he opened yet another business called Ledgery Ltd whose purpose is "70229 - Management consultancy activities other than financial management", this again is a copy to make profit and not a 'not for profit' one like GLP.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/vsnnvTbDUumW9VkIrr1zwXBtyBg/appointments

Again nothing wrong in that however on the 21st October, just days after this and his other new (for profit) companies he had just set up, Sam Smithers, Director of GLP resigned.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/cLrqnzVUf_MoIQRWiC5rRBF9T90/appointments

Mere coincidence perhaps, who knows?

Just to add to the intrigue though, the day afterwards, the 22nd October, Maugham informed Companies House to a change in his personal details!

This information isn't public but clearly 'something' happened in a six week or so period where he set up TWO company's to make money from, one having an almost identical name with the high profile and idealistic GLP, had one idealistic Director of GLC resign and register a change of personal circumstances!

Those are facts, with perhaps a little bit of innuendo thrown in for effect.

See how easy it is to do.

Is Maugham himself practising what he preaches or is there more of a touch of hypocrisy about the whole thing?

It's all a game.

I think everyone is leaving you and TROY to slug it out on here Sluffy 

Norpig wrote:I think everyone is leaving you and TROY to slug it out on here Sluffy 

I don't blame them either!

The bottom line is that you either believe what you see, hear and told, or you go and check things out for yourself.

There's two sides to every story but on this (and the same with Anderson) people only hear one side of it and believe that (because that's what they want to believe in anyway!).

The thing is though, it isn't always the correct version of what actually went on or why it did so.

I doubt this thread is a long way from being finished just yet as the Public Accounts Committee Inquiry is being held in a fortnight and no doubt it will stir the pot a bit more on this!