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Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2020 5:04 pm
by plodder
You all know about this, but it probably deserves its own thread.

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/11/13/what ... tle-crony/

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:28 am
by plodder
Well blimey. Literally billions handed to politically connected cronies over the last few months and not a single comment. What does it take for a story to gain traction?

perhaps today’s NAO report will help.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rt-reveals

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:40 am
by headshot
Hmm. I missed your original post.

Yes, it’s a ducking national outrage and all the people involved should be prosecuted.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 am
by Bird on a Fire
(Teal me about it - it's absolutely quackers. I can't drake it any more. What a pain in the Anas.)

Monbiot has been hot on this in recent weeks.

It says a lot about modern UK that nobody is apparently surprised or angry about this level of looting by the state.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 am
by Bird on a Fire
Companies that fail to deliver on PPE contracts are quite like ducks, actually.

Spoiler:

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:02 am
by Bird on a Fire
When I lived in Brazil, people of all political stripes were always wanging on about polititcal corruption and how terrible it is. (It is terrible) I would patiently explain that UK-style corruption doesn't generally involve suitcases full of cash under the bed (Odebrecht) or secret beach apartments (Lula "allegations"), but it's just as pervasive even if it uses more complex mechanisms.

None of them believed me. When I rehashed my argument to UK friends they were also unconvinced.

"Se não roubam, deixam roubar," a colleague told me: "If they're not robbing, they let others rob." A catchy Brazilian phrase about the inescapable levels of government corruption. It seems to also apply to the UK, at least in terms of the integrity of Conservative party MPs and members. Or have I missed their shitstorm over this?

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:17 am
by discovolante
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 am
(Teal me about it - it's absolutely quackers. I can't drake it any more. What a pain in the Anas.)

Monbiot has been hot on this in recent weeks.

It says a lot about modern UK that nobody is apparently surprised or angry about this level of looting by the state.
Nobody listens to George Monbiot though, apart from people who already do. But if the guardian keeps pushing then maybe eventually it'll make it into a proper newspaper and become an actual story.

I wonder why we're so accepting of this. Maybe to do with the reasons in your subsequent post. Maybe also (and connectedly) partly because a lot of people just sort of know that financial corruption is endemic in our economic system and it just doesn't feel massively surprising. Kind of like how this time round with covid we seem to be just kind of accepting the deaths.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:23 am
by Bird on a Fire
discovolante wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 am
(Teal me about it - it's absolutely quackers. I can't drake it any more. What a pain in the Anas.)

Monbiot has been hot on this in recent weeks.

It says a lot about modern UK that nobody is apparently surprised or angry about this level of looting by the state.
Nobody listens to George Monbiot though, apart from people who already do.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cod-Biography- ... 099268701/
I know right? It must be f.cking annoying making good points all the time and being generally ignored.
discovolante wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:17 am
But if the guardian keeps pushing then maybe eventually it'll make it into a proper newspaper and become an actual story.
The silence of the right-wing press on this is pretty embarrassing for them, assuming they're still pretending to report factual information about important topics.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:27 am
by Bird on a Fire
I'm sure there'll be lots of takes on this over the next few weeks. I think the quote in my sig is probably the only feasible solution.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:42 am
by FlammableFlower
discovolante wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 am
(Teal me about it - it's absolutely quackers. I can't drake it any more. What a pain in the Anas.)

Monbiot has been hot on this in recent weeks.

It says a lot about modern UK that nobody is apparently surprised or angry about this level of looting by the state.
Nobody listens to George Monbiot though, apart from people who already do. But if the guardian keeps pushing then maybe eventually it'll make it into a proper newspaper and become an actual story.

I wonder why we're so accepting of this. Maybe to do with the reasons in your subsequent post. Maybe also (and connectedly) partly because a lot of people just sort of know that financial corruption is endemic in our economic system and it just doesn't feel massively surprising. Kind of like how this time round with covid we seem to be just kind of accepting the deaths.
I think Monbiot became a bit of a Cassandra on the environment - lots of people don't want to hear him, lots of others got bored of hearing him. Quite a lot of what he talks about requires big changes that people either don't want to make or can't see how they would be possible. Fair play to him that he won't give up.

Today's article is a case in point - food security post-Brexit, pointing out that there's no plan to ensure (fresh) food imports in the event of logjams at ports of entry and also no plan to have food supplies warehoused in case of those problems (whereas the gov ensures we always have 90 days of strategic oil reserves). Furthermore, there's no room in the system to start stocking in case of emergency. It ends with:
When the government was challenged on this issue in parliament last year, it claimed it was “not responsible for the supply of food and drink to the population in an emergency”. That is up to “the industry”. In other words, little has changed since the Irish famine of the 1840s and the Indian famines of the 1870s. It’s the same reckless, uncaring attitude that has helped kill 50,000 people in the pandemic.

Because we are leaving the single market and the customs union, the disruption is likely to be brutal, whether or not a deal is struck. If Brexit causes further economic rupture, the shops are half-empty and even the foodbanks can’t find enough supplies, there is a real prospect of chronic hunger. But search as you may, you will find no one in government who gives a damn.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:57 am
by discovolante
FlammableFlower wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:42 am
discovolante wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:56 am
(Teal me about it - it's absolutely quackers. I can't drake it any more. What a pain in the Anas.)

Monbiot has been hot on this in recent weeks.

It says a lot about modern UK that nobody is apparently surprised or angry about this level of looting by the state.
Nobody listens to George Monbiot though, apart from people who already do. But if the guardian keeps pushing then maybe eventually it'll make it into a proper newspaper and become an actual story.

I wonder why we're so accepting of this. Maybe to do with the reasons in your subsequent post. Maybe also (and connectedly) partly because a lot of people just sort of know that financial corruption is endemic in our economic system and it just doesn't feel massively surprising. Kind of like how this time round with covid we seem to be just kind of accepting the deaths.
I think Monbiot became a bit of a Cassandra on the environment - lots of people don't want to hear him, lots of others got bored of hearing him. Quite a lot of what he talks about requires big changes that people either don't want to make or can't see how they would be possible. Fair play to him that he won't give up.

Today's article is a case in point - food security post-Brexit, pointing out that there's no plan to ensure (fresh) food imports in the event of logjams at ports of entry and also no plan to have food supplies warehoused in case of those problems (whereas the gov ensures we always have 90 days of strategic oil reserves). Furthermore, there's no room in the system to start stocking in case of emergency. It ends with:
When the government was challenged on this issue in parliament last year, it claimed it was “not responsible for the supply of food and drink to the population in an emergency”. That is up to “the industry”. In other words, little has changed since the Irish famine of the 1840s and the Indian famines of the 1870s. It’s the same reckless, uncaring attitude that has helped kill 50,000 people in the pandemic.

Because we are leaving the single market and the customs union, the disruption is likely to be brutal, whether or not a deal is struck. If Brexit causes further economic rupture, the shops are half-empty and even the foodbanks can’t find enough supplies, there is a real prospect of chronic hunger. But search as you may, you will find no one in government who gives a damn.
I read that article yesterday and realised I don't have a Brexit stockpile any more. Bit late to do it properly now as I would do it incrementally but I might start getting a few extra tins in.

I think plodded has criticised George Monbiot before but (I'll talk about him as if he's not here) I think it was something to do with his lack of realism that you highlight.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:26 am
by plodder
Monbiot's is a necessary voice but he doesn't represent incremental change. He also simplifies problems in order to propose fairly neat and predictable answers - he's a huge advocate of rewilding to reduce flood risk but the evidence isn't quite there to show it'll have a major impact on the biggest and most damaging floods, for example.

So he's a bit like someone advocating buddhism and yoga as a way to tackle cancer and consumerism. Not wrong, but not quite right either.

But his heart's in the right place, and I'm pretty sympathetic to a lot of what he says.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:37 am
by discovolante
Yeah it does seem to be one of those situations where 'listening to different points of view' is actually pretty helpful, rather than the courting bigots meaning that tends to get pushed. And on both sides, probably. I mean I really don't know anything about this area but it seems like ol' George would achieve more if he injected a dose of realism into his writing now and then, while broadly speaking the optimism for change that he sometimes holds, despite everything, could maybe do with being a bit more contagious. That's not to undermine the long hard work that people are doing, but I mean more like on a capturing the public consciousness level yadda yadda.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:40 am
by headshot
Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project is on the BBC talking about this at length right now.

Alok Sharma has been put out to defend the Govt.

Also: f.ck autocorrect.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:50 am
by plodder
headshot wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:40 am
Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project is on the BBC talking about this at length right now.

Alok Sharma has been put out to defend the Govt.

Also: f.ck autocorrect.
Jolyon Maugham is well worth following on twitter.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 11:18 am
by discovolante
plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:28 am
Well blimey. Literally billions handed to politically connected cronies over the last few months and not a single comment. What does it take for a story to gain traction?

perhaps today’s NAO report will help.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rt-reveals
Once again though, with reference to the PEP issue in particular, I am a bit miffed at the hours of money laundering training I have to do when the risk of money laundering in my job is practically zero, while this goes on. I'm sure it's generally pretty effective though.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:46 pm
by plodder
over £1bn (!) of PPE contracts have been issued to firms associated with an evangelical group, the Plymouth Brethren:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/stat ... 1709222913

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:59 pm
by Woodchopper
plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:46 pm
over £1bn (!) of PPE contracts have been issued to firms associated with an evangelical group, the Plymouth Brethren:

https://twitter.com/allthecitizens/stat ... 1709222913
And so what. Its only a story if people associated with the Plymouth Brethren have been given special favours.

Vast sums being spent up and down the country by NHS trusts and central government. Perhaps a billion isn't remarkable, especially as membership of religious groups isn't random. Perhaps membership of the Plymouth Brethren is to business people what the Quakers are to pacifists.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 4:34 pm
by plodder
They have close ties to the Tory party, including delivering leaflets come election time.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 5:57 pm
by Woodchopper
plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 4:34 pm
They have close ties to the Tory party, including delivering leaflets come election time.
Can’t be bothered to look it up, but the majority of people who run businesses have some links or other to the Conservative Party. You might as well express shock that the leader of a union has links to Labour.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:12 pm
by plodder
true, but we’re talking about 1.1bn of contracts through 30 -odd companies that all have links. We’ll see what comes of it but i’ll be interested to see how small construction firms suddenly become the government’s preferred supplier of medical grade PPE.

I’m also interested to see how the “politically connected” fast tracking worked.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:21 pm
by tenchboy
plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:12 pm
true, but we’re talking about 1.1bn of contracts through 30 -odd companies that all have links. We’ll see what comes of it but i’ll be interested to see how small construction firms suddenly become the government’s preferred supplier of medical grade PPE.

I’m also interested to see how the “politically connected” fast tracking worked.
... or indeed, a jewelry designer!

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:24 pm
by Woodchopper
plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:12 pm
true, but we’re talking about 1.1bn of contracts through 30 -odd companies that all have links. We’ll see what comes of it but i’ll be interested to see how small construction firms suddenly become the government’s preferred supplier of medical grade PPE.

I’m also interested to see how the “politically connected” fast tracking worked.
Certainly, it’s very dodgy if they’ve been given favors. But at the moment it’s just a bunch of businesses run by people who are part of the same Christian group.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:28 pm
by dyqik
Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:24 pm
plodder wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 6:12 pm
true, but we’re talking about 1.1bn of contracts through 30 -odd companies that all have links. We’ll see what comes of it but i’ll be interested to see how small construction firms suddenly become the government’s preferred supplier of medical grade PPE.

I’m also interested to see how the “politically connected” fast tracking worked.
Certainly, it’s very dodgy if they’ve been given favors. But at the moment it’s just a bunch of businesses run by people who are part of the same Christian group.
That sounds even dodgier, tbh.

Re: Astonishing levels of government corruption

Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 8:43 am
by plodder