16 December 2020 — The Grayzone
Tag: corruption
UK: We’re going to court!
30 November 2020 — Good Law Project
To bring judicial review proceedings you have to establish you have an arguable case. Courts have, in recent times, interpreted this as imposing a relatively high bar for judicial review proceedings; think of it as being shortlisted for a job. And if they think you cross that bar they give you ‘permission’.
The New Norm: Government Lawbreaking
26th November 2020 — True Publica
By TruePublica: Government lawbreaking in Boris Johnson’s adminstration has now reached an unprecedented scale for a British government – and we should all be concerned. Continue reading
Crony Capitalism: This case will reshape society
22 November 2020 — Good Law Project
Kate Bingham heads up Britain’s vaccine task force. She’s a venture capitalist with no public health experience, married to a Conservative minister. Dido Harding leads the Test and Trace system. She has no public health experience and is the wife of a Conservative MP. Mike Coupe, is head of COVID-19 testing, and has – you guessed it – no public health experience. The list goes on.
UK Crony Capitalism: The NAO report
18November 2020 — Good Law Project
Today, the National Audit Office has released a damning report into Government procurement practices. It confirms what we have been saying for months. Government failed to manage conflicts of interest, dished out public money to deeply unsuitable companies, and has improperly shied away from proper scrutiny.
Calls for a public enquiry into awards of Covid-related contracts
17 November 2020 — Political Concern
The original brief of this website, set up ten years ago, was to raise awareness of the ‘revolving door’, rewards for failure, widespread behind-the-scene lobbying and party funding which corrupts the decision-making process here and abroad. There is currently a resurgence of such concerns, expressed here by Professor Prem Sikka and later by Sophie Hill, a PhD student.
On 6th November Professor Prem Sikka wrote an article showing the imperative for a public inquiry into how Covid contracts are handed out.
Two weeks later a Hackney reader sent this link to a Metro article which reported that Sophie Hill, a British PhD student in Government at Harvard University, had created a ‘My little Crony’ map – snapshot below.
Covid-19: politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science
13 November 2020 — BMJ
BMJ 2020; 371 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4425 (Published 13 November 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;371:m4425
Kamran Abbasi, executive editor
When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die
Politicians and governments are suppressing science. They do so in the public interest, they say, to accelerate availability of diagnostics and treatments. They do so to support innovation, to bring products to market at unprecedented speed. Both of these reasons are partly plausible; the greatest deceptions are founded in a grain of truth. But the underlying behaviour is troubling. Continue reading
Cabinet contacts awarded COVID contracts
29 October 2020 — Good Law Project
Leaked documents seen by Good Law Project set out special pathways by which “VIP” and “Cabinet Office” contacts could be awarded lucrative PPE contracts at the height of the pandemic – and at inflated prices.
UK: They are 6 months late
16 October 2020 — Good Law Project
You may remember Crisp Websites Limited, trading as PestFix, the company with last reported net assets of £18,047.
On the 10th June, we sent a judicial review pre-action protocol letter to the Government asking why they had agreed to pay 75% upfront for isolation suits worth £32m, to PestFix. PestFix had materially no assets, no experience in supplying PPE for use in a medical setting, and has since admitted supplying faulty facemasks. Along with EveryDoctor, we have issued judicial review proceedings and will have a hearing in late February. Continue reading
Operation Moonshot? Leaked documents
11 September 2020 — Good Law Project
Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday plans for an enormous expansion of the national coronavirus testing programme, named “Operation Moonshot”, and estimated to cost “over £100bn” to deliver.
Goodlaw Project: Jacob Rees-Mogg
4 September 2020 — Goodlaw Project
Yesterday in Parliament, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP was questioned over the PPE fiasco that has seen the Government spend hundreds of millions of pounds on protective equipment that can’t be used by the NHS. The contract in question was handed to Ayanda Capital, an opaque private fund, with links to a Government advisor. His response?
Continue reading
Another lucrative contract for friends of Gove and Cummings
24 August 2020 — Good Law Project
How is it that Public First, long-time associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, have been awarded yet another contract, without any advertising or competitive tendering process?
