The UK response - Part II - read OP

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I think the rule is that stories are valid if they appear in those titles which still cater for educated readers but once the guardian covers it, it automatically becomes invalid, mere fodder for the ignorant dumbed down hoi polloi masses who gobble up their tabloid nonsense as most of them seem never to have attended school or further education and thus haven't developed the critical faculties to see through it. Open to clarification, but i think that's how it works anyway.

oh boo hoo. I didn't say Guardian readers are uneducated, i simply said stories like this are for the uneducated to get outraged about.

The NAO findings are a concern and really show the wild west nature of the global PPE procurement mess. Usage of PPE didn't just go up by a lot, it went up by several orders of magnitude in every country on the planet. Stuff that would be procured in a conventional manner suddenly became the most valuable commodity on earth and governments were fighting each other to get it.

That the government vastly over spent on PPE is concerning, but understandable given the circumstances and I doubt any were immune.

My biggest concern is this VIP route though and how a company gets on it. It is sounding as though being recommended by a minister was one way and this throws the whole procurement process in to doubt. When companies start concentrating on cultivating relationships, they stop focusing on other areas of their business, like quality.

It doesn't necessarily follow that these companies were out to fleece people, many businesses wanted to help and offers were genuine. Companies with experience in buying global commodities were probably as well placed to source PPE as the many distributors were. Until we see some form of open book statements on this, we will not know.

The biggest obvious case of fraud though seems to have been where an existing established supplier trusted a go between and agreed with the NHS to pay up front, which breaks one of the golden rules of international procurement for just the reason shown. This is embarrassing for the Government and NHS supplies, but from what I have read so far, there is no suggestion they did anything wrong per se, just very stupid. A stupid act that would not have ben done if there was not a world shortage of PPE.

A Dub in Glasgo

The following just about sums up the state of the Tories

https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1332278498753392640

Enzokk

Aegir wrote: »

The Guardian are portraying this as the call to Hancock is what got him the contract. there is no evidence of this but they are blatantly trying to make out that this is the reason why.

He rang Hancock to enquire as to wheher or not his plastic moulding equipment could be retooled to make PPE. Hundreds of companies across the UK (and indeed europe) were doing the same thing.

Subsequent to that, an independent company approached him to see if he could make plastic vials. This is a company sourcing a manufacturer of a product they wish to sell and has zero connection to the Government

Hundreds of companies has the personal number of Matt Hancock and rang him to ask if they could help? I guess that means his number is available to thousands of people.

Aegir wrote: »

If Bourne hadn't contacted Hancock to see if he could make PPE, then this would never have made it anywhere near the papers.

You are almost there. Would he have gotten the contract if he didn't personally contact Matt Hancock? As you say there are hundreds of companies in the UK that would have been able to supply this contract, so what makes his company special? Is he the only company that could retool and provide the vials as required? Or did he get it because he knows Hancock personally?

ancapailldorcha

HuffPost UK understands No.10′s newly-formed “Union unit”, tasked with fighting calls for Scottish independence and other campaigns to break up the UK, wanted injection kits to bear the flag.

It asked the government’s vaccine task force to insist manufacturers of the vaccine – developed by Britain’s top university alongside pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca – use the UK flag.

No.10 said there were no plans for the Union Jack to be on doses, but did not deny that the request – said by insiders to have strong backing from health secretary Matt Hancock and business secretary Alok Sharma – had been made.

Sure, force a damaging Brexit on two countries that oppose it but sticking a Union Flag on a vial will definitely shore up support for the Union. The chancellor was bright enough to fund the thing. That that is the limit of their involvement is probably why it works. I'm amazed that they didn't insist on calling it the Boris jab but then you'd have concerns about unwanted pregnancies.

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

oh boo hoo. I didn't say Guardian readers are uneducated, i simply said stories like this are for the uneducated to get outraged about.

The NAO findings are a concern and really show the wild west nature of the global PPE procurement mess. Usage of PPE didn't just go up by a lot, it went up by several orders of magnitude in every country on the planet. Stuff that would be procured in a conventional manner suddenly became the most valuable commodity on earth and governments were fighting each other to get it.

That the government vastly over spent on PPE is concerning, but understandable given the circumstances and I doubt any were immune.

My biggest concern is this VIP route though and how a company gets on it. It is sounding as though being recommended by a minister was one way and this throws the whole procurement process in to doubt. When companies start concentrating on cultivating relationships, they stop focusing on other areas of their business, like quality.

It doesn't necessarily follow that these companies were out to fleece people, many businesses wanted to help and offers were genuine. Companies with experience in buying global commodities were probably as well placed to source PPE as the many distributors were. Until we see some form of open book statements on this, we will not know.

The biggest obvious case of fraud though seems to have been where an existing established supplier trusted a go between and agreed with the NHS to pay up front, which breaks one of the golden rules of international procurement for just the reason shown. This is embarrassing for the Government and NHS supplies, but from what I have read so far, there is no suggestion they did anything wrong per se, just very stupid. A stupid act that would not have ben done if there was not a world shortage of PPE.

I don't think anyone is suggesting this was easy or the government wasn't in a tough position. I'd be all for cutting it some slack if there was even a modicum of good practice and propriety in the way they're behaving.

On its own, the Alex Bourne story is merely mildly interesting or shocking. But it's not on its own, is it, but part of a disturbing wider pattern of pals or associates of government ministers ending up with lucrative contracts, often in fields they have little or no prior experience in dealing with. The NAO report conclused that you were10 times more likely to land a ppe contract if you had tory connections. Is that what you mean by the "wild west". I think epic cronyism is a better term, quite

And not just covid. There's also the towns fund they ran last year in which 60 out of 61 awards by ministers went to marginal constituencies the government was targeting in the election. What odds the "levelling up" fund goes exactly the same way? Particularly that "honest" Bob Jenrick has a major decision making role in it.

Not that they actually care about any of this being pointed out. Its all very transparent and in your face. Whether its jenrick, patel or even johnson himself, this lot behave pretty much as if they're above the law and i'm not sure they're totally wrong about that.

Enzokk

Enzokk wrote: »

Hundreds of companies has the personal number of Matt Hancock and rang him to ask if they could help? I guess that means his number is available to thousands of people.

now you're just being ridiculous. Hundreds of companies were coming forward with offers t help, this guy just happened to have Hancock's number.

Enzokk wrote: »

You are almost there. Would he have gotten the contract if he didn't personally contact Matt Hancock? As you say there are hundreds of companies in the UK that would have been able to supply this contract, so what makes his company special? Is he the only company that could retool and provide the vials as required? Or did he get it because he knows Hancock personally?

hang on, are you saying that from that article you deduced that the only reason Alpha Labs gave the contract to Hinpack was because Matt Hancock personally intervened?

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I don't think anyone is suggesting this was easy or the government wasn't in a tough position. I'd be all for cutting it some slack if there was even a modicum of good practice and propriety in the way they're behaving.

On its own, the Alex Bourne story is merely mildly interesting or shocking. But it's not on its own, is it, but part of a disturbing wider pattern of pals or associates of government ministers ending up with lucrative contracts, often in fields they have little or no prior experience in dealing with. The NAO report conclused that you were10 times more likely to land a ppe contract if you had tory connections. Is that what you mean by the "wild west". I think epic cronyism is a better term, quite

Have you read any of the reports?

Enzokk

Aegir wrote: »

now you're just being ridiculous. Hundreds of companies were coming forward with offers t help, this guy just happened to have Hancock's number.

He happened to have his number, contacted him to offer help, received a contract and then denied that he contacted him when he was asked about it. He did come forward to take back that denial, because lying about something that there is probably evidence for adds more mud to a sticky situation.

Aegir wrote: »

hang on, are you saying that from that article you deduced that the only reason Alpha Labs gave the contract to Hinpack was because Matt Hancock personally intervened?

Are you saying that you cannot answer a question without asking one yourself? Because that is one way to avoid having a discussion about an issue, especially when you have been attacking posts about these contracts on this thread.

S.M.B.

As I said earlier, I kind of get where Aegir is coming from with this one story, and I am a loyal Guardian reader. There is no evidence that the WhatsApp message led to the awarding of this contract. It's putting 2 + 2 together and getting 5.

The answer to your original question is 'Maybe indirectly, maybe not. Unfortunately we may never know.'.

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

Have you read any of the reports?

I've read the summaries and key findings and quite a lot of newspaper reports, both in serious heavyweight publications like the daily mail and in muck raking bottom feeders such as the guardian. But nobody needed two detailed reports to tell them what they already knew about the enrichment of the conservative old boy network since the whole pandemic began. It's almost as if they see it as their god given right and they did it with the towns fund and they'll do it again with the level up fund simply because they can.

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I've read the summaries and key findings and quite a lot of newspaper reports, both in serious heavyweight publications like the daily mail and in muck raking bottom feeders such as the guardian. But nobody needed two detailed reports to tell them what they already knew about the enrichment of the conservative old boy network since the whole pandemic began. It's almost as if they see it as their god given right and they did it with the towns fund and they'll do it again with the level up fund simply because they can.

Can you point me to the bit that says this then?:

The NAO report conclused that you were10 times more likely to land a ppe contract if you had tory connections

because it doesn't say that anywhere. So you are either embellishing the truth, or you haven't read it.

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

Can you point me to the bit that says this then?:



because it doesn't say that anywhere. So you are either embellishing the truth, or you haven't read it.

Fair enough. The report says there was a priority line and on that line you were 10 times more likely to land a successful contract and that significantly favoured firms with government connections. So i didn't phrase that very well but conclusions still the same. Epic cronyism on an unprecedented scale.

Enzokk

Enzokk wrote: »

Are you saying that you cannot answer a question without asking one yourself? Because that is one way to avoid having a discussion about an issue, especially when you have been attacking posts about these contracts on this thread.

You are asking me a question that it is impossible for me to answer, or at least in a yes/no manner.

I do know a thing or two about sourcing though and I see absolutely nothing untoward about a company that has seen demand for several items go through the roof, look for alternative ways of sourcing that item.

It is certainly something I would have looked at for two reasons, continuity of supply and introducing a new entrant in to the market. The fact that the guy used to run a pub in Matt Hancock's constituency would have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Fair enough. The report says there was a priority line and on that line you were 10 times more likely to land a successful contract and that significantly favoured firms with government connections. So i didn't phrase that very well but conclusions still the same. Epic cronyism on an unprecedented scale.

It’s not that you didn’t phrase it well, you got it wrong.

May I suggest you go and read the actual report. The bit yiu want is section 3 sections 11 to 13.

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

It’s not that you didn’t phrase it well, you got it wrong.

May I suggest you go and read the actual report. The bit yiu want is section 3 sections 11 to 13.

Like i said, i was perfectly happy to clarify. There was a high priority list, of hopefuls recommended by mps and other government officials, and once on that list, you were 10 times more likely to get a contract than those off it. It's basic maths. A 1 In 10 chance as opposed to a 1 In 100 chance. If you disagree with that, then spell it out.

Enzokk

S.M.B. wrote: »

As I said earlier, I kind of get where Aegir is coming from with this one story, and I am a loyal Guardian reader. There is no evidence that the WhatsApp message led to the awarding of this contract. It's putting 2 + 2 together and getting 5.

The answer to your original question is 'Maybe indirectly, maybe not. Unfortunately we may never know.'.

And the other contracts that have gone to companies with Tory politician contacts? Or are we to believe that the UK is so small that is it hard to find a company that doesn't have a Tory connection?

Now Aegir has a point, at some stage the Guardian is going to print a story where the contact a company has with a politician is just coincidental and had no influence on the contract they won, but my goodness there are a lot of stories about contracts that have been given that just stink. I will be honest, there is a chance that this isn't corruption but just incompetence in awarding these contracts. I don't know if that is better though.

Aegir wrote: »

You are asking me a question that it is impossible for me to answer, or at least in a yes/no manner.

I do know a thing or two about sourcing though and I see absolutely nothing untoward about a company that has seen demand for several items go through the roof, look for alternative ways of sourcing that item.

It is certainly something I would have looked at for two reasons, continuity of supply and introducing a new entrant in to the market. The fact that the guy used to run a pub in Matt Hancock's constituency would have absolutely nothing to do with it.

And yet you are quick to dismiss these stories when it is posted as something for the uneducated to get angry about and you call the Guardian a tabloid. But when questioned about the specifics you all of a sudden play dumb because you cannot know the answers to the questions the Guardian or other publications ask in their stories. That takes some doing to get to that specific point, where you can dismiss a story out of hand and at the same time claim ignorance to the specifics in the same story.

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Like i said, i was perfectly happy to clarify. There was a high priority list, of hopefuls recommended by mps and other government officials, and once on that list, you were 10 times more likely to get a contract than those off it. It's basic maths. A 1 In 10 chance as opposed to a 1 In 100 chance. If you disagree with that, then spell it out.

Please, read the actual report. MPs, government minister, senior civil servants, senior NHS staff.

The reason this list was created was to help the 450 team of personnel from across different government bodies to sift through the 15,000 offers they received. These would have been from anyone offering to make ten face masks per week hand knitted at the local women’s institute, to 3m offering one million N95 face masks.

A good chunk of this list were established vendors and were most likely out there by the SCCL staff as approved suppliers, so the chances of them getting an order were bound to be far higher then Roger from Rochdale who could knock out six face shields a day on his black and decker workmate.

The biggest criticism around this list isn’t that these companies were used, it is that there was only supporting documentation for half of them making it open to questions. This is a failing of the team doing the work, not the government but for obvious reasons, the media want to blame the government for this and not the 450 people who were working 12 hour days to try and source PPE.

Honestly, read the report. It is a real eye opener in terms of the scale of the problem.

PommieBast

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

The following just about sums up the state of the Tories

https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1332278498753392640

I had to look a second time at that tweet before i realised it wasn't something from the likes of newsbiscuit.. :eek:

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

Please, read the actual report. MPs, government minister, senior civil servants, senior NHS staff.

The reason this list was created was to help the 450 team of personnel from across different government bodies to sift through the 15,000 offers they received. These would have been from anyone offering to make ten face masks per week hand knitted at the local women’s institute, to 3m offering one million N95 face masks.

A good chunk of this list were established vendors and were most likely out there by the SCCL staff as approved suppliers, so the chances of them getting an order were bound to be far higher then Roger from Rochdale who could knock out six face shields a day on his black and decker workmate.

The biggest criticism around this list isn’t that these companies were used, it is that there was only supporting documentation for half of them making it open to questions. This is a failing of the team doing the work, not the government but for obvious reasons, the media want to blame the government for this and not the 450 people who were working 12 hour days to try and source PPE.

Honestly, read the report. It is a real eye opener in terms of the scale of the problem.

I will read the report if or when i can find the time. I highly doubt it is going to explain Serco or Pest Fix, though, how all these explanations of urgency, desire to introduce new players in the market etc etc, could ever justify awarding multiple ppe contracts to a pest control company with barely any assets or employees. The bit about Alex Bourne that puzzles me is that, in his own words, they needed these vials "very urgently" so he decided that's what he was going to do. If it was really all so very urgent, then i just wonder why a company couldn't have been located that already had the capacity to make them. Maybe I'll read the report and find the answer!

S.M.B.

Enzokk wrote: »

And the other contracts that have gone to companies with Tory politician contacts? Or are we to believe that the UK is so small that is it hard to find a company that doesn't have a Tory connection?

Now Aegir has a point, at some stage the Guardian is going to print a story where the contact a company has with a politician is just coincidental and had no influence on the contract they won, but my goodness there are a lot of stories about contracts that have been given that just stink. I will be honest, there is a chance that this isn't corruption but just incompetence in awarding these contracts. I don't know if that is better though.

Other contracts? I have my concerns but I'm not quite sure if deep seeded corruption is the underlying issue. Protocol that's there for a reason has been bypassed due to time pressures.

But this article is what's under discussion right now and I do think it's a bit of a non story that's presented in a way that's going to rile up anyone who's not overly fond with how the government is handling things. And as I said before, this is coming from a guardian reader who isn't overly happy with how the government is handling things.

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

I will read the report if or when i can find the time. I highly doubt it is going to explain Serco or Pest Fix, though, how all these explanations of urgency, desire to introduce new players in the market etc etc, could ever justify awarding multiple ppe contracts to a pest control company with barely any assets or employees. The bit about Alex Bourne that puzzles me is that, in his own words, they needed these vials "very urgently" so he decided that's what he was going to do. If it was really all so very urgent, then i just wonder why a company couldn't have been located that already had the capacity to make them. Maybe I'll read the report and find the answer!

The pest fix thing seems to have been a complete **** up by the SCCL from what I can gather. It seems as though they somehow made it on the list by accident and landed a juicy contract, which they managed to mess up. In fairness to them though, they do seem to be trying to put it right. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t that big, but will no doubt be looked at in more detail.

If you can tell me what other companies could recruit, onboard, train and house 12,000 people in a matter of weeks, during a pandemic then fire away, other than Sitel of course.

Sitel are the other company involved in contact tracing, but they aren’t run by the grandson of a Tory PM, so no one cares.

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

The pest fix thing seems to have been a complete **** up by the SCCL from what I can gather. It seems as though they somehow made it on the list by accident and landed a juicy contract, which they managed to mess up. In fairness to them though, they do seem to be trying to put it right. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t that big, but will no doubt be looked at in more detail.

If you can tell me what other companies could recruit, onboard, train and house 12,000 people in a matter of weeks, during a pandemic then fire away, other than Sitel of course.

Sitel are the other company involved in contact tracing, but they aren’t run by the grandson of a Tory PM, so no one cares.

There are many and numerous accounts, and not all from the guardian, of contact tracers hardly getting any training at all. That whole thing is a colossal screw up. But the main point about Serco is same as for pandemic itself, there had been a litany of failure and poor service - including law breaking - over several years and contracts and nothing was ever done about it. So they are simply reaping the fall out from that. But Serco will have a good christmas anyway so that's something.

I'm curious as to how these lists of firms and individuals were complied. I'm thinking what should happen is that firms with something to offer get in contact and outline a clear plan of action and a method and timeline for what they can deliver. It's not just some guy rings up like a volunteer and says, yozzer hughes-like, gizza a job, i can do that. Maybe I'm being naive, though.

Anyway, we don't know all the ins and outs of this Alex Bourne story, but by his own account, we can piece some of the details together. He messages Matt Hancock, saying he can supply ppe. Hancock refers him to the dhsc. In conversation with the department, it's decided Bourne can't actually deliver ppe at all for whatever reason but they need these medical vials "very urgently" so its decided he'll do that instead.

Now, whether anything untoward actually went on there, or whether you deem it a non story or not, that actually seems rather odd to me. In Bournes own account, it seems he had no real clear plan at all, just a vague notion that he could do something and get a piece of the action. And the dhsc facilitated him, even though he didn't have the necessary facilities starting out and this equipment was required "very urgently." Just seems strange, not nearly up there in Pest Fix territory, but i can certainly see why it would raise questions all the same.

3d4life

From the previous thread



The answer may be found somewhere in https://deepmind.com/blog/article/alphafold-a-solution-to-a-50-year-old-grand-challenge-in-biology


...

declanflynn

A sizeable number of The Tories have gone all Rita Ora and had a fair stab at defeating themselves dis evening

Sudden Valley

TBH i would hope that a few countries test the various vaccines before Ireland starts administering its chosen vaccine. They obviously all seem safe based on the limited clinical trials but still I wouldn't wish us to be the guinea pigs for a large scale rollout just yet. Very good news though.

robinph

Sudden Valley wrote: »

TBH i would hope that a few countries test the various vaccines before Ireland starts administering its chosen vaccine. They obviously all seem safe based on the limited clinical trials but still I wouldn't wish us to be the guinea pigs for a large scale rollout just yet. Very good news though.

They are not limited trials.

Just the same as normal, other than less time before the trials arguing about funding, if it's worth doing, who's going to pay for it, what colour box should we put it in, whose buying the coffee today, do we still have that funding, what year is it now, does that disease still even exist now we've been arguing about some irrelevance for 6 years?

That and they run the trails in parallel so doing the various stages at the same time to speed things up, and the vaccines themselves are based on things that had been previously developed for other viruses so were sitting around waiting for a reason to exist.

Nothing has been limited or rushed, just done efficiently.

PommieBast

Sudden Valley wrote: »

TBH i would hope that a few countries test the various vaccines before Ireland starts administering its chosen vaccine. They obviously all seem safe based on the limited clinical trials but still I wouldn't wish us to be the guinea pigs for a large scale rollout just yet. Very good news though.

The one part of the clinical trials that seems to have been compressed if not outright skipped is how less-than-ideal handling conditions affects shelf life. If i was to take the vaccine tomorrow i would want it to be the one stored at -70 and not fridge temperature.

robinph

PommieBast wrote: »

The one part of the clinical trials that seems to have been compressed if not outright skipped is how less-than-ideal handling conditions affects shelf life. If i was to take the vaccine tomorrow i would want it to be the one stored at -70 and not fridge temperature.

I belive that the -70 thing is purely down to that is what they ran with the first set of trials at, as they do with all vaccines, so that is what they have to store it at. The Moderna one is based on the same technology but was trialed from a warmer freezer so that is what it has to be stored in.

Don't think there is any reason for the Pfizer one to need the - 70, except they haven't yet run the trial at that temperature.

theological

Sudden Valley wrote: »

TBH i would hope that a few countries test the various vaccines before Ireland starts administering its chosen vaccine. They obviously all seem safe based on the limited clinical trials but still I wouldn't wish us to be the guinea pigs for a large scale rollout just yet. Very good news though.

You can't have it both ways.

Personally - I would take this tomorrow if I could. The regulator aren't just going to approve something for the sake of it.

If we want to get back to any meaningful form of normality in 2021 it requires people to get behind these vaccination efforts.

A Dub in Glasgo

Absolutely true, such a pity then the govt here it would rather grandstand and big up Brexit than ensure the confidence is there in the population for a vaccination programme