Facemask and pearls does it for me

The beak mask with the stuffed herbs for a heavy duty Jalfrezi clean out the day after the night before

I'm loving the plague masks... what annoyed me a bit was in one of Dan Brown's books, I envisaged that was a 'death mask' when I watched the film the death mask is just a plaster cast of the dead persons face.

There's some 'dark "blue velvet" hotness" of dancers in gas masks.

Does anyone else think that Boris Johnson's lockdown exit roadmap obliterated Scotland and Wales - commitment less, non specific, next week only planned, and 'same old, same old'. They both played their hands far too early and have offered nothing of any substance, who's writing Boris Johnson's speeches at the moment? I expect that Nicola Sturgeon will try and clarify a plan through to 1 day longer than England.. and Wales will do something similar, or pick up on the second home Tory comment about going on second home / self contained property holidays, and say no-one from England will be allowed into Wales until 2 days after

StuartDB wrote:I'm loving the plague masks... what annoyed me a bit was in one of Dan Brown's books, I envisaged that was a 'death mask' when I watched the film the death mask is just a plaster cast of the dead persons face.

There's some 'dark "blue velvet" hotness" of dancers in gas masks.

I know what you mean about Blue Velvet - very surreal and disturbing film. I can hear the candy coloured clown they call the Sandman now...

StuartDB wrote:Does anyone else think that Boris Johnson's lockdown exit roadmap obliterated Scotland and Wales - commitment less, non specific, next week only planned, and 'same old, same old'. They both played their hands far too early and have offered nothing of any substance, who's writing Boris Johnson's speeches at the moment? I expect that Nicola Sturgeon will try and clarify a plan through to 1 day longer than England.. and Wales will do something similar, or pick up on the second home Tory comment about going on second home / self contained property holidays, and say no-one from England will be allowed into Wales until 2 days after

Scotland is talking about going back to the Tier system - but we know at least nationally that didn't work. They had a slightly different system there but looking at their graph it seems to be much the same shape.

Opening schools in a big bang is going to be risky. We can see on the graph that last time it sent the R rate up and infections increased. And that was with the original Corona virus with an R0 = 3 not the Kent variant we have now with an R0 of 5.2. It's not only transmission between children that's the issue but also parents meeting up and of course being freed up to go to work etc.

Here's the latest data updated last night. You can see the infection rate fall has plateaued and sent R from 0.7 to 0.9 over the last few weeks. Looking at that I wouldn't be opening schools without taking extra action like staggering the start and supporting parents to stay at home. In fact I would wait for more vaccine coverage before going further. We've reached 25% with a first jab but they are mostly the elderly and retired who are not the main spreaders.

Today, the High Court will hear the Good Law Project's application for a cost capping order regarding judicial review of Government's decision to award huge PPE contracts to questionable counterparties.

Thet have been forced to apply for the order, which would cap the costs of both sides, after Government revealed it planned to spend an eye-watering £1 million defending the case.

The Good Law Project (GLP) would be liable for these enormous costs. And Ayanda and Pestfix - the fortunate VIP lane recipients of vast contracts to supply PPE much of which we now know to be unusable - are also asking for huge and inflated sums in costs. GLP are a small not-for-profit group, funded by donations from members of the public who cannot bear this kind of existential risk. 

The government know this and it would appear they want them silenced. What are the government scared of becoming exposed?

You might think it has something to do with the types of points coming to light. Last Monday, their case against Michael Gove showed that Dominic Cummings awarded a lucrative public contract to those he admitted were his ‘friends’. Last Friday, the High Court ruled Government had acted unlawfully by failing to publish details of COVID-19 contracts. 

The Good Law Project's judicial review of PPE contracts has already generated an admission from Government that it purchased £155m worth of facemasks that can’t be used by the NHS, fuelled countless newspaper headlines in the UK and around the world, and prompted repeated scrutiny in the House of Commons.

That it threatens to get right to the heart of the highly troubling "VIP lane" largely populated by Ministerial contacts is why the government are trying to cost GLP out of court and keep the details hidden. If there was nothing to hide why not just release the contract details required by law? Why the enormous effort to keep details hidden?

They even considered scrapping the system of Judicial Review entirely to stop government being held to account but because this system also exists in Scottish law and the Scottish Parliament would have to agree, this for now seems to be a step too far. Hence the effort to use legal costs to avoid scrutiny.

EDIT: Matt Hancock was asked on Today this morning what persuaded his mate and neighbour, the former pub landlord with no previous medical supply experience, to sign a contract for supply of medical grade vials to the NHS? Matt Hancock said he didn't know.

Or the government simply want to get on with saving lives instead of having to be concerned with things like this. If all these contracts went out to tender the death toll would surely be much worse, and the same people would be complaining that the government should not have wasted 4 months in a tender process, or the losers from the tender process would say the government picked favourite companies instead of it being based on a selection process, it is like offering a job to someone at a school. They must advertise it both internally and externally for a certain period of time, even if they have no intention of giving it to anyone apart from the person they already offered it to. The unselected tender companies, will behave like people made redundant wanting to prosecute their ex-employer saying it wasn't fair, it just makes everything expensive and time consuming.

Complete Straw Man argument Stuart. There was never any question of the contracts going out for tender and competative delays because the law was changed under the emergency provisions to speed up the process by simply choosing suitable suppliers. That's not the argument.

The argument was publishing the contract details as required by law within 30 days so we the public can see if they have chosen suitable suppliers. If contracts have been signed they are there in black and white so there is no excuse to delay publication. How long does it take to publish something you already have a copy of? Duh!

There was no excuse to delay for months on end and certainly no excuse to go to court and try to block publication and using nefarious means of massively inflated costs and spurious legal arguments to try and keep the information hidden from public view.

If it's all above board why go to these lengths to avoid publication? Wouldn't it be easier, tie less people up and take less time and money to simply publish the contracts? They are trying to hide the information for a reason obviously.

What we are allegedly discovering here is corruption at the heart of government. That the PPE supply has been used as a gravy train for ministers and their mates with a VIP fast lane set up for suppliers recommended by ministers which the National Audit Office say favoured these VIP selected companies over legitimate suppliers offering their services by 10:1. We are finding that these ministerial recommendations are dubious start ups, inexperienced, friends and party doner connections, way overpriced and providing product that can't be used and had to be thrown away.

If you really think it's fine for ministers and their mates to profit with their snouts in the public money trough producing unusable PPE that has to be discarded then that really is a strange position to take.

If you think that would be bad as I'm sure you do really and believe that everything is above board, as indeed you may, then it would be even stranger and perverse to support keeping the contract details hidden - surely you would want them to prove their actions to be legitimate with a simple action which would remove the reason for all criticism.

If they had published these back in April then no-one would have had any PPE because they would still be squabbling over it. just like if the ventilators and other equipment had gone out to tender then no-one would have got anything done.. we have agreements with collaborating where the interfaces are agreed and suitable - and everything then stops for years arguing about commercials - the whole lot of this has been shoved in to get it done. In China they built a hospital by knocking down peoples homes they were given what 2 or 3 hours to pack and go to their new dwellings, that is communism at work, is that acceptable? I think that is why China said they could do HS2 so cheaply as they are used to just smashing down to build, where-as the actual situation in the UK would be every mile involves 6 months of debate. it is definitely not what happened here.

In actual fact just as with the vaccines ? they didn't go out to tender - they set up a group of experts in the UK and a manufacturer - why are other companies not complaining that they could have made the vaccine quicker and cheaper if it had gone to tender? and none of that was scrutinised and debated - there was no BBC parliament programs, of course if this had failed I am sure you'd be on here rattling on about - the government wasted tax payers money and Papa Smurf's replacements will be calling for the government to step aside.

Didn't Tony Blair decide to go to war, totally on his own - even without the support of his own cabinet - they said "no - we need to debate this and scrutinise the evidence over 3 months", and he said actually it is just my decision.

One day we will find out Lady Di was assassinated, McCann were involved in Maddie disappearance, Elvis is still alive and Matt Hancock pushed through some emergency power to get equipment in, avoiding a lengthy tender process.
It is a shame the existing manufacturers didn't branch out as the whole world wanted it - so why didn't they take the initiative to go and sell abroad.
I watched Capricorn One yesterday, it certainly looked more realistic than the latest Mars pictures and videos

I do think now, we will be able to deal with these types of emergencies much better, as we know the most efficient ways to mobilise a variety of technical, chemistry, physics, testing and manufacturing - we probably were one of the best in the world in our reactions to this emergency, putting aside the sad loss of life - hopefully we will get our timing and protection of vulnerable people much better (my wife just received another COV ID letter from Papworth, saying she has another 6 weeks shielding - she has had one just about every month since March 2020, reminding her that it is not safe for her to mix with other people)

Do you remember September 2019 the Labour MPs wanted to know why the UK were buying and storing millions of body-bags, project fear assumed that on February 1st 2020 no-one would get any medicine because of Brexit - pretty obvious that they had a different purpose but we will need to think about stock piling lots of things like that now too, I addition to germinated seeds, clean soil, underground crops etc..

StuartDB wrote:If they had published these back in April then no-one would have had any PPE because they would still be squabbling over it. .

Where is your evidence for this peculiar notion? If it's all above board there would be no problem. How can your notion possibly be justified?

All the rest you've written is a bit random isn't it? I read it three times and could still could not make head nor trail of it.

Ok I get it that you think it's fine for government ministers to avoid scrutiny and break the law, stick their noses in the trough, and rip off the public. How would you know otherwise? Wouldn't you want to know?

80% of people vote the government to do the governing. Its only the 20% of people who didn't vote for the government, that want to know all the details.

I pay my income tax, ni, council tax, road tax and vat on purchases - and expect the government and councils to run the country with my money. If any of them are stealing it, then I expect the police to deal with it .. so you are right... I'm part if the 80% who don't care about things the government and civil servants are responsible for.

Lots of disappointed voters, the 20% want to spend their lives trying to see what 300 ministers and 40,000 civil servents are doing.. most people don't really care.
Some people are from mining families still blame Thatcher for Billy Elliot, Some people still blame The Sun newspaper for making headlines after the sad 98 deaths.

But most people just put petrol in the cars and drive to the shops, and try and work to put food on the table.

Did we get PPE? - Yes
Did we get tests? - Yes
Did we get vaccines? - Yes

Were corners cut? - we've all seen House of Cards, Line of Duty, The Shield etc etc - so I expect Yes..?

If this was big news, it would be in the news where it was 5 minutes on StephenNolan a few days ago and on Jeremy Vine, most callers didn't care and defended Matt Hancock, and even that Mega Left Owen journalist didn't really go on about it, like he normally does about anything Anti-Tory.

There's 2 arguments here and you are trying to win both.

1. They should have disclosed any contracts in a timely fashion. 30 days (most were within 47 days)

2. You also think the contracts should have gone through a Tender process? And seem to think a fair tender process could be completed in a timely fashion.. no chance in my opinion.

So the tenders I have been involved in start with an official 'request for information', which needs to be completed in order to be shortlisted for a tender. These usually start with an NDA and then are usually a vague specification of requirements and include supplier chain disclosure to ensure any computer system adheres to accessibility standards, that all companies in the supplier chain can provide evidence they adhere to the latest compliance rules for diversity and equality, modern day slavery etc etc And various ISO standards etc etc. The list goes on and on.

If you have an example of a tender process which only takes 4 weeks from start to finish let me know? It probably takes more than 4 weeks minimum to employ and induct a person into a company, even a supermarket shelf stacker.

I am sure you read the contract that AZ spent months agreeing with the EU (that took 3 months before they started to make anything for them? And they already had the product !!!)

Mr and Mrs Joe Public is just glad the government got the stuff we needed, and we don't care where we got it... as long as we haven't somehow funded domestic terrorism.

StuartDB wrote:80% of people vote the government to do the governing. Its only the 20% of people who didn't vote for the government, that want to know all the details.

Rubbish. 43.6% of the electorate voted conservative. The majority of voters voted for other parties. Wanting to know about wrongdoing shouldn't be politically motivated otherwise you become a very poor judge and you end up accepting corruption.

StuartDB wrote:I pay my income tax, ni, council tax, road tax and vat on purchases - and expect the government and councils to run the country with my money. If any of them are stealing it, then I expect the police to deal with it .. so you are right... I'm part if the 80% who don't care about things the government and civil servants are responsible for.

I get it that you don't want to know and would rather stick your head in the sand. That's clear. But how do you expect the police or anyone else to investigate wrong doing if the details are kept secret?

StuartDB wrote:There's 2 arguments here and you are trying to win both.

1. They should have disclosed any contracts in a timely fashion. 30 days (most were within 47 days)

2. You also think the contracts should have gone through a Tender process?

Wrong. There's only one argument - the first one about disclosure of contract details which, I'm glad you agree now, should be disclosed and within 30 days so details can be examined. Great.

Under the emergency provisions the law was changed to remove the need for a competitive tendering process. There is no legal requirement and I have never made that argument. It's you who keep making this straw man argument so you can rabbit on and try to fool others or possibly yourself mistakenly that you have a valid argument - you don't because it's not the argument - it's an irrelevant distraction.

So fortunately the rest of what you say can be ignored and we are left with the inconsistency or simplification in your position - that you have no argument against contract details being disclosed within 30 days so wrongdoing can be investigated. But you don't want to hear about it.

My friend is forced to travel around the world for work and he says that we don't even know about half of the cases, since most of the countries hide the real numbers. They say that only after 7 years life will back to normal.

Art the risk of annoying Stuart again...

A defiant Mr Hancock said yesterday that he would breach the law again if needed, claiming the documents were on average only a fortnight late.

But in a letter to Government lawyers, the Good Law Project revealed the Health Secretary’s estimate that contracts took an average of 47 days to be published did not include contracts which had still not been released.

They said that once unpublished contracts were included the figure skyrocketed to 78 days by November - almost three times the legal limit.

In a letter to the Government Law Department, lawyers Deighton Pierce Glynn, who represent the Good Law Project said they were concerned Mr Hancock was “denigrating” the High Court decision.

Matt Hancock repeated the same defence argument to the media which had been rejected by the court and claimed there hasn't been a shortage of PPE.

But Labour ’s Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth hit back, saying: “The National Audit Office said there was a national shortage of PPE.

“Hundreds of NHS staff died, nurses resorted to using bin bags. His response was to hand out contracts to his pub landlord who Whatsapped him.

“He bought 25 million masks from a pest control firm that can’t be used in the NHS that cost £59 million.

“A hedge fund in Mauritius was handed £252 million but again the face masks supplied couldn’t be used, and a jeweller in Florida was paid £70 million for gowns that couldn’t be used.

“Matt Hancock should apologise and commit to recovering taxpayers' money from companies who provided this duff PPE.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... 3-23552910

There's a good explainer impartial news video from TLDR here:

https://youtu.be/1oA5iwzsycc

It also makes the point that the reason this story is not as widely reported as you might expect for a government Minister found guilty in the High Court is that most of the press are right wing and it doesn't fit their narrative.

Why are you not complaining about the vaccines? And the risks the government took with tax payers money, blindly investing Billions of GBP in the hope we might get something?

There were a lot of brokers in these deals, and if they ask worked out no-one would talk about it. It's just hindsight politics and the government will be able to say 'lessons have been learned

No-one is going to prison.