Quite possibly but given the circumstances I still haven’t heard anything that isn’t feasible.
However, while the ruling is a concern my main issue has always been why they have turned their back on existing resources and in some cases looked at reinventing the wheel.
You could just limit yourself to paragraphs 33-56.
The Guardian is reporting this as a judgement against Hancock and a victory for the GLP.
Well, it is but that doesn’t tell the whole story. That’s the point.
I take a more cynical perspective.
Does not matter if there was a lack of transparency or not. We are at a point where the public do not care. We live in an age of a lack of accountability and truth. Honestly, if it broke that Micheal Goves, best man, next-door neighbour and bloke who walks his dog had all been awarded PPE contracts. The collective public would just roll their eyes.
This was written about the 1930s, but I think it applies just as much today:
In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
This ruling is just one formal confirmation of the lack of integrity of this government and particularly the cabinet. I swear if Johnston or any of his cabinet told me that the sun was out and it was dry, i would grab my raincoat. What amazes me is the power of the right wing media, how a complete charlatan like Johnston is actually in power at all when it’s absolutely common knowledge that he is a narcissistic liar with no real interest in the wellbeing of anything but his own political career. The sad thing is that the success of the scientific community and those who are working way beyond their station to get the country vaccinated - despite Johnston - will give him all the positive publicity he needs to stay in place.
In what way is this ruling confirmation of anything of the sort?
Maybe quote from the actual judgment, rather than present your distortion.
The other legal actions being pursued may ultimately support your contention but this one doesn’t.
Integrity is the the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. The Health Secretary acted unlawfully and knew it and tried to defend it. Only a blinkered person would draw any other conclusion on the conduct of this cabinet over it’s term other than lack of integrity.
Great post.
We are truly in the age of Nihilism
The majority of people today believe in absolutely nothing (except maybe consumerism) - there is a gaping hole that God(s) / spiritualism used to fill and when there is a spiritual and intellectual void the most manipulative and cunning will seek to take advantage and fill it. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Camus all saw this coming.
"Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to negate". Albert Camus
Great post, all true. It was Kant who opened the cracks, Baudrillard also is worth a read, on Hyperreality.
I think what the ruling does suggest is that suspicions of what the government are up to here (using the pandemic to vicariously pursue to nepotistic Cash grab of public money) has enough basis to be taken very seriously and investigated. A formal inquiry, as you suggest, would be the way to go.
Hancock’s defence of ‘we were overwhelmed’ does not have credibility when set next to the course of action they pursued. If my house is on fire, and I have the choice to call the fire brigade or a friend that who has WhatsApp‘d me to tell me he can buy a bucket and hosepipe and be round in a week, me feeling overwhelmed at my burning house would not make me choose my mate’s start up. If you are overwhelmed and trying to act quickly, then you go with companies and organisation who can deliver and can scale up. You don’t give contracts to supply £250m life saving PPE to a finance company with no experience of the sector (but close ties to the Tory party). You don’t give £110m to a confectionary supplier (but who have close ties to the Tory Party). These were the examples raised by GLP, but there are many others, including loads of start ups with no experience of anything (but with close ties to the Tory Party).
I think Hancock’s failure to publish Covid Contacts demonstrates plainly that what has happened through the pandemic is that Government has used the pandemic to funnel billions of pound of public money to friends and associates in the private sector, many of whom, especially in the early days, plainly could not deliver what they had been contracted to deliver. Undoubtedly, by refusing to scale up existing suppliers and make best use of the resources we already have, this has cost thousands of lives. That the NHS was so long without adequate PPE is on its own a scandal.
The wider context of GLPs series of legal actions is that the Government is guilty of using the pandemic as a means of misappropriating public funds and this has cost thousands of lives. It’s worth waiting to see how the range of challenges go before concluding anything. I think this is a good start.
I think you (and others) are prejudging the findings of the separate legal actions that have not yet been determined. This action was about transparency of publishing the required details and the Court has found that there was no attempt to conceal these, in fact the evidence showed the opposite. They specifically endeavoured to comply but did not manage to do so within the timetable prescribed, but have done so now and are able to do so going forward.
I don’t think they endeavoured to comply at all. Hancock’s ‘excuse’ (not my word, see below) isn’t, in my opinion, credible given they chose to pursue a path with the greatest chance of failure and further chaos.
Unless he is arguing that the pandemic prevented them from making rational decisions?
Chamberlain ruled: “The secretary of state’s evidence provides a cogent explanation of his historic failure to comply … but this explanation amounts to an excuse, not a justification. It follows that, in my judgment, the secretary of state acted unlawfully by failing to comply with the transparency policy.”
This is only my reading of the wider situation, but we know that this Government ignored existing suppliers of equipment needed in the pandemic, and we know that they decided instead to award vast contracts to companies with no experience or track record of working in the sector, we know that these companies had various links to the Conservative party, and we know that in many cases these companies ballsed up the response. We can make a fair assumption that this cost thousands of lives. And we can now add to this the fact that Hancock acted illegally in failing to publish the contracts.
You can say that on its own the judgement isn’t that damning, but in the context of the wider failures and obvious nepotism of the early day’s of the pandemic, it builds towards a picture of the Government looking to use a national emergency to divert billions of pounds of public money towards favourable private interests, and valuing this cash grab over public health.
Patel is back in the news. This has not gone away
And yet the judge accepted the evidence given that they did endeavour to comply. He just said that being overwhelmed did not justify the failure to comply. Two entirely different points.
I understand what you are saying, but what I am getting as is, given the way they have behaved throughout the pandemic, I’m not inclined to take their ‘We tried our best, honest Guv’ defence in good faith.
Hancock failed to be fully transparent about the contracts that were handed out to companies and individuals close to the Tory party. He can claim he tried his best all he likes. I don’t believe him, and with very good reason.
Let’s not forget that this lot have a fair amount of history at producing fiction when needed.
So basically people think that this guy committed perjury?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/procurementrick?originalSubdomain=uk
Those would be very serious allegations with no basis in fact.
Who is he and what did he say?
Thank you for demonstrating that you haven’t bothered to read the judgment. What exactly are your conclusions about what the judgment says based on?