There's no reason why existing PPE suppliers couldn't have approached new manufacturers themselves in China or elsewhere themselves. The rush to contract with newly set up companies was knee jerk panic and resulted in massively overpriced products and lots of junk that couldn't actually be used as it wasn't to standard. I believe the parliamentary committee investigation into this came to the same conclusion.
I agree. I've never said they shouldn't be punished. I'll just echo what someone else said in here a few weeks ago, none of the existing parties represent my values. It's all a bit Animal Farm - "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." "The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig and from man to pig again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." " Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments." Take your pick.
You're saying very little that I disagree with. I just can't waste energy on hating a government that I have no feelings for in the first place.
I'm just frustrated that in spite of the corruption and the incompetence the voting public give them a free pass and we'll just get more of the same again and again. Indifference equals inaction. There will be no improvement unless people are engaged.
I don't have much interest in politics but I always vote and I have even been on a protest march (a long time ago). I'm not sure how I can influence how individuals in the government give out contracts or receive cash for questions. Does complaining on social media after the fact change anything? Pressure can be put on MP's by their respective constituents as and when but other than using your vote to choose the least loathsome candidate, what else do you suggest?
most of the questionable contracts were to procure PPE and were disasters and didn't secure usable PPE . .
So according to the Guardian, a quarter of all Tory MPs have a second job (90). From Labour, only 3. I think it has clearly been shown that social media has a big effect on election outcomes, so yes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/peters...outcome-of-the-2020-election/?sh=3e9ff46926f6 https://www.mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/story/11459/ http://www.princeton.edu/~fujiwara/papers/SocialMediaAndElections.pdf https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/8603...d-mean-a-nightmare-for-democr?t=1636476986857 Almost every big news story on tv and in the papers features how people responded to the event on twitter and other SM platforms. If people are complaining about it on social media, political parties are increasingly taking notice of it, in a similar way to how they react to polling.
I haven't seen it broken down into components so I can't comment as to which contracts procured which equipment. I do remember a batch coming into the country that was completely unusable. Hopefully lessons have been learned and we maintain a proper stockpile going forward.
Bearing in mind social media users are heavily weighted in the younger age bracket and tend to be almost exclusively Labour and,/or left leaning and we've had a Conservative government now for over a decade, the information in that link isn't proving to be borne out. I'd love to see the posts that got everyone voting Conservative. While individuals in politics do get a sense of what is acceptable behaviour or speech, they are just as likely to go against popular opinion on social media as to go with it. How many racist faux pas has Dianne Abbott made? How long did it take for Dominic Cummings to go and even then it wasn't over the Barnard Castle trip outrage but internal issues? If people need Twitter to tell them how to think and who to vote for, they should have their vote withdrawn
Unfortunately idiots are allowed to vote. Many people vote because they've already voted a certain way or because their parents voted for that party and don't know/care as to whether that particular party's policies/actions will be beneficial to them. For many the way they vote is about tribalism as much or more than anything else.
Imo the best way to either accelerate cronyism or prevent it is to as policy change the government every 4 years irrespective of how good they are.
Very much this. I know far too many that would vote for a donkey if it wore their preferred colour ribbon!
Politics is a dirty business. People hate Tories for lots of reasons, one of them being because they are so unrelatable and out of touch with the common man. Unfortunately while Labour continue to have such a weak leader and poor quality of candidates that they insist on putting front and centre, they will remain unelectable. We need a new party, the People's Party or something like that
at the last GE 2 sitting Tory MP's couldn't stand again due to a sex scandal and a sexual assault charge so the local parties both put up the MP's wives as candidates and they won the seats , Don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of this countries body politic .
This kind of apologist garbage annoys the **** out of me tbh. There’s no way Starmer would have overseen many of the numerous corrupt actions this Govt has taken since 2019. From removal of voting rights for over 2 million poor people to solve a non existent problem, to increasing the tax burden on our poorest and lowest earners whilst simultaneously giving the banks a 5% profit gain. As for the PPE scandal, there’s a whole host of them who should end up behind bars.
The extreme rump of the tories have taken control so they are as bad as this Belarus president. Lunatics like mogg and johnson and Gove etc would be out at the edge.
