Quote Originally Posted by swaledale View Post

There are many issues,

1. People set up companies to benefit from this, with no prior experience of making or even supplying PPE.
2. By all accounts there were companies with the required knowledge and experience who were able and willing to supply PPE that were ignored.
3. Many of those that were awarded contracts took advantage of the situation and took an excessive commission merely for being the go between, which is where Mone's claim to be "just trying to help" falls apart, a multi millionaire" just trying to help her country" does not charge excessive commission for doing so, indeed if she and her husband were being truly altruistic, they would have done at cost.
4. The vast majority of contracts awarded via the VIP lane went to contacts who were in some way connected to the Tory party - even related in some cases which suggests very strongly that it was seen as a way to dish out favours or in other words corruption.
5. Mone and her husband set up the company in such a way as their involvement was not readily apparent and when the Gruaniad revealed that she was, they lied and had their lawyers deny any such involvement. She was at the time a Tory member of the House of Lords, so not declaring a connection was deceit pure and simple.


In summary, this is a classic case of greedy people taking advantage of a situation to make a fast buck, aided and abetted it seems by some in government. It stinks of corruption and mismanagement but then thats what the Tories have been doing to this country for the last 13 years or so, ripping people off and handing out favours to connections.

The scale of losses on PPE is estimated at around £11 billion, even in a crisis situation where one might expect some mistakes, thats a lot of wasted money.
It's also true that some Labour and Lib Dem politicians put forward companies to the VIP lane "committee" or whatever it was. None of them got a contract. That might also be true of other parties.

The fact that only those put forward by Tories got contracts stinks and is possibly yet another transgression of Law.