The Corruption, Ineptitude and Irresponsibility of The Tories Is Staggering

[Angela Channing]

1. Closing Schools
On Sunday the clown Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that schools were safe and children should return the next day. On Monday, he addressed the nation saying schools needed to be shut immediately, presumably because they were too dangerous and were spreading of the Covid-19 virus. Millions of children would have gone back to school yesterday on the reassurance of the Government, stayed in enclosed classrooms with 30 other other children, mixed with many more children around the school building and had contact with many teachers and support staff before returning home potentially carrying any virus they might have picked up to infect their families.

That single day of keeping children at school caused by Tory ineptitude and irresponsibility may lead to thousands of avoidable infections which it turn may lead to hundreds of avoidable deaths.

 

[Angela Channing]

2. Syphoning Public Money To Friends and Family
Nadhim Zahawi is a minister in the Department of Business and Industry. Recently Boris Johnson appointed him as minister in charge of deploying the Covid-19 vaccine instead of a minister in the Department of Health.

This morning it was revealed the same Nadhim Zahawi recently created a medical company of which he is a owner an director along with his wife and other family members.
The company was originally called Zahawi Warren Limited before he renamed it Warren Medical Limited to hide his association with the company.

Why is the minister for the vaccine programme finding time to set up a new company to enrich his family instead of setting up the proper infrastructure to deliver the vaccine to the UK population?

The Ministerial Code stipulates that ministers "must ensure that no conflict of interest arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise". There is a perceived conflict of interest with his new company and his current ministerial role, at the very least.

All I will say is look out for the name Warren Medical Limited on future government procurement documents.

 

[Angela Channing]

3. Awarding Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Contracts
The Tory government awarded a £122 million PPE contract to PPE Medpro which is run by an associate of a Conservative peer. PPE Medpro was handed the lucrative contract to supply 25 million gowns for health workers just seven weeks after it was formed. It had won the Department of Health contract without having to go through a tender process or to put it more bluntly, the secretary of state for Health handed £122 million of tax payers money to a friend who had no experience of making PPE.

This is the very definition of government corruption.

 

[Angela Channing]

4. Eat Out To Help Out
When it was launched, I always referred to this scheme as Eat Out To Spread Covid and sadly I was correct.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak's initiative, which cost around £500 million, caused a significant rise in new infections in August and early September accelerating the pandemic into its current second wave. The economic benefits of the scheme, meanwhile, were short-lived.

Research by the University of Warwick showed areas with a higher rate of uptake of the scheme (both from restaurants and consumers) experienced a sharp increase in the emergence of new COVID-19 infection clusters a week after Eat Out To Help Out began. Between 8 and 17% of newly detected COVID-19 infection clusters could be attributed to the scheme. Areas with high uptake saw a decline in new infections a week after the scheme ended. As the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme ended, visits to restaurants started to decline – indicating that its positive economic impact was short-lived.

The result was that Rishi Sunak spend half a billion pounds of tax payers money to kill us by spreading the virus further for no lasting economic benefit. Another example of this government's ineptitude and irresponsibility.

And by the way, the leisure and hospitality industry have donated millions to the Conservative Party.

 

[Angela Channing]

5. Test and Trace
The government have given spent £22 billion to set up and run the covid test and trace programme. To put that figure into context, the Irish working test and trace system cost under £1 million and the London Olympics and paralympics cost £10 billion.

The government have put Dido Harding because she is a friend of Matt Handcock and David Cameron even though she has no experience in medicine or science. She has used public money to pay consultants £6000 a day each. She has awarded massive contracts without competitive tendering and at least one of these, worth £410m and issued to Serco, contains no penalty clause so even if Serco fails to fulfil its terms, it gets paid in full. Serco has indeed missed its targets. Oh and by the way, Serco has strong connections to the Conservative Party including the head of the company being Rupert Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill and the brother of a former Tory MP.

Dido Harding sits on the board of The Jockey Club which is largely based in Newmarket whose MP is none other than Matt Handcock. The racing industry has donated hundred of thousands of pounds to the Tories including £350,000 which has gone to Matt Handcock's political funds.

One of the Jockey Club's sponsors is the global healthcare firm Randox which the Tory government gave £133m to supply testing kits in a deal that wasn't advertised or put up for tender. Randox employs Owen Paterson as a consultant and he is a former Tory Cabinet minister. Like so many of these government contracts that have gone to their inexperienced friends, the test kits were later scrapped because they didn't work.

This corruption should be investigated but the problem with that is that the government’s Anti-Corruption Champion is a Tory MP, John Penrose and he is also Dido Harding’s husband.

 

[Angela Channing]

6. Nightingale Hospitals

To much fanfare, the Tory government build 12 brand new hospitals built across the UK in a matter of weeks to ensure the coronavirus pandemic did not overwhelm the NHS. Initially the government refused to say how much this project cost but a Freedom of Information request revealed they cost £220 million. Alongside these set up costs running costs were revealed to be around £15 million a month.

The first one was build at the London Excel building and the owners were charging the government £2 million to £3 million a month, but since media interest for use of the building even though lockdown rules meant they couldn't use it for anything else. The board of the Excel owners includes two former Tory ministers. Again this reeks of Tory corruption.

The health secretary Matt Hancock insisted that private agencies recruited staff rather than the NHS even though this would prove more expensive as the tax payer was left with a higher private sector staff wage bull and the cost of commission for every recruit that the private agencies employed. And guess what, some of the agencies involved have links to the Conservative Party.

The Nightingale build in the Birmingham NEC was scale back after opening because it hadn't treated a single patient. The same is believed to be the case for the facilities built in Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate.

The level of waste and money that has been channelled to Tory friends has been scandalous.

 

[Angela Channing]

7. Laptops For Home Learning Disadvantaged Children

Following the first UK lockdown beginning in March 2020, the government came under pressure to help disadvantaged children who had no access to a computer and so could not take part in online learning. The government said 260,000 laptops would be needed and Computacenter Ltd was chosen by the Department for Education to deliver them at a cost of £60 million. They promised to deliver all the laptops to pupils by the end of June but they failed miserably, falling nearly 30,000 short. There were no financial penalties imposed for their failure in fact Computacenter received a further £6.3 million in June to supply 4G wireless routers to these children. They were rewarded for their failure.

Additionally, this government is inept and the actual number of children requiring laptops was in fact 540,000 so half of the children requiring equipment were left with nothing.

In August, the Department for Education announced it would be providing an additional 150,000 free laptops to pupils who couldn't attend school due to the Covid virus, with Computacenter receiving a further £27m contract to deliver this.

In total Computacenter were given nearly £100 million of tax payer's money without any scrutiny and the contract not going to tender which would be the usual process for procurement contracts of this size. Guess what? The firm’s founder, Sir Philip Hulme, who remains a non-executive director and shareholder, has previously donated thousands to the Conservative Party and his wife gave the Tories £100,000 during the run up to the general election.

As I said previously, this is Tory government ineptitude and corruption on an industrial scale.

 

[Angela Channing]

8. Medical Supplies After Brexit
The government promised a seamless transition to life after Brexit and that medical supplies would not be interrupted. Now with 2 weeks notice, the UK Conservative government have stopped giving children with epilepsy life changing cannabis medicine because "prescriptions issued in the UK can no longer be lawfully dispensed in an EU member state". The government failed to negotiate a deal that would allow the continued supply of the medicine and now some parents fear their children could die without the treatment.

Mother fears son could die as Brexit stops medical cannabis supply

Government gives two weeks notice that access to epilepsy treatment for nine-year-old Alfie Dingley will end

www.theguardian.com

 

[Angela Channing]

9. Chairman of The BBC
Today the UK Conservative government announced that the have appointed former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp to be the chairman of the BBC’s board of directors. It has subsequently emerged that Mr Sharp has donated £416,189 to the Conservative Party.

If you want a top government appointed position, make a donation to the Conservative Party. Some call it cronyism, I call it corruption.

 

[Angela Channing]

10. The Lockdown
Today the government recorded 62322 new Covid-19 cases and 1041 deaths. The NHS could be overwhelmed within a week. Scientific advice was crystal clear from SAGE on 22nd December 2020 which was to lock down immediately. This Conservative government ignored the advice and waited two weeks before they took action. The full impact of failing to take action has yet to feed through to the figures so the are expected to get worse. This is a catastrophe that is in the Tories making, they are to blame, their dither and delay is killing people.

 

[Angela Channing]

11. Private Healthcare For Covid Patients
Two thirds of the capacity in private sector hospitals that was block-purchased by the government at an estimated cost of £400 million went unused by the service over the summer, despite rocketing long waits for operations, according to internal documents leaked to the Health Service Journal.

Leaks reveal two-thirds of private hospital capacity went unused by NHS

Two-thirds of the private sector capacity that was block-purchased by the NHS - costing hundreds of millions of pounds - went unused by the service over the summer, despite rocketing long waits for operations, according to internal documents leaked to HSJ.

www.hsj.co.uk

One NHS source claimed the health service itself did not need the capacity. The senior manager added: “The national contract for private sector capacity was for the company shareholders, not for NHS patients.”

Private healthcare companies are major donors to the Tory party including the owner of Vanguard Healthcare who gave Health Secretary Matt Hancock £10,000 and Crawford Healthcare who have given the Tories £20,000. Genix Healthcare has donated £325,000 to the Conservative Party and in return the company won a £7.3million NHS contract.

 

[Angela Channing]

On the day when over a 1000 people have died from Covid-10, the Conservative Government minster Nadhim Zahawi thinks it's a great day just because the Queen has been vaccinated. Who cares about those who died or their families that are mourning, it's a great day, woo hoo, let's celebrate!

These people are totally heartless and insensitive.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1347926359767732237

 

[Angela Channing]

12. Feeding Children On Free School Meals
The government withdrew the weekly £30 vouchers which were previously given to families on free school meals so they could buy food in the school holiday. They replaced it with food parcels which should be of equivalent value but they have fallen woefully short. This is an example of what the government thinks is 5 days food to replace a £30 food voucher:

The value of the food would cost around £5 in a supermarket which means the company contracted to provide the food is pocketing £25 at the expense of every family being fed.

When I first saw this news story, my immediate thought was does this company have links to the Tory party and of course, it does.

The company involved is Chartwells and the group’s chairman, Paul Walsh, was a former member of David Cameron’s business advisory group and is also a Conservative Party donor. This looks like more Tory corruption, ineptitude and irresponsibility.

 

[Angela Channing]

13. Deleting Police Records
The Home Office under bullying minister Pritti Patel has reached another level of incompetence. They have delete 400,000 from police databases in error and as a result police investigations have been compromised.

Data including fingerprint, DNA, and arrest histories was wiped from the Police National Computer (PNC) - which stores and shares criminal records information across the UK - after being inadvertently flagged for deletion. The PNC is used in police investigations and provides real-time checks on people, vehicles and crimes, as well as whether suspects are wanted for any unsolved offences.

If only Pritti Patel had spent more time managing the Home Office competently and less time shouting, swearing and bullying the staff maybe this would have been avoided.

 

[Angela Channing]

14. Almost All Government Covid Contracts Were Awarded Without Competition
They just went to directly Tory cronies. The corruption of Boris Johnson and his government is a growing scandal.

 

[Sarah]

On the day when over a 1000 people have died from Covid-10, the Conservative Government minster Nadhim Zahawi thinks it's a great day just because the Queen has been vaccinated. Who cares about those who died or their families that are mourning, it's a great day, woo hoo, let's celebrate!

These people are totally heartless and insensitive.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1347926359767732237

Excuse me while I don't celebrate a man who lives in the lap of luxury, with the best of healthcare and who is almost 100. The injustice is staggering.

 

[Angela Channing]

Excuse me while I don't celebrate a man who lives in the lap of luxury, with the best of healthcare and who is almost 100. The injustice is staggering.

It's ok that 2 old people should get vaccinated but to say it was "a good day" when on that same day record numbers of people had died is a new level on insensitivity from a government that has repeatedly shows it doesn't care for anyone other than themselves.

 

[Angela Channing]

Ireland spent under £1 million on a Covid tracing app last year that works.

UK could have bought that app but instead our corrupt government gave Dido Harding (friend of Matt Hancock) £22 BILLION to develop a test and trace system which still doesn't work.

What did Dido Harding spend all that money on?

 

[Angela Channing]

Some may think my calling our government corrupt is just the ranting of a disgruntled socialist (which I am) but now the courts have ruled that Matt Hancock acted illegally over Covid contracts.

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 public were entitled see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded," he added.

The Good Law Project highlighted three PPE contracts to illustrate their case in court: a £252m contract for the supply of face masks with a finance company, Ayanda Capital; a £108m contract with Clandeboye Agencies, which had previously supplied only confectionery products, and PPE contracts worth £345m with a company trading as Pestfix.

These contracts went to friend and donors to the Conservative Party without any tendering process and the government spent £200,000 to argue in court that we should know about this corruption.

Covid: Matt Hancock acted unlawfully over pandemic contracts

The health secretary breached his "legal obligation" to publish details of deals, the High Court rules.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Angela Channing]

No clear evidence Test and Trace is effective despite £37billion cost
Test and trace has been a disaster and it's lack of effectivity is one of the reasons why we have had so many deaths in the UK. Now it's official that the obscene amount of money the Tories have spent on this debacle has been wasted. Parliament's Public Accounts Committee investigation has concluded that there is "no clear evidence" that it has been effective. This money hasn't been wasted by the Tories usual scapegoat of "public service red tape" but by friends and donors of members of the Conservative government who have been handed £37 billion of public money even though they had no experience in this field.

'No clear evidence' Test & Trace is effective despite 'unimaginable' £37bn cost

MPs said that the public 'cannot be treated by Government like an ATM machine' for the scheme - which has been allocated £37 billion over two years

www.mirror.co.uk