Thread by @CLARESAMBROOK

Despite 64,000 #covid_19 deaths, health minister #MattHancock is delighted horse-racing restarts tomorrow. He’s MP for Newmarket, he’s funded by racing industry. Loves to ride racehorse owned by wife of £5m Tory donor billionaireLord Anthony Bamford 1/

https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1201402562731216897

News that horse-racing restarts Monday has appalled public health experts.
But delighted Sir Nicholas Soames, brother to Rupert Soames, CEO ofSerco, selected to run Ukgov #covid_19 tracing service. Churchill’s grandsons, they've kept up the dynasty’s devotion to horse-racing 2/

Sir Nicholas Soames, brother to Rupert Soames, CEO of Serco the company selected to run Ukgov #covid_19 tracing service, was thrilled to bits when Cheltenham Festival went ahead (against public health experts' grave warnings): 3/

Potential consequences of pressing ahead with Cheltenham Festival (251,684 racegoers 10-13March) might have been clear to Dido Harding who chairs "NHS Improvement" & is a Jockey Club Steward. Yet on 7 May she was appointed to oversee govt test&trace project. 4/

Serco's CEO Rupert Soames also loves a risk: He broke lockdown 11-13May to make a 1000 mile round-trip from London to his West Coast of Scotland shooting estate (Serco claimed he was meeting "key workers") 5/

Here's the lockdown-breaking trip that Serco CEO Rupert Soames took to "meet key workers" aka visit his shooting estate Camusrory where 15 stags & 30 hinds are shot each year. 6/

One reason for the lockdown rules was to protect people living in remote locations, and not to burden small GP practices & local hospitals.

Yet Rupert Soames, CEO of Serco, lead contractors on govt's tracing service, broke lockdown to visit his remote hunting estate 7/

Camusrory hunting estate owned by Rupert Soames, CEO of Serco, is accessible only by boat from Mallaig, a remote West of Scotland port (population 800) whose NHS provision is in crisis thanks to Tory cuts: 8/
pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highla…

Here is Serco CEO Rupert Soames on one of his hunting estate boats, Carnach, a Cheetah Marine catamaran

Perhaps not the boat used on his recent lockdown-breaking trip from London to his remote estate off the West Coast of Scotland's tiny Mallaig port. 9/

Rupert Soames :
• £5m-pa CEO of Serco, contractor leading govt's #covid_19 tracing service
• brother of Tory grandee Sir Nicholas Soames
• brother-in-law of old Etonian Tory MP Philip Dunne
• old Etonian friend of royalty (Prince William a page boy at Rupert's wedding) 10/

more coming