Cash For Questions and other COVID era songs : a different 9/11

Corruption - exploiting ones position of power and others vulnerabilities for ideological and personal gain, causing harm to society and eviscerating healthy governance.

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Storage of millions of useless face masks, and other PPE: the Uniserve Contract 

The Good Law Project has helped to uncover the current tide of corrupt crony capitalism by taking this Government to court to reveal the details that have been deliberately obscured by this government. 
One example of the many series of dodgy contracts for useless PPE kit was with Uniserve, a British Logistics Company, with no previous experience in health care, based in Kent. Uniserve rushed out in early 2020 to contract for PPE from China, PPE that turned out to be inadequate - it could not be used.

By late summer, the volume of useless PPE that Uniserve was importing started to cause problems. Warehouses were full and shipping containers stacked up at Felixstowe, blocking our largest port. 
James Kemball, a logistics company owned by Uniserve, got the job of relocating the PPE. 15,000 shipping containers were moved. That is 15,000 truck trips. As a topical aside, what's the carbon foot print of that inept exercise?

Paying for the same 'mistake' many times.
The government is now paying James Kemball for those 15,000 containers to be stored on at least two plots, covering 10 acres, at Port of Ipswich. Thousands of containers are also sitting at Port of Tilbury, a field in Mendlesham and on a strip of rented land opposite Melton railway station. 
The proceeds of a corrupt contract scattered across the land, to flow into private profits. Money that could be better deployed funding HEPA filters in schools for example, as part of better management of the epidemic. What a double waste.

How many children will be exposed to SARSCOV2 in unsafe schools? How many will die, how many will go through long covid, how many will be traumatised by the confusion, by the possibility that they spread the virus to a friend, a relative or any other who became seriously ill? There is a link between these harms and those dodgy contracts.

We have an elected dictatorial Government, secure in an 80 seat majority, in the House of Commons, awarding dodgy contracts for useless kit to friendly associates, a government that cruelly withdrew £20 a week Covid uplift' from Universal Credit recipients for no good reason, even as the epidemic continues apace, with circa 1000 deaths from Covid every week, a government that is now paying a subsidiary of the dodgy contracted party Uniserve to store the useless PPE kit, a government that is basically funnelling public cash into private coffers, for doing nothing much beyond being a friend of the relevant Government ministers, or a party donor.

Waste and tragically, in the context of the Covid Epidemic in the UK, part of the  guarantee of more spread of the virus. Layers of harm.

The damage to our democracy, to our people, to our nations health and safety - is the profit gouged by this behaviour really worth it?

Private Eye's special report, in the form of a podcast 'Profits of Doom', and also reported in issue 1560, suggests that for those on the take, and on the make, it certainly is.

"Richard Brooks and Solomon Hughes cover both ends of the Covid wealth gap - from the companies making mega-millions out of lazy procurement processes all the way to the workers having their wages levelled down rather than up. Free major government contract with every download!"

We all know, of course, that for those who have died, who have contracted Long Covid, those whose businesses have collapsed due to mismanagement of the epidemic on these islands, their families and for the low wage working population in general, the costs are not worth it.

The Tip of The Corruption Iceberg.

Another Angry Voice published a short list of crony capitalist 'entrepreneurial' activity: their article lists a long list of this corruption,
"Here's just a fraction of it:

🔵 Tory MP Owen Paterson was caught red-handed breaking the ministerial code of conduct by lobbying for his corporate paymasters like Randox within government. Randox got £480 million in Covid contracts, but they horribly botched a load of test results by sending the all clear to tens of thousands of people who were actually infected.
🔵 Instead of accepting the findings of the Paterson investigation Boris Johnson ordered Tory MPs to vote through extraordinary legislation designed to tear down the parliamentary standards authority, and let Paterson off scot free. 
🔵 Boris Johnson has been caught up in multiple scandals himself, dating back to before he even became Prime Minister. There was the six figure salary paid to his mistress Jennifer Arcuri for "IT lessons" without any declaration of their relationship as one of his registered interests; the dodgy loan he received to decorate his Downing Street flat; his false declaration of a luxury holiday in Mustique that was funded by a Tory Party donor; and his recent holiday in the luxury Spanish villa of Zac Goldsmith, who Johnson gifted a lifetime peerage in the unelected House of Lords after he lost his parliamentary seat in the 2019 General Election.
🔵 On the subject of the House of Lords, all sixteen of the Tory Party's former treasurers have been handed unelected lifetime peerages in the House of Lords, after having donated an average of £3 million each to the Tory operation!
🔵 Tory politicians have been handing out untendered PPE contracts like sweeties, to such an extent that former Health Secretary Matt Hancock's former pub landlord and his sister even got lucrative contracts. Hancock 'accidentally' failed to include his 20% stake in his sister's PPE contract winning company on the register of MPs interests!
🔵 Another of the major winners of this no-tender PPE bonanza was Meller Designs, which was a fashion designer until they bagged £160 million worth of PPE contracts, boosting their annual profits from £144k to £13 million. The owner is a regular Tory Party donor called David Meller, who personally lobbied the unelected Tory minister James Bethell for PPE contracts.
🔵 P14 Medical was turned from a failing company into an absolute cash cow via a whopping £276 million in untendered PPE contracts. The owner Steve Dechan, a Tory party councillor in Stroud, used his profits from the Tory PPE bonanza to buy himself a luxurious £1.5 million country house in the Cotswolds. 
🔵 A company called Clipper Logistics got in on the untendered PPE bonanza with a £1.3 million contract. No surprise that the owner of the company is a major Tory Party donor called Steve Parkin.
🔵 Another major Tory donor called Haraldur Agustsson bagged over £100 million worth of untendered PPE contracts across his companies Globus Shetland and Alpha Solway.
🔵 The corporate outsourcing giant Serco was lavished with at least £200 million worth of Test and Trace contracts. Their CEO is former Tory MP and grandson of Winston Churchill Nicholas Soames.
🔵 Former Tory DWP minister Iain Duncan Smith got in on the private medical pilfering, chairing a government taskforce that produced a report advising the government to give the green light to non-alcoholic hand gel, while earning a £25,000 per year salary from Britain's largest producer of non-alcoholic hand gel (a salary he "forgot" to declare as an interest in the report).
🔵 More than a quarter of Tory MPs boost their salary of £82,000 (plus lavish expenses) through the practice of second-jobbing, and perhaps the most egregious is Ben Bradley who claims salaries for 60 hours per week on top of his MPs duties. 
The average MP works 69 hours a week, so if Bradley's not shirking his responsibilities as an MP, we're expected to believe that he's putting in 129 hours a week at work, leaving him less than five and a half hours per day for sleeping, eating, travel, leisure, shopping, personal hygiene, and family life all combined!
🔵 At least 90 Tory MPs also boost their incomes by over £10,000 per year as private landlords, and many of these exploitative landlord MPs have repeatedly voted against proposals to regulate the private rental sector, and to make private rented accommodation "fit for human habitation".
🔵 34 Tory MPs have accepted political donations from firms linked to the Russian oligarch Viktor Fedotov, whose dodgy dealings were revealed in the Pandora Papers. Not a single one of these donations has been returned.
🔵 The Pandora Papers also revealed that the unelected Tory lord Paul Deighton failed to declare a load of secret offshore investments. He was the Tory party's PPE Tsar who oversaw so many of the astounding no-tender PPE contracts detailed above!
🔵 Former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has been raking in literally £millions for legal consultancy work, which included representing the British Virgin Islands tax haven, while arguing in parliament against closing tax loopholes!
🔵 In 2004 Cox bought a £535,000 Battersea flat, relying on public funds to pay his £1,750 a month mortgage repayments. He now rents the property out for about £1,000 a week, living in a different London flat and claiming £1,900 a month in rent!
🔵 Former Prime Minister David Cameron was caught lobbying the Tory government on behalf of a company called Greensill Capital, who were paying him absolutely vast consultancy fees. The government then over-rode their own £50 million limit on emergency Covid loans to award Greensill a whopping £400 million, £350 million of which was provided directly to Greensill subsidiaries and business interests. Then Greensill went bankrupt a matter of months later!

🔵 Multiple MPs from both sides of parliament have been taking £thousands worth of freebies and junkets from gambling companies and the gambling lobby then making pro-gambling statements in parliament. The worst offender is Tory MP Laurence Robertson who earns £24,000 per year (at £200 per hour) who argued against stronger regulation of the gambling industry in parliament, then had the barefaced cheek to claim that there was no conflict of interest.
And this lot is just one part of the visible tip of the Tory corruption iceberg!"

Johnson Lied, people died.

Johnson used the COP26 platform to declare that 'the UK is not remotely a corrupt country'. 

The UK is 'not remotely a corrupt country', says Boris Johnson. pic.twitter.com/zFubXGZu2V

— LBC (@LBC) November 10, 2021

His careful use of the phrase 'the country' was a deliberate evasion. His choice of wording was designed to enrage people who support his Government and annoy everyone who has a deep loyalty and affection for The Country. A lot of people would of course take exception to the accusation that the country is corrupt as a whole. And they'd be correct.

A classic gaslighting ploy. A deliberate deflection.

The issue is not that the country is corrupt. 

The issue is that many members of the Conservative Party in Government (and beyond) are engaged in blatantly corrupt behaviour. Johnson also suggested that there are rules governing MPs lobbying and consultancy work, and that those found to have 'broken the rules' must be held accountable.

Here's an idea.

Make all those MPs and their associates who have extracted such great wealth from the public purse hand back every penny they have 'made' to their local constituencies councils, bar them from political and Government positions and bar them from directorships of companies for life.

Make the companies that 'donated' or 'employed' these MPs match their payments of their 'consultancy fees'  and 'salaries' to each MPs local council social care services, and bar them from political lobbying for ever.

Cameron should never be able to lobby Government ever again. He is reputed to have taken £7.2 million in salary, bonuses and shares from his involvement with Greensill. He must be made to return every penny to the public purse.

Back in February 2010, before the election which made him the Prime Minister Cameron had this to say:

"We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism.

"So we must be the party that sorts all this out. Today it is a £2bn industry that has a huge presence in parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over 100 times a week by lobbyists.

"I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people's worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works."

International Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan on Sky News, 8th November 2021 cited in Private Eye, issue 1560, November 2021.

"I don't think we should have a removal of the ability to maintain or have a second job, because it brings a richness to our role as members of Parliament."

Choice of words, eh?

AI : Another layer of Influence.

Savige Javid : The Bankers Banker.

Prevention, in this case, is the cure.

Parliament should make 'the rule's going forward much more robust, including making this kind of corruption a criminal offence, with custodial sentences mandated for for such behaviour.

There's no need to apply such harsh obligations in retrospect. The return of all these corrupt profits would suffice for now.

My Little Crony

There's a rather superb website, a clever resource that is tracking the links and webs of crony capitalists operating within this English Government 
My Little Crony : take a while to play with it, and study it. The Good Law Project is also unearthing much of this information and Bylinetimes, Double Down News and a few others are reporting it for the public's awareness. Most news media are avoiding the matter.
What will future historians write of the failures of this Parliament and the British Corporate Media to hold this government to account? What will they say about the population that let that happen?

Corruption, legal or otherwise is an affront to democracy.

For any politician to take money from a business, or any other sponsor, and then attempt to influence legislation or contracts for that business or sponsor is fundamentally anti-democratic.

Crony Capitalism is fundamentally anti-democratic and obviously corrupt, and more importantly, in the middle of a health crisis it undermines public services at every turn because attention to the detail required to maintain best possible delivery of those services is diverted to maintaining illicit cashflow into private hands, to covering it up, to gaslighting the public in order to avoid accountability. This is beyond criminal, it is institutionalised psychopathy.

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 NEW SONG - Cash For Questions
Chorus :
Cash for questions, cash for influence, cash for peerages, personal gain!
Verses: 
The second job is bringing in the loot, sneaky, underhand, disguising the truthuse your position to rig the game,influence and effluent, pour it down the drain!
Elected on a premise, to improve societyduty of care, probity and honesty,legislators should not skate on thin icetheir responsibility is to never lie.
When crony capitalists rake in the cashwhen their 'services' fail and crashlike Dido Harding, Randox and PattersonPPE in storage, we can see the pattern.
And people get hurt, and people die, so much harm, and we all know whyit's a rigged game, voters always loseit's a rigged game, the honest ones must  now choose
let's break it down, bring them downcorruption, bullying, it's all evil.let's break it down, send them downcorruption, bullying, it's all evil.~
~Here's the  thing I see : it is that Crony Capitalism, Cash for Questions, Cash for Peerages, Corporate Donations to MPs to influence legislation and policy, Corporate and Ideological Think Tanks funded by Oligarchs (Tax Payers Alliance for example) and Corporate Lobbyism undermines democracy, it demeans the vote, it dismisses the electorate and it is reckless abandonment of duty of care by all involved. 

Not every MP, not even a majority of MPs are involved. Yet those who do not stoop so low seem loathe to root this adverse behaviour out. They bleat about the erosion of public trust in parliament, but do nothing meaningful that would prevent this abuse of power, let alone punish it.

This behavioural dynamic - the corruption of a few and the feeble response of the many - denies the democratic mandate of the electorate. It undermines justice. It pollutes everything it touches. It imposes immense costs on the population, the tax paying working class, in terms of resources diverted from serving our genuine needs.

This behaviour causes great harm.
That said, the practice is as old as Magna Carta itself, which was a medieval  attempt to institutionalise the power of the robber barons, who controlled trade and thus generated the wealth of the State the monarchy absorbed. Magna Carta was an early version of Corporate Lobbying assuming dominance of the body politic, rather than an effort to assert Freedom for citizens, as it has so often been misread and misrepresented as. 

So it goes within all violence hierarchies. If my readers do not recognise the violence of this hierarchy, I suggest assessing the non-avoidance of fatalities and chronic disease as an act of institutional violence. A Plague enhancing Government. Medieval in attitude, scope and effect.  
21st Century
This 21st Century is calling for genuine democratic regulation of everything this culture does that causes harm. Externalised Costs is the umbrella term for much of this. 

This call for democratic and legislative regulation of harmful practice is necessary in order to prevent the harms being caused by the way the industrial system is operating. That would be a healthy movement.  The only way through this, safely, must start with ruthless honesty, accountability and for those who are causing deliberate harm, sanctions.

I am merely a grass roots singer, and old man, poor and toothless. Justice can only be done by a united grass roots. The best I can do is sing it like I see it in the hope that having a laugh at it all somehow helps to blow the veil off, clears the air a bit and helps build the bridges of solidarity we so desperately need.
Here are some of my topical Covid Era Songs of Corruption, reckless arrogance, negligent harm causation and avarice.
1. 64 Ways to Mislead a Country (50 ways to leave your lover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFDvUU-tHd0

Deliberately misleading, lying and manipulating known vulnerabilities - grooming a nation
2. Hit The Road Matt : (Hit the road, Jack)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr3j-_K6ASk
Deliberately down grading existing NHS Test & Trace, rather than expanding it from a good knowledge and experience baseline, to divert vast funding to private coffers, whilst enabling more spread of a dangerous virus. Herd Immunity.
3. Sajiid, Sajiid, Sajiid Javiiid! (Jolene)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0w69rxaNJE
A banker who sold bad debt as secure investments, sells spread of the virus as a health enhancer for the nation. Hoard Immunity.
4. The House They Call No. Ten (House of the Rising Sun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oe2P2blhEA
Catalogue of harm caused by English Conservative Government 2020/21 in relation to mismanagement of the epidemic on these islands.

5. Cash For Questions

Youtube version.

Abuse relationship.

In my view there is an Abuse Relationship, with the English Ruling class in the dominant abuser position,  unwilling to cease it's abusive behaviour even as it can see the harms it is causing, and the working class population at large exposed to those harms.

corruption: The Great Great Game

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Kindest regards

Corneilius

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