Friends & Family - The Government Gravy Train

just to address an earlier point you made, about the ability of local manufacturers to adapt their production lines to a different product at short notice. there was a story a month or so back of many many UK manufacturers who did exactly that, in order to meet the governments challenge to produce the PPE locally....and now they are not being awarded any contracts. so these guys are left with empty factories.
It was sort of the point I was trying to make.
The existing supply chain was flat out so
If I go to Freds Frocks a local clothes makers for M&S the question arise are;
Can you make a gown from this material? - Yes
Have you got the material? - No
Can you get the material? - Pass
Can you get a credit line from the material manufacturer? - Doubt it
Can you finance it? - Maybe
Do you have the machines to sew zips instead of buttons? - No
Can you get 3 squillion zips? - No
Do you have the capacity to do this extra work? - Yes we'll force the staff to do overtime
You can't do that it's illegal! - Yeah right
You'll have to stop work for M&S and do our work - Do you think M&S will wait 6 months for their order?
They'll go somewhere else and then we're fooked - But Boris will give you a big kiss
Nothing is ever straight forward
 
It was sort of the point I was trying to make.
The existing supply chain was flat out so
If I go to Freds Frocks a local clothes makers for M&S the question arise are;
Can you make a gown from this material? - Yes
Have you got the material? - No
Can you get the material? - Pass
Can you get a credit line from the material manufacturer? - Doubt it
Can you finance it? - Maybe
Do you have the machines to sew zips instead of buttons? - No
Can you get 3 squillion zips? - No
Do you have the capacity to do this extra work? - Yes we'll force the staff to do overtime
You can't do that it's illegal! - Yeah right
You'll have to stop work for M&S and do our work - Do you think M&S will wait 6 months for their order?
They'll go somewhere else and then we're fooked - But Boris will give you a big kiss
Nothing is ever straight forward
You're right. A much better scenario:

Have you got any experience of procuring PPE? Might have...
What experience do you have? Err, Crisp websites.
What are your company assets? Err, about £18,047
Great! is £108m of public money enough to be getting on with?
 
You're right. A much better scenario:

Have you got any experience of procuring PPE? Might have...
What experience do you have? Err, Crisp websites.
What are your company assets? Err, about £18,047
Great! is £108m of public money enough to be getting on with?
The pre-amble:

Have you got any experience of procuring PPE? No
Do you fancy procuring it? Err, maybe?
There's a possibility of this coming up in a couple of weeks - maybe set yourself up as a private limited company to make it look vaguely legit? Sounds good - what's the catch?
There's no catch. What's the contract value?
100s of millions of pounds. Companies House here I come!
 
Will the aprons you procure be sterile? No
Will the facemasks you procure have the specified fitments to avoid them being unusable? No

Hmmm. Well...do you like horses? Yes

Perfect, here, have a 10s and 10s of millions pound sterling. Thank you.
 
I think part of the problem is simply the lack of clarity or accountability. This is not just in procurement...but also in general law-making. When their own former leading lawyer starts to question things (so not us, not the media, not their opponents neither) it is perhaps time to start getting more concerned:

The government's former leading lawyer has accused Downing Street of getting "into bad habits" by introducing emergency legislation during the pandemic without proper "scrutiny".

Sir Jonathan Jones, who quit his role running the government's legal service in September, told BBC Radio 4's World at One: "Regulations have been made by ministers with no prior scrutiny by Parliament at all.

"It's not a good, sustainable way of making complicated policy and complicated law."

He said it looked "increasingly likely" there wouldn’t be any time for that there won't be any time for scrutiny of the "detailed quarantine regulations" which are due to come into force on Monday.

"That has been the picture for virtually all of the Covid legislation that has been passed over the last year."

He added: "I do think that the government has, in that way, got into bad habits.
 
Unfortunately the speed that Parliament works at makes proper pre scrutiny difficult in a panic situation, that doesn’t excuse dishonesty or stupidity and when this mess is cleared up the protagonists must be brought to justice.
 
Unfortunately the speed that Parliament works at makes proper pre scrutiny difficult in a panic situation, that doesn’t excuse dishonesty or stupidity and when this mess is cleared up the protagonists must be brought to justice.

It would be nice to think this will happen...but every government-launched "inquiry" either turns into a complete whitewash or the findings never fully released (see report into Russian meddling in UK politics for example).

It is hard not to feel cynical when it is so rare that anyone connected to a government (of any colour) either shows some sort of moral backbone and resigns over mistakes, or is held to account.
 
So Adumass if you can’t find someone to tick all the boxes you’d just throw your hands in the air and do nothing?
Sorry, that sentence makes no sense to me? Can you explain?

I don't think you can interpret anything I've said as advocating "doing nothing". I'd just like them to follow the law and disclose the contracts, before and after award.
 
It would be nice to think this will happen...but every government-launched "inquiry" either turns into a complete whitewash or the findings never fully released (see report into Russian meddling in UK politics for example).

It is hard not to feel cynical when it is so rare that anyone connected to a government (of any colour) either shows some sort of moral backbone and resigns over mistakes, or is held to account.
Indeed, sounds like your coming round to the view that they are All Cnnts.

Take a cow lager out of the fridge and join the crew.
 
Well, I can't believe that no-one's moaning on here about Boris calling up a friend of his sister, who just happens to also be married to a conservative MP and minister, who had no specific relevant experience, and offering her the crucial job heading up the nation's vaccine effort.
Shocking.
 
Well, I can't believe that no-one's moaning on here about Boris calling up a friend of his sister, who just happens to also be married to a conservative MP and minister, who had no specific relevant experience, and offering her the crucial job heading up the nation's vaccine effort.
Shocking.
Let them off - it was a panic move.
 
Another day....


"The consultancy gravy train shows no sign of stopping. The Department of Health awarded the multi-national professional services firm, Deloitte, a COVID-19 contract that could be worth almost £1 million a day without the contract ever going to tender.

The deal, worth up to £145 million, was handed to Deloitte to ‘support testing for Covid 19’ for just five months. Deloitte has been given at least 25 public sector COVID-19-contracts since the outbreak of the pandemic, of which contracts totalling £170 million were awarded without any competition.

Not only did Government fail to advertise or put this huge contract out to tender, they didn’t come clean about the enormous sum of public money handed to Deloitte until around the time the contract had ended. The contract started in September 2020 and was only made public by the Government in January 2021. It's almost impossible to scrutinise contracts when Government routinely fails to publish the details within the legal timeframe.
"
 
I got insults for suggesting the army and Air force should be dealing with the PPE jabs I mean they know little about organisation and logistics don't they unlike Boris's mates and the crappy Serco outsourcing profiteers?
(There are more examples )
There was one incident when the army had to go to an unsuitable dirty disused factory where PPE had been and had sort out and redistribute the chaotic mess the outsourcing firm had left. This shambles is only one example of the complete fuck up this "government" has made in this pandemic causing unnecessary loss of life of patients and staff whilst our erstwhile prime minister fiddles whilst Rome burns.
 
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