Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

[scaramanga]

If everyone is free to decide which rules do/don't matter, what is the point of rules, laws and Governance?

It keeps everyone else in check.

 

[Gutter Boy]

BJ's uni chum Cressida is going to 'fast-track' the police investigation. It's only going to take "not more than a year"

 

[Hotshot-Tottenham]

Freeports

The EMA.

It’s like a Who’s Who of his worst greatest hits.

 

[Mikey10]

Remember how everybody used to laugh at Italy when Berlusconi was in charge? That’s now us.

 

[scaramanga]

If everyone is free to decide which rules do/don't matter, what is the point of rules, laws and Governance?

I don't want everyone to be free to decide, they don't matter to me.

 

[monkeybarry]

It keeps everyone else in check.

I don't want everyone to be free to decide, they don't matter to me.

Don't post before taking the meds mate

 

[ShipOfTheseus]

BJ's uni chum Cressida is going to 'fast-track' the police investigation. It's only going to take "not more than a year"

Johnson started at Oxford the year after dingdong graduated. Also, it’s pretty much impossible to think of two people in public life with less in common.

Policing is good at reacting to immediate, serious threats and terrible at dealing with anything that can be put off. Nothing about the MPS response has been uncharacteristic or surprising. It certainly doesn’t suggest conspiracy.

 

[scaramanga]

Don't post before taking the meds mate

Not sure what you're confused about there.

Rules keep everyone else in check. I don't care if they're not able to bend the rules to suit them.

I'll bend them to suit me.

 

[monkeybarry]

Not sure what you're confused about there.

Rules keep everyone else in check. I don't care if they're not able to bend the rules to suit them.

I'll bend them to suit me.

Boris?

 

[SpurMeUp]

Who made a billion or two out of all this?
That’s more than Joe Lewis has made in his 80 odd years, all on PPE!?


Covid-19: Government writes off £8.7bn of pandemic PPE

 

[scaramanga]

Boris?

He doesn't get away with it. Amateur.

Seriously though, another very good reason why people of substance don't take on public service roles for fudge all money.

 

[Rorschach]

I thought that it was particularly funny that an EU trade deal was listed as one of 'The Benefits of Brexit'.

 

[Crab.C.Nesbitt]

Who made a billion or two out of all this?
That’s more than Joe Lewis has made in his 80 odd years, all on PPE!?


Covid-19: Government writes off £8.7bn of pandemic PPE

It’s worse than that!
The Financial Times says the money "squandered" on PPE by the government is actually closer to £10bn, with an additional £1.2bn lost on orders which could not be cancelled. The paper says this is on top of the £4bn spent on faulty or surplus kit and a £4.7bn loss after the market price for PPE dropped well below what the government paid.

then add in another cheeky £4.7b for furlough fraud that’s been written off…bozo and his corrupt incompetent clownshoes need to disappear tout sweet!

It’s an absolute shambles from top to bottom, most of them should be in prison for fraud and corruption.

It’s bad enough with the flagrant breaches of covid rules and lies to parliament, which should be enough to force boris out on its own, but those are all symptoms of a much wider malaise. These people think they can do what they want, where they want, when they want. It’s high time they were dragged out of parliament and banged up on prison. And then the serious fraud office should be setting about recovering the law fraudulently misused public funds.

 

[SpurMeUp]

It’s worse than that!
The Financial Times says the money "squandered" on PPE by the government is actually closer to £10bn, with an additional £1.2bn lost on orders which could not be cancelled. The paper says this is on top of the £4bn spent on faulty or surplus kit and a £4.7bn loss after the market price for PPE dropped well below what the government paid.

then add in another cheeky £4.7b for furlough fraud that’s been written off…bozo and his corrupt incompetent clownshoes need to disappear tout sweet!

It’s an absolute shambles from top to bottom, most of them should be in prison for fraud and corruption.

It’s bad enough with the flagrant breaches of covid rules and lies to parliament, which should be enough to force boris out on its own, but those are all symptoms of a much wider malaise. These people think they can do what they want, where they want, when they want. It’s high time they were dragged out of parliament and banged up on prison. And then the serious fraud office should be setting about recovering the law fraudulently misused public funds.

Re those numbers…insanely huge though they are, the losses from Brexit are probably even greater. 4 to 7% of GDP. Something around that. None of the tax rises we’ve had recently would have been needed if the economy had not been affected.

Thing is we all knew Boris was bungling but entertaining. Is anyone surprised?

 

[Bedfordspurs]

It’s worse than that!
The Financial Times says the money "squandered" on PPE by the government is actually closer to £10bn, with an additional £1.2bn lost on orders which could not be cancelled. The paper says this is on top of the £4bn spent on faulty or surplus kit and a £4.7bn loss after the market price for PPE dropped well below what the government paid.

then add in another cheeky £4.7b for furlough fraud that’s been written off…bozo and his corrupt incompetent clownshoes need to disappear tout sweet!

It’s an absolute shambles from top to bottom, most of them should be in prison for fraud and corruption.

It’s bad enough with the flagrant breaches of covid rules and lies to parliament, which should be enough to force boris out on its own, but those are all symptoms of a much wider malaise. These people think they can do what they want, where they want, when they want. It’s high time they were dragged out of parliament and banged up on prison. And then the serious fraud office should be setting about recovering the law fraudulently misused public funds.

Honestly…. Having worked for 30 months in the civil service on outsourcing …this would have happened under any government as the issues are the way they have to buy things thanks to the press and the policies that have been put in place after previous issues (under both cons and lab)

But for COVID they used a lot of consultancies to “steal the watches” and do a shocking job as they couldn’t move the ship. The awards these teams have won since are batbrick crazy IMO.

We have world leading PPE companies that were not approached as the buying teams didn’t know they existed. I mean companies that provide PPE for construction and the built environment and are experts the logistics of supplying PPE… bu5 the gov agencies doing the buying found the SMEs better. Shambles

 

[Seedy Ron]

I'm sure they would've wasted money on it anyway, but the license to spiv that was the, now illegal, VIP Lane was always going to make it even easier to get the old snout in the trough. Which is presumably why it was put in place to begin with.

 

[monkeybarry]

Honestly…. Having worked for 30 months in the civil service on outsourcing …this would have happened under any government as the issues are the way they have to buy things thanks to the press and the policies that have been put in place after previous issues (under both cons and lab)

But for COVID they used a lot of consultancies to “steal the watches” and do a shocking job as they couldn’t move the ship. The awards these teams have won since are batbrick crazy IMO.

We have world leading PPE companies that were not approached as the buying teams didn’t know they existed. I mean companies that provide PPE for construction and the built environment and are experts the logistics of supplying PPE… bu5 the gov agencies doing the buying found the SMEs better. Shambles

The SME focus was more of a "blitz spirit" headline I thought - "everyone in this together" and "support the nation of shopkeepers", which creates the smokescreen for the corruption.
Going straight to the big boys would have meant efficiency (the opposite of what a Johnson govt likes, because chaos is a useful weapon), been very bad for political optics and removed many avenues to get their mates pockets lined.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Honestly…. Having worked for 30 months in the civil service on outsourcing …this would have happened under any government as the issues are the way they have to buy things thanks to the press and the policies that have been put in place after previous issues (under both cons and lab)

But for COVID they used a lot of consultancies to “steal the watches” and do a shocking job as they couldn’t move the ship. The awards these teams have won since are batbrick crazy IMO.

We have world leading PPE companies that were not approached as the buying teams didn’t know they existed. I mean companies that provide PPE for construction and the built environment and are experts the logistics of supplying PPE… bu5 the gov agencies doing the buying found the SMEs better. Shambles

For the past few decades public sector tendering has been controlled by EU law. It's always been horrendously wasteful and rigged to favour big corporations and awful emperor's new clothes organisations like Carillion and Capita. A big Brexit benefit should be the future reform of this to give the public sector more flexibility and ability to be more prudent with its spending.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

For the past few decades public sector tendering has been controlled by EU law. It's always been horrendously wasteful and rigged to favour big corporations and awful emperor's new clothes organisations like Carillion and Capita. A big Brexit benefit should be the future reform of this to give the public sector more flexibility and ability to be more prudent with its spending.

It won’t
Small companies can’t even submit a tender in the manner the government wants I’m afraid

The way we have developed our processes to comply with why was OJEU has meant that there is no innovation, no flexibility and a fear factor. It’s farcical

I had to do a cabinet office submission because a tender I ran was too successful. What they couldn’t get their head around was the benchmark and should cost thag jad bene developed was wrong. 136 slides I had to create to show a full analysis (took 4 weeks for a £203m tender) and I’m that was last March. Got approved as a business case last Tuesday…. I’ve left since and I’ve genuinely been asked if could come and meet the minister to explain it again

 

[Gutter Boy]

It won’t
Small companies can’t even submit a tender in the manner the government wants I’m afraid

The way we have developed our processes to comply with why was OJEU has meant that there is no innovation, no flexibility and a fear factor. It’s farcical

I had to do a cabinet office submission because a tender I ran was too successful. What they couldn’t get their head around was the benchmark and should cost thag jad bene developed was wrong. 136 slides I had to create to show a full analysis (took 4 weeks for a £203m tender) and I’m that was last March. Got approved as a business case last Tuesday…. I’ve left since and I’ve genuinely been asked if could come and meet the minister to explain it again

It could change though, no? It's in the government's power now to rewrite tendering legislation. This government wont, because they are in bed with big business. But the powers are now repatriated to actually make it possible in future; hopefully.

It's is farcical at the moment. I'm literally not allowed to go a buy a Bic biro for 20p from Wilko. Instead I have to buy them in boxes of 100, for 80p a unit, from some bloodsucker company on a framework agreement. And at the end of that they are the crap Staedtler ones that don't even work. So now instead of a pen that works, I have £80 worth of useless tat sat in a cupboard that will never be used. But some shareholders in the Bahamas got richer on this taxpayer money. And that is public sector tendering in a microcosm.