WTF is happening in the UK?
- barkingmad
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
TGA sez:- "I hesitate to post this as it might push barkingmad into face covering apoplexy, but it boils my piss as well to be honest!"
Many thanks for the picture, mon ami, the sight of that lingerie on Miss Goldfinger certainly did induce a pleasant apoplexy, soon calmed by using my gin EpiPen which I keep on hand for such events.
Peeress Mone would be one of those selected for deletion from the queue for the Earth's diminishing resources but I doubt whether Baroness Hallett will send to the tumbrils any of the Other House in Parliament, they're all drinking or knitting mates.
Many thanks for the picture, mon ami, the sight of that lingerie on Miss Goldfinger certainly did induce a pleasant apoplexy, soon calmed by using my gin EpiPen which I keep on hand for such events.
Peeress Mone would be one of those selected for deletion from the queue for the Earth's diminishing resources but I doubt whether Baroness Hallett will send to the tumbrils any of the Other House in Parliament, they're all drinking or knitting mates.
Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
The way you spin that is, if you lose you say you were prepared to give it fair chance but clearly it's biased towards the establishment, and if you win, you point out that had it not been there, the other side wouldn't have lost.Woody wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:07 pmObviously doesn’t understand irony
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63714944
Do I get a lucrative SpAD post now?
- OFSO
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
The Mone case was aired at length on LBC at lunch time today. Maybe missed it but heard nothing on the BBC.
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
Gove is such a slimy, backstabbing, homunculus, it would be good to see him get his comeuppance. We should be hearing the sound of cuffs being closed on the wrists of a number of senior political figures for the obvious graft around the award of these contracts, but I am not holding my breath.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... n-nexperia
Michael Gove is facing mounting pressure to fully explain his role in the government’s award of large PPE contracts to a company that was first recommended to him by the Tory peer Michelle Mone.
Asked in an interview on Thursday how he responded to Lady Mone’s approach in May 2020, Gove said he referred all offers of PPE to “the appropriate civil service channels”.
That explanation appears at odds with a chain of emails previously released under the Freedom of Information Act that shed light on how the company, PPE Medpro, was added to a “VIP” lane that prioritised politically connected firms. The emails suggest that after initially being contacted by Mone, Gove suggested she contact another then minister, the Tory peer Theodore Agnew.
She then did so, emailing both Gove and Lord Agnew using their private, non-governmental email addresses to tell them about PPE that could be procured from “my team in Hong Kong”. It was Agnew, who was then a minister in the Cabinet Office responsible for procurement, who referred PPE Medpro to the VIP lane.
Pressed repeatedly by the presenter Kay Burley on Sky News to recall how he responded to Mone’s offer, Gove, who was Cabinet Office minister at the time, said his job then was to make sure anyone who offered PPE was “referred to the right channel”.
He added: “I would have hoped that you or I, if someone said ‘I can provide PPE’, that we would have said: ‘Great. The thing to do is to go to this official government process, to go through this procurement gateway, to have the quality of the contract that you’re seeking to secure assessed.’”
However, the emails obtained by the Guardian appear to show Gove directing Mone not directly to civil servants, but to a fellow minister.
They reveal how Mone laid out a sales pitch to Agnew for the supply of PPE. The government had by then suspended normal competitive tendering processes and, it would later emerge, was fast-tracking to a “VIP” lane offers of PPE referred by politically connected people.
“I hope this email finds you well,” Mone wrote to Agnew, copying in Gove, using both of their private emails. “Michael Gove has asked to urgently contact you [sic]. We have managed to source PPE masks though [sic] my team in Hong Kong. They have managed to secure 100,000pcs per day of KN95 [face masks] which is equivalent to N95 or FFP2. In order to commit to this 100,000pcs per day could you please get back to me asap as freight will also need to be secured. Hope to see you in the House of Lords when we get out of lockdown. Kindest regards, Michelle.”
Agnew replied from his personal email address, copying in the government email address of his private secretary. “Michelle, thank you for your kind offer. I am forwarding this into the appropriate PPE workstream with Dept of Health. They will ask you some basic questions on the details of the offer and then hopefully progress it from there. Best wishes Theodore.”
One of his staff then emailed a Covid PPE “priority appraisals” mailbox, asking them to “pick up with Baroness Mone”. The staff member added the words “VIA LORD AGNEW” and “VIP” to the subject field.
At that stage, the company, PPE Medpro, had not even been incorporated. However within weeks it had been awarded two government contracts worth £203m to supply millions of face masks and sterile surgical gowns.
Mone’s lawyers have previously said she never had any role “in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro”. PPE Medpro previously said the company “was not awarded the contract because of company or personal connections to the UK government or the Conservative party”.
The Guardian was only able to establish that private emails had been used because of an apparent administrative error by the Cabinet Office, which failed to properly redact documents released after a freedom of information request from the Guardian.
The Guardian contacted Gove to ask him how the account he gave of his response to Mone’s offer on Sky News, in which he said he referred all offers to “the appropriate civil service channels”, was consistent with the suggestion he in fact told Mone to contact Agnew. He did not respond.
The government has consistently defended the “VIP” process; spokespeople have maintained that contracts were awarded “in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines, and there are robust rules and processes in place to prevent conflicts of interest”. However, the use of the high-priority lane to award contacts has been ruled unlawful by the high court.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader and shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, said: “Michael Gove must urgently come clean with the public on his personal involvement in the award of contracts to PPE Medpro during his time as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.
“The government must commit to publishing all the documents and correspondence relating to the award of taxpayer contracts to PPE Medpro out in the open.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... n-nexperia
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
Shapps, or Green, or whatever his name is, caves in on onshore wind turbines...
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/g ... 0f4495b099Grant Shapps signals climbdown on onshore wind amid Tory revolt - live updates
The Business Secretary claimed there is "not really a row" between backbench Conservatives and the Government as he insisted "we are all basically saying the same thing".
Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, is leading a parliamentary push to try to force Rishi Sunak to drop a de facto ban on new onshore wind farms.
Mr Clarke's proposed amendment to the Levelling Up Bill has been backed by a series of senior Tory figures, including former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Mr Shapps was asked this morning if the Government could accept the amendment and he told Times Radio: "I haven't studied the detail of it and what it would mean yet. One way or the other it strikes me it is not really a row. We are all basically saying the same thing: You need local consent if you are going to have wind power on shore because it can be quite a big imposition on the local environment."
The Business Secretary's comments will be seen as a signal that the Government is set to move on the issue in order to avoid a damaging Tory rebellion. There has been an effective moratorium on new onshore wind projects since 2015.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.
Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
Tory crooks watch out! From the Telegraph
"David Miliband hints at return to politics
Former foreign secretary says he is 'enthusiastic about where Keir Starmer has taken Labour'"
"David Miliband hints at return to politics
Former foreign secretary says he is 'enthusiastic about where Keir Starmer has taken Labour'"
- barkingmad
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
"27 Nov 2022
Govt expenditure on C19 cost you & every other man, woman and child in UK £5,500 each, National Audit Office has found
Little to no evidence it 'worked' & much went on totally failed schemes like 'Test & Trace', Nightingale Hospitals and to fraudsters
Vast damage to civil liberties, economy, health, education, society
As Lord Sumption says, no proper risk/benefit was ever carried out
There can be no more lockdowns
And Govt cannot be allowed to be in a position in future to impose these sweeping, catastrophic decisions based on who-knows-what..."
That's a lot of dosh to pay for for a 'manufactured illusion', money ripped out of all of our hands and poured down the drain?
Govt expenditure on C19 cost you & every other man, woman and child in UK £5,500 each, National Audit Office has found
Little to no evidence it 'worked' & much went on totally failed schemes like 'Test & Trace', Nightingale Hospitals and to fraudsters
Vast damage to civil liberties, economy, health, education, society
As Lord Sumption says, no proper risk/benefit was ever carried out
There can be no more lockdowns
And Govt cannot be allowed to be in a position in future to impose these sweeping, catastrophic decisions based on who-knows-what..."
That's a lot of dosh to pay for for a 'manufactured illusion', money ripped out of all of our hands and poured down the drain?
- Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
I see the UK has a new style of Advent Calendar this year....
More here
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... christmas/
More here
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... christmas/
- Woody
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
When all else fails, read the instructions.
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
No local mail for a week so went down to local PO depot, where absolute chaos prevails, unsorted letters everywhere. Was told I might look for my own letters by a totally dinterested or shell-shocked manager. Not a soul in sight working on sorting out the mess.
All this is reminiscent of how things started to disintegrate back in my benighted homeland. The first service to collapse was the postal system!
All this is reminiscent of how things started to disintegrate back in my benighted homeland. The first service to collapse was the postal system!
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.
- Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
It does not matter what Liz Truss wants.
Lots of people want to be fighter pilots or want to be brain surgeons.
But we don't let most of them anywhere near those jobs, for the same reason Liz should not have been allowed anywhere near Number 10.
Welcome to the idiocracy.
Lots of people want to be fighter pilots or want to be brain surgeons.
But we don't let most of them anywhere near those jobs, for the same reason Liz should not have been allowed anywhere near Number 10.
Welcome to the idiocracy.
Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
What I do not get is that the 'party of sound financial judgement' can not only ?suddenly? produce such wild errors but have nurtured them in cabinet positions - or is it that they are just incompetent?
- Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
I've been saying it since Bliar got in; they are just incompetent. And they are getting worse. AND they think they are getting better and it's all someone else's fault.
Dunning-Kruger in action.
And it's not just the UK.
The US and Canada are worse.
Dunning-Kruger in action.
And it's not just the UK.
The US and Canada are worse.
- OFSO
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
Look, every where is as bad. No way was the Spanish prime minister's 2023 budget going to pass with opposition from the Catalan seperatistas on ethical grounds, until suddenly they changed this minds and supported him. Nothing to do, if course, with the additional 500 million euros Madrid voted to give Barcelona the day before. Pure coincidence.
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
Well, if you can't @$@& laugh then what can you do?
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.
Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
That was clever!
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
Memo to the media:
When you say that inflation is at a 40-year high don't forget to mention that corporate profits are at a 70-year high!
When you say that inflation is at a 40-year high don't forget to mention that corporate profits are at a 70-year high!
Ricardian, Stronsay, Orkney UK
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Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
From The Times
Re: WTF is happening in the UK?
What do Ops-Norm members think of the proposal to do away with the House of Lords - only to be replaced by a newly-created second chamber with similar aims?