Sunday, January 02, 2022
Nearly £15 billion blown on wasteful projects and duff deals
As it is the New Year, the Mirror has indulged itself a little by reminding us how wasteful and crony-driven Boris Johnson's government is. It is a litany of incompetence that should be shared more widely, especially in advance of an election.
The paper says that research based on official figures claims that Government has blown £14.7 billion of public money on “wasteful” projects, crony contracts and duff deals. They report that analysis reveals around £3.6bn in public contracts have been handed to firms linked to individuals in government or the Conservative Party since Mr Johnson became Prime Minister, while in the same period, the Best For Britain campaign group said a further £11.1bn had been “spent wastefully or funded government excess”:
Examples it gives include £73,000 spent stocking the Westminster wine cellar and a £30million Covid test vials contract awarded to a firm run by the landlord of Matt Hancock’s local pub without a proper tendering process.
It also includes a £122m deal for medical gowns that failed safety standards. The £14.7bn could have paid the combined salaries of 60,000 nurses, 65,000 teachers and 77,000 police over the two and a half years since Johnson took charge.
Naomi Smith, chief of independent Best For Britain, said: “It is easy to become numb to the extreme scale and frequency of this government’s cosy deals with friends, and wasteful spending on useless products.
“While raising taxes on working people and cutting support for those most in need, it’s outrageous they are spending eye-watering sums enriching their mates, living the high life and buying junk.”
A staggering £900,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent painting the PM’s plane on top of £100,000 decorating No.10 with works of art bought through the Government Art Collection fund.
Last March it was revealed the Government spends more than £500,000 a year ferrying ministerial papers around Whitehall in chauffeur-driven cars.
In February, the Tories approved spending up to £600,000 in legal fees defending its decision to award a Covid-19 opinion polling contract to Public First run by associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings.
The contract itself was worth £840,000 and was not put out to competitive tender. The same goes for a further £580,000 of political polling by Hanbury Strategy - also run by associates of Mr Cummings.
Best of Britain says ‘duff deals’ also include £10billion for the NHS Test and Trace programme, an amount described as “astonishing” by Chris Ham, former chief of the King’s Fund health think tank.
Then there were a raft of contracts handed to firms with links to the Tory Party, MPs or ministers.
A £2.1m school technology deal in October 2020 went to Specialist Computer Centres which is owned by the Rigby Group that has donated a total of £105,000 to Conservative coffers since 2017.
Meller Designs, co-owned by a party donor at the time, got £160m deals to provide PPE without competitive tender.
It later emerged the firm was referred to the ‘VIP lane’ for contracts by Gove, to whom firm boss David Meller had donated cash.
No wonder the public finances are in such a mess.
The paper says that research based on official figures claims that Government has blown £14.7 billion of public money on “wasteful” projects, crony contracts and duff deals. They report that analysis reveals around £3.6bn in public contracts have been handed to firms linked to individuals in government or the Conservative Party since Mr Johnson became Prime Minister, while in the same period, the Best For Britain campaign group said a further £11.1bn had been “spent wastefully or funded government excess”:
Examples it gives include £73,000 spent stocking the Westminster wine cellar and a £30million Covid test vials contract awarded to a firm run by the landlord of Matt Hancock’s local pub without a proper tendering process.
It also includes a £122m deal for medical gowns that failed safety standards. The £14.7bn could have paid the combined salaries of 60,000 nurses, 65,000 teachers and 77,000 police over the two and a half years since Johnson took charge.
Naomi Smith, chief of independent Best For Britain, said: “It is easy to become numb to the extreme scale and frequency of this government’s cosy deals with friends, and wasteful spending on useless products.
“While raising taxes on working people and cutting support for those most in need, it’s outrageous they are spending eye-watering sums enriching their mates, living the high life and buying junk.”
A staggering £900,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent painting the PM’s plane on top of £100,000 decorating No.10 with works of art bought through the Government Art Collection fund.
Last March it was revealed the Government spends more than £500,000 a year ferrying ministerial papers around Whitehall in chauffeur-driven cars.
In February, the Tories approved spending up to £600,000 in legal fees defending its decision to award a Covid-19 opinion polling contract to Public First run by associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings.
The contract itself was worth £840,000 and was not put out to competitive tender. The same goes for a further £580,000 of political polling by Hanbury Strategy - also run by associates of Mr Cummings.
Best of Britain says ‘duff deals’ also include £10billion for the NHS Test and Trace programme, an amount described as “astonishing” by Chris Ham, former chief of the King’s Fund health think tank.
Then there were a raft of contracts handed to firms with links to the Tory Party, MPs or ministers.
A £2.1m school technology deal in October 2020 went to Specialist Computer Centres which is owned by the Rigby Group that has donated a total of £105,000 to Conservative coffers since 2017.
Meller Designs, co-owned by a party donor at the time, got £160m deals to provide PPE without competitive tender.
It later emerged the firm was referred to the ‘VIP lane’ for contracts by Gove, to whom firm boss David Meller had donated cash.
No wonder the public finances are in such a mess.
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Read it and weep.
I trust that "£14.7 billion wasted" will figure prominently in literature in by-elections for Conservative-held seats from now on.
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I trust that "£14.7 billion wasted" will figure prominently in literature in by-elections for Conservative-held seats from now on.
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