Nepotism/Cronyism Watch

This threads not about how it should work - it’s about how it worked in practice, you have conflated the two and so entirely missed the point of the conversation.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:The Good Law Project behind it all, Sluffy? 

I've never heard of such a thing. Isn't Jolyon Maugham a good friend of the unimpeachable Dale Vince whose integrity can be vouched for by no less a figure than Nuts very own Boncey and who could ever suggest that he might be biased in any way?

Well as far as I seem to find is that all reports resulting from the 'hysteria' over the governments procurement following the introduction of emergency powers because of the pandemic, do indeed seem to lead back to the GLP, which is Maugham's 'pet project'.

Countless times when you read the articles and scan down to their source it more than often states it to be the GLP.  

You will get the Labour politicians expounding these beliefs when doing their political point scoring against the government but even then these storys are only circulating in the public in the first instance almost always originating from GLP.

And you've got to (at least I do) question what is behind the GLP doing this because the only recource they are seeking are Judicial Reviews and that basically means a judge looking into whether the government used its powers correctly and even if the judge rules against the government there is no remedy as such other than the judge effectively saying 'don't do that again' or 'stop doing what you are doing and from now on do it coreectly'.

So it is basically all about 'embarassing' the government and nothing much more.

You then wonder why GLP should go to all that expense to do that if the result is in effect no more than a rap on the knuckles to the government?

Well the thing is they don't incur any costs themselves in doing so - they are totally financed from crowdfunding - and iirc, 20% of the crowd funding is used to finance the total running of the GLP itself - so no crowd funding, no GLP.

I've not been following them too closely but the latest I understand as to what is happening in respect of GLP's application for Judicial Review in respect of the governments PPE procurement under emergency powers is that the government has given GLP an estimate of its legal costs to go to court, and GLP have realised that if they lose the case they would not have sufficient funds to meet the governments costs - the crowdfunding they have isn't enough to do so.

They have asked for legal costs against them if they lose to be limited in order for them to continue.

The thing to my mind though is if they are so certain of all this corynism taking place and can back up with hard evidence what they are saying, then they must be certain of a win and they don't need to worry about losing and having to pay the governments legal expenses.  In otherwords put their money where their mouth is - if they are so certain corynism has gone on - otherwise they KNOW they can't back up what they have been saying all this time.

It seems to me that GLP boarders on being a vexatious litagator, which basically means they are deliberately 'trolling' the government by continually taking 'frivolous' court action against them just because they have an axe to grind against them.

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

I still come back to the simple fact that no proof about any allegations made has yet been found - and really would you think it would by now if such things had gone on by now?

If GLP had to fund themselves all the court action they have been doing I sincerely doubt they would have started much if any of what they have.

I mean what do they get out of it even if they did win - nothing more than proving the government wrong on a point of law - that's all.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:This threads not about how it should work - it’s about how it worked in practice, you have conflated the two and so entirely missed the point of the conversation.

I assume you are replying to Bob not me?

If not it isn't how the system worked in 'practice' but in 'actuality' - hence the numerous inquiries held so far and ongoing in to what DID happen and why.

If you are replying to me then I'm not sure why you think I've missed the point of the conversation as I'm the one having to 'teach' you how the system works and that the inquires have been, and are being, held in to establishing that indeed what happened was in complete compliance with the law.

Just seen this and thought I would try and decode the hyperbole that is springing from it!

BREAKING: WE’VE WON - High Court rules Government acted unlawfully by failing to publish details of Covid-related contracts. @Debbie_abrahams @CarolineLucas @LaylaMoran https://t.co/HLTzpVUJ2u

THREAD:

— Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) February 19, 2021

In simple terms GLP and three opposition MP's brought this Judical Review against the government on basically three grounds, the first that the government did not publish PPE contract awards within its 'Transparency and principles' timescales, second that the government did this deliberately so, and thirdly by unlawfully adopting a de-prioritisation policy to do so.

The government refuted these charges on the basis that GLP and the three opposition MP's had no standing (which means direct involvement in the goings ons in order to be relevant to them), that they fully accepted the 'technical' breaches due to the circumstance of the pandemic at the time and lastly, that by the time it came around to the court case that all the information would have been brought up to date.

The judge found accordingly, that GLP had reasonable grounds to be considered - involvement in the goings on (my words not the judges) but the MP's didn't.

He found that the time limits had not been met, second that until GLP brought the JR, that they were not overly being prioritised at the time but third, that he rejected completely that there was unlawful de-proritisation policy in existence.

It should be noted that the vast majority of PPE awards have now been complied with and are up to date as such - just as the government said they would.

All this seems to mean that the GLP JR action did result in the government pulling its finger out to get the details published quicker than perhaps they otherwise would - and is basically the reason for the JR being successful.

It does appear from what I can understand however that the three MP's ruled to have no standing in the case cannot claim their legal expenses and that GLP haven't yet been awarded a mandatory order - which I think means the judge may not award them their full costs (because part of their cases failed?).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19QsmLv8LkAL9EO6D-HSlmOHJ4VpoSPn5/view

Sluffy wrote:

I assume you are replying to Bob not me?

If not it isn't how the system worked in 'practice' but in 'actuality' - hence the numerous inquiries held so far and ongoing in to what DID happen and why.

If you are replying to me then I'm not sure why you think I've missed the point of the conversation as I'm the one having to 'teach' you how the system works and that the inquires have been, and are being, held in to establishing that indeed what happened was in complete compliance with the law.

I’ve never made any argument over how the system and processes should work. Only questioned what happened in practice.

So you’ve effectively wasted 9 pages of effort trying to explain something that wasn’t up for debate.

You’re either a complete idiot or a troll, and I’m beginning to believe it’s the latter.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

I assume you are replying to Bob not me?

If not it isn't how the system worked in 'practice' but in 'actuality' - hence the numerous inquiries held so far and ongoing in to what DID happen and why.

If you are replying to me then I'm not sure why you think I've missed the point of the conversation as I'm the one having to 'teach' you how the system works and that the inquires have been, and are being, held in to establishing that indeed what happened was in complete compliance with the law.

I’ve never made any argument over how the system and processes should work. Only questioned what happened in practice.

So you’ve effectively wasted 9 pages of effort trying to explain something that wasn’t up for debate.

You’re either a complete idiot or a troll, and I’m beginning to believe it’s the latter.

Hahaha

Believe whatever you want.

You DIDN'T know how the system worked in the first place - that's abundantly clear from what you've written on this thread for all to see.

I've had to explain to you how as simply as I can for you to comprehend how the sytems do work (MP's DON'T evaluate and award contracts!!!) in order that you (or anybody else) can understand if the various inquiries find anything untoward/illegal/criminal - and up to not (including the Judicial Review findings today) they haven't!

I don't think you are an idiot or a troll but you have shown a staggering lack of knowledge about the subject which you seem to hold dear to your heart (politics) and demonstrated once again how you desire to argue (and continue to do so) just for the sake of it and solely for your own amusement and self-satisfaction.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

I've held back a little from posting this to see if anyone else would pick up on it - clearly they haven't!

This was in the news about three weeks ago - cronyism (corruption???) from Labours biggest financial backer - the unite union and its leader Len McCluskey.

Here's an excerpt from the article I have given a link to below...

The contract to build the 170-room hotel and conference centre was awarded in 2015 to the Flanagan Group, a Liverpool company run by an associate of McCluskey, who is the union’s general secretary. Another contract on the project was given to a company owned by the son of Joe Anderson, Liverpool’s mayor.

The leaked document, called an AR21, was signed off by McCluskey in early December and then again by the accountants BDO. It was supposed to be filed over the summer.

A note in the accounts says: “Included in land and buildings above is £74.0m (2018: £42.6m) of assets in the course of construction for the National Education and Conference Centre & Hotel in Birmingham. No depreciation has been charged on these assets on the basis that they are not yet available for use.”

The document also states that “the conference centre and hotel is operated by Blackhorse HCC Ltd which owns 76%”. McCluskey and four executive council members of the union are directors of Blackhorse.

One source with knowledge of the document said the union was declaring spending of £74m to date on the project. The accounts do not show any evidence of a re-evaluation of the property.

The Flanagan Group is under investigation by Merseyside police in connection with Operation Aloft, an inquiry into the sale to developers of council-owned land in Liverpool. Paul Flanagan, the head of the group, was arrested in September on suspicion of conspiracy to commit bribery. Joe Anderson and his son David have also been arrested.

The union vehemently denied any wrongdoing following allegations in the Times. A spokesperson said there was no connection between the Merseyside investigation and the Birmingham project and McCluskey had nothing to do with the tendering process.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/26/unite-union-apparently-doubles-expenditure-hotel-project

The article was first reported in The Times -

Firm owned by Len McCluskey’s friend was paid £95m for ‘£7m project’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/friend-of-unite-leader-was-paid-95m-for-project-estimated-to-cost-7m-hvcrwv5n2

...but you need to subscribe to read it hence the Guardian article link instead.

No surprise you haven’t included any evidence of this. As always so desperate to keep going on, you resort to inventing things. Every, single, time.

I’m done with your games, nobody can be as thick as you pretend to be, contradicting yourself every other post just to keep arguments going - so I can only conclude this is done on purpose.

Me constantly engaging is harmful to the rest of the site, I’ll do my best to ignore your posts from now on.

Hancock was wheeled out to defend his teams ‘unlawful’ actions over the weekend. He batted away the questions pretty easily to be fair, couple of issues though.

1. His main defence seemed to be it was a global pandemic so if paperwork was late that’s not really their priority.

Agreed, so why not say that at the start and save the tax payer footing the bill for a long winded legal process? There might be a good reason for this I’m missing.

2. He said he was proud of his teams efforts ensuring PPE never ran out.

Did I imagine hospital staff having to wear bin bags earlier in the pandemic?


Starmer opted not to push for his resignation anyway, I actually agree with this. This government are demonstrably incompetent and in my view crooked. But is there any appetite to change Health Sec now? And who does he get replaced by?

Most reports suggest Hancock opposed Sunak/Williamson/Johnson’s push for slow lockdowns and quick return. While the gov appear to have finally learned their lesson and are removing measures more slowly now, Hancock is clearly not to blame for our performance in this crisis.

Hot on the heels of Hancock's local pub landlord finally admitting that he and the minister did in fact exchange mails and calls prior to him being awarded a huge contract to manufacture vials for vaccines, the British Medical Journal have now waded into the debate about the £billions being given to Tory supporters/Serco for the track and trace debacle - funding that the government has announced it is going to continue with.
Some of the figures being quoted in this BMJ article are mind-boggling.

For instance, the amount being handed over to the consultants for track and trace equates to giving every person who works in the NHS in England - not just the nurses - a 5% wage increase for the next 28 years.

Corrupt and immoral.

wanderlust wrote:Hot on the heels of Hancock's local pub landlord finally admitting that he and the minister did in fact exchange mails and calls prior to him being awarded a huge contract to manufacture vials for vaccines, the British Medical Journal have now waded into the debate about the £billions being given to Tory supporters/Serco for the track and trace debacle - funding that the government has announced it is going to continue with.
Some of the figures being quoted in this BMJ article are mind-boggling.

For instance, the amount being handed over to the consultants for track and trace equates to giving every person who works in the NHS in England - not just the nurses - a 5% wage increase for the next 28 years.

Corrupt and immoral.

Ah, I see someone has been reading social media again!!!

I'm still awaiting any proof of illegality from the 'pub landlord' who DIDN'T win a government contract - but don't let the facts stand in the way of a good story.

(he was/is a sub-contractor to a compamany that did fwiw)

As for the good doctors, the article you link to is an 'opinion' piece, written by a group of clearly left-wing minded people in the health service, there final paragraph clearly gives an insight to their beliefs -

"The UK government is slavishly following the neoliberal capitalist mantra that the market-place and private sector are the answer to any problems the UK faces. Our embarrassingly ineffective national Test and Trace service is surely a classic example of market failure. In the USA Trump was voted out partly for following equally ineffective covid-19 strategies. The UK government is set to carry on for four more years. So the official opposition and the public need to push the government to another of its belated u-turns. Professional organisations, trades unions, local authorities, NGOs and other organisations must speak truth to power. The government must reverse the privatisation of Test and Trace and hand it over to NHS and local authority control".

The thing I seem to be finding every day with my left wing minded friends, including those of you on here, is that you are all for fairness, equality, social justice and all other moral issues but when something occurs you don't like all that goes straight out the window and immeadiately everybody is 'guilty' of whatever it is you don't like without any proof being shown.

Whatever happened to the credo of innocent until proven guilty???

I would have thought that would have been the main tenet of social justice and the foundation of all liberal philosophy and beliefs?

Clearly not these days apparently.

More like the petulant behaviour of spoilt children who aren't getting their own way.

I've no problem whatsoever with rooting out corruption and deceipt, in fact that was basically what my professional career has been about - or rather ensuring no corruption or deceipt takes place in the first instant - so I'm more than happy to include myself as a left wing idealist as well BUT until facts and hard evidence of corruption and illegal activity are produced then 'they' who ever it is you are raging against are 'innocent' and should be treated as 'innocent' too.

Once proof IS FOUND then take them to court and get them locked away for a long time but until then you walk a very dangerous path of judging people guilty until 'they' prove themselves innocent.

Just think if the government started locking up people they didn't like without any proof - isn't that the same mindset - it happens in many places throught the world already.

If you want fairness and equality - and most of us do - then we must act fairly and equally ourselves.

If corruption has happened then simply provide the evidence.

Forming lynch mobs (and whipping up people's hatred via social media) is simply not the answer and never will be.

I’ll let the British Medical Journal know that they’ve been reclassified as social media by an expert.

Bourne admits he lied about not having direct conversations and mails with Hancock in the run up to his plastic cups company receiving a Covid vaccine packaging contract from Hancock’s department. 

Hancock distances himself

wanderlust wrote:I’ll let the British Medical Journal know that they’ve been reclassified as social media by an expert.

You really are a knobhead.

You really think anyone believes you read the BMJ, of course they don't, so where did you find out about the article - social media of course.

The very same social media you once told us you NEVER read.

Of course you don't...

wanderlust wrote:Bourne admits he lied about not having direct conversations and mails with Hancock in the run up to his plastic cups company receiving a Covid vaccine packaging contract from Hancock’s department. 

Hancock distances himself

And your point is caller???

Do you not ever read the articles you link to???

Later that month, Bourne said he was called back by the same distributor. The firm, which already had a general government contract in place to supply the NHS regularly when Covid struck, said it had been asked by the government to supply test tubes. Bourne persuaded the firm he could produce the vials, and said he also discussed Hinpack’s work with two civil servants representing the DHSC.

In August, he switched distributor, and is now supplying the same tubes via Alpha Laboratories, which also had a pre-existing contract with DHSC. In a statement, Alpha Laboratories said: “Although we were aware Alex Bourne had met Mr Hancock, this was irrelevant to our discussions as we were sourcing from Hinpack a price-competitive product for the NHS supply chain which fitted within our product range.”

So even your own link states he never had a government contract but was only the subby to those that had.


Yet another example of someone who believes himself to be an upholder of truth and honesty immeadiately condemning someone of being guilty without a shred of actual proof simply because it fits in with their preconceived hatred and prejudice.

Another one joining the social media lynch mob of saying someone is 'guilty' and need to prove they are 'innocent' and not what fairness and justice actually is whereby everyone is actually innocent until proven guilty.

Oh but I forget Wanderlust tells us he doesn't read social media!!!

Interesting article in the "i" which gives details of 66 ministers/junior ministers and others in Cameron's administration that now have high paid jobs with companies that were directly influenced by the decisions they made and the portfolios they worked on whilst in government.

Probably just coincidence.

wanderlust wrote:Interesting article in the "i" which gives details of 66 ministers/junior ministers and others in Cameron's administration that now have high paid jobs with companies that were directly influenced by the decisions they made and the portfolios they worked on whilst in government.

Probably just coincidence.

Probably not.

Doesn't mean they've done anything wrong/illegal though.

If you were going to hire the best person for your business would it not make sense to employ someone who you knew were not only au fait with the work you were doing but also the procedure and systems you would need to deal with in terms of progressing it?

I've known loads of people in the public sector over the years going on to be employed by the contractor company's they had been dealing with because they had the skill, knowledge and training that the contractor was in need of.

I've been 'head hunted' a few times myself but never tempted to jump ship, even for the money on offer.

In the private sector key employees are often head hunted by rival firms all the time - I can't see much of a difference between the this and the point the 'i' paper is attempting to insinuate here can you?

This seems to be the norm in recent years where mud is thrown and people believe that something dodgy must certainly be going on - social media seems to thrive off it.

If something corrupt has happened, then prove it and get them put in prison, if not then isn't everybody in this country innocent until proven guilty or does that not apply when it is against those you personally don't like the politics of?

All above board? 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56768601