Forum menu
All that money for comms advisers and they still do these 'the public will understand once I've got my side across' interviews....have they learnt nothing from Prince Andrew!?!
Annoyed with the BBC for giving them the airtime though
Anyone who doesn't want to see the whole Covid PPE VIP investigated by an independent with powers to access whatever is needed, the ability to mandate attendance to a public inquiry AND recommend prosecutions is either:
A - someone who benefitted
B - a right-wing shill
C - a gullible idiot
If you don't want to see it this, which one are you - or offer another option.
And, I want to hear Starmer bring this up - manifesto pledge would be good.
The protestations about how she didn’t get the money were absolutely laughable!!
Notice how she used the term that her family didn't benefit from the 'cash'... well, no, I suppose they don't make suitcases big enough for all the dough you've robbed. Terms they'll have been told specifically to use for their ambiguity.
Meanwhile, Vorders and her crew have done the math and worked out that VIP lane contracts as a whole overpaid on stock to the tune of £925 million... of your money.
The tiny bit of the interview that I've seen she doesn't come out well.
I thought I'd tuned in to a rerun of Taggart by mistake.
Clearly, a bit like Andy, she's not great at accepting 'keep your head down' as solid PR advice in a crisis.
Her last PR team dumped her, presumably this lot are happy to take her money and not try so hard to talk her out of it.
(at least in part) to luck
luck... and exploitation, and fraud, and other wrongdoings filed under the conceit of entitlement. Will we become the third country to investigate Barrowman for fraud? And yet we elevate these people. To the clink is the suitable place.
Nothing int he DM story about when the company was formed and the closeness of that to the contract being awarded, and not front page news either, same goes for the express.
.
I think if you look into who facilitates these company formations, many will have strong links to people in government, either as previous employed there or still employed there. Also in the likes of the DM,Express and Telegraph, you will find familiar names when it comes to setting up shell companies in tax havens.
.
Hard for the public to prosecute the corrupt, when the corrupt are the ones writing the laws.
And, I want to hear Starmer bring this up – manifesto pledge would be good.
Wes Streeting was on the programme later on and said Labour will appoint someone with specific responsibility to recover the money when in Govt. Rachel Reeves has also stated the same in the past. How realistic this is now is anyones guess. That money will be long gone.
Wes Streeting was on the programme later on and said Labour will appoint someone with specific responsibility to recover the money when in Govt
Starmer will have backed away from that by tea time.
Also, who is getting paid for the storage of all this excess PPE?
The most depressing thing about this whole shit show is that there are people in power/with contacts whose reaction to a global pandemic is gosh nice little earner here.
Aw poor thing, she has now said that she is a little bit sorry,and with the government being in such a shambles at the time(her words),how can anyone blame her for misunderstanding what was required.
Also, who is getting paid for the storage of all this excess PPE?
I remember reading a newspaper article that outlined details of how one of the companies that provided a whole load of sub-standard PPE (at vast cost) was then awarded a contract (also at vast cost) to destroy it all. Investigative journalism similar to that which has now exposed Mone.
She's a BILF.... A Baroness I'.....
IGMC
"I don't honestly see there is a case to answer. I can't see what we have done wrong."
She’s a BILF….
Not even with a stunt cock !!
Not even with a stunt cock !!
Miss out the "to" & add an "ed" at the end is what redthunder might have been alluding to?
Not from the interview but from the story a few days back, what blew my mind was that at one point she was offered 2-tier rich person's justice, was literally told "we can make a deal where if you pay back some but not all of the money you've stolen we will drop the criminal charges", and refused, and now holds that up as part of her defence. "How dare they offer to let me off easy! That proves mumble mumble something not my fault somehow"
Just the sheer temerity of being offered a get out of jail card that most people would never get purely because her crime was big enough to qualify and she is rich, and going HOW UNFAIR! FOR ME!
We need a minor change to the law on government contract procurement, vis:
Those found to have profiteered or de-frauded the state shall forfeit the proceeds and all but one modest property (compliant with the benefits rulings on spare rooms) and just enough income to live on without needing to trouble the state for benefits whilst of working age.
Those of retirement age shall have their one modest property as above and state pension as an income.
Fleeing the country shall result win seizure and forfeiture of all property and monies within the state, and selling during the period of an investigation shall have the proceed held in escrow until such time as guilt or innocence has be demonstrated.
She seems to be trying (unsuccessfully) to be playing the role of passive victim in this, and all these questions and press intrusions are a disproportionate response to a little white lie and a few million that she has got her hands on yet.
Hope she and her grifting hubby get all they deserve - loss of peerage and other honours, repayment of funds including interest, and lengthy spells at His Majesty's finest prisons.
Just watching the interview now on BBC 24... staggering!! Endlessly she replies "it's not my cash... it's my husbands", like that makes it all alright. Horrible corrupt (morally and financially!) couple. Amazing how she tries to turn the interview into making it all the fault of the press that she HAD to lie originally. The husband revealed they made £60m profit on a £202m contract...**** ME! There should be a plenty others up there in court, but it will never happen.
But what crime has actually been committed? As i said a couple of pages back, if there's any trail of evidence that they knew it didn't meet standards and sold it as compliant then yes, but otherwise? Lying isn't a crime of itself, only in certain places / to certain people - not the press for sure.
it's crappy procurement practises that are being justified by the emergency, it's sleazy back channels for mates, it's profiteering (IDK margins on PPE but 60M out of a 205M deal for basically being a distributor / middle man seems high - I spent 10 years in chemical distribution where there was high tech service value add and we didn't make anywhere near 30%. It's corruption, for sure but will anything be done about that - I doubt it.
Didn't the husband say that the 30% profit was justified because "it was an incredibly high risk procurement contract because if we didn't deliver the goods we didn't get paid". Unlike other procurement contracts where you get given some money and it's up to you whether you want to actually supply anything...
Some truth in that ^
It's one of those where you are being asked to use your contacts to see if you can buy something at a time that everyone else is trying to buy it. So even if you do want to supply you may invest a lot of time in discussions, travelling to audit factories, whatever, only to finally then be told either there isn't any to supply to you, it's been bought by someone else - or alternatively your buyer has managed to get it elsewhere. And all your time and effort gets nothing. Not unusual to be on a kind of 'retainer' on these sorts of situations so you still get paid something for the effort you made.
I couldn't watch it all, it just makes me too angry.
That said.
It's interesting that they have come out of hiding. I think they see that matters are reaching a critical mass and are attempting to control the narrative.
From what I saw they made a big mistake giving this interview. It only served to show them for what they are, spivs that sought to make money at a time of national emergency. When most of us were trying to do the right thing and look after family, friends and neighbours, this filth saw it as a money making opportunity.
They f******* disgust me.
From what I saw they made a big mistake giving this interview.
It was never going to be anything else. All I could think was ‘Slough Pizza Express’
ratherbeintobago
Full Member
From what I saw they made a big mistake giving this interview.It was never going to be anything else. All I could think was ‘Slough Pizza Express
Yes! I believe the phrase is... Prince Andrew has been in touch to say he thought the interview, went really well.
But what crime has actually been committed?
Probably none, but that's not really the point here. As a member of the House of Lords you should act with honour and integrity, she falls well short of this and used her position for blatant financial gain. She should be expelled from the House of Lords with immediate affect for outright lying!
"As a member of the House of Lords you should act with honour and integrity"
But whaaaat!!!
Has anyone with a brain in the last decade thought that honours, lordships and the like are anything but a reward for a successful grift?
Literally every honour above maybe MBE,OBE has been give to ****s for decades - even sports stuff is totally bollox, Sir Brad, Sir Hoy...Cough cough bollox - sorry but wtaf
But when it gets to the Baroness Scumbag Wartime Profiteer on Bra and yes, Lord Lobby of Chipping Entitled then it really shows how the only members here are us and its as fully paid up members of District 12
Got to love how she hasn't attended the Lords for what, years, due to "needing time to clear her name".
Just hot long does it take to arrange a TV interview?
She's been in hiding in some very posh mansion in some very posh part of the world, simple as that.
I forgot to mention earlier, another sign that they know things are coming to a head is that they have given up hitting anyone so much as asking them the time of day with the threat of litigation.
Hence the move to attempt to control the narrative as what the investigative journalists have been saying is patently true.
But what crime has actually been committed?
Fraud, false representation, false accounting, tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud, bribery....
(all "allegedly" of course - innocent until proven guilty and all that...)
They are right about one thing, they are being used as scapegoats.
they made the mistake of being caught, but it was systematic profiteering during a national crisis, and it was facilitate by the current government.
don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend them - far from it. Absolute abuse of position and privilege but peel back the layers and the real disgrace is the system being set up and abused by those in power that enables it.
Fraud, false representation, false accounting, tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud, bribery….<br />(all “allegedly” of course – innocent until proven guilty and all that…)
I do hope so, and I know that there's some heavyweight investigations, but I suspect they'll be just the right side of some very shonky laws because that's how it always goes.
Also aside from £60m profit during a national emergency being ok, the irony of Barrowman saying he pays his taxes, except the money was put into a trust fund, in the Isle of Man. Go figure. I am delighted they did this interview and dug a deeper hole.
Peter Jukes, Bylinetimes and of course the national institution Carol Vorderman are worth checking out on this. Jukes thinks Barrowman has incriminated himself further by decieving Companies Huose by saying he controlled Medpro whilst not being recorded at Companies House. Perfect!
I was skeptical of Keunsberg doing this interview. Maitless or Derbyshire would have skewered them. However they wouldnt have got the gig and Keunsberg let them hang themselves, whilst not saying anything to damage the NCA case. She couldnt mention the question of substandard kit or misrepresentation so just went after profiteering, which isnt a crime. First time in a long time she has gained my respect.
Hopefully the trust fund tax dodge will come under scrutiny from this.
Sir Brad, Sir Hoy…
They are not in the Lords and have no political clout.