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Sam Bright Profile picture
@WritesBright
Oct 11, 2020 • 20 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
I have been trying to get a measure of the government's PPE procurement splurge for the past couple of months.

The amount of cash shelled out to private sector firms is mind-boggling.

Here's a thread of what I've uncovered with @BylineTimes 🔽
💵 £70 million contract for face masks
🟦 To a luxury packaging firm with £46k in the bank

bylinetimes.com/2020/10/08/70-…
💵 £135 million contract for ventilators
🟦 To an organisation owned by a company based on the Isle of Man, a tax haven
bylinetimes.com/2020/10/01/135…
💵 £81.8 million contracts for hand sanitiser and face masks
🟦 To firm owned by Tory donor who has given £60k to Conservative politicians and central party since 2009
💵 The firm has won a total of £148 million in PPE deals

bylinetimes.com/2020/09/18/fir…
💵 £93.8 million contract for face masks
🟦 To a firm that has directly donated £400k to the Conservative Party since 2016

bylinetimes.com/2020/09/16/com…
🟦 Government PPE deals won by Tory backers has reached at least £364 million

bylinetimes.com/2020/09/21/gov…
💵 £122 million contract for gowns
🟦 To a firm that had been in existence for 44 days

bylinetimes.com/2020/09/14/gov…
💵 Three contracts worth £52 million
🟦 To a dormant firm with one director

bylinetimes.com/2020/09/02/gov…
And what has all this paid for?

Well last month government data showed it had spent £364 million on coveralls, yet only 432,000 had been delivered to the NHS.

That's £840 per item delivered...

bylinetimes.com/2020/09/01/gov…
💵 Contracts worth £25 million+ combined
🟦 Handed to a company whose owner is listed in the Panama Papers
🟦 A small ISO standards firm
🟦 A fast fashion supplier

bylinetimes.com/2020/07/29/ano…
Labour is hosting an opposition day debate on procurement this Wednesday, following pressure put on Boris Johnson by @rushanaraali and @DawnButlerBrent.

The government has spent billions on these deals and we deserve to see the receipts
bylinetimes.com/2020/09/12/bor…
Not forgetting this (weird) one...

💵 £240 million contract for coveralls
🟦 To a firm linked to a religious sect
🟦 In total, contracts awarded to companies with ties to the sect have comfortably surpassed half a billion bylinetimes.com/2020/08/27/gov…
And this one from @StephenD_ 👇🏻👇🏻

💵 £25 million deal for face masks
🟦 To a lifestyle firm with no employees or trading history
bylinetimes.com/2020/07/02/lif…
If you want to make sure these contracts continue to be exposed, subscribe to @BylineTimes 👇🏻👇🏻

subscribe.bylinetimes.com
💥 NEW 💥

💵 Deals worth £2.3 BILLION
🟦 To a firm with 25 staff
🟦 That made an £800k profit last year
🟦 Yet virtually none of the contracts have been released by the Government

bylinetimes.com/2020/10/15/uk-…
Small but significant deal.

💵 Contract worth £300k for HR services on behalf of 'PPE Tsar' Lord Deighton
🟦 To a firm owned by a business associate of Deighton
🟦 Who also worked with him closely during the 2012 Olympics
bylinetimes.com/2020/10/20/lor…
💥 NEW 💥

💵 Contracts worth £148 million
🟦 To a firm based in Miami, Florida
🟦 Whose owner is a fashion accessory designer

bylinetimes.com/2020/10/23/uk-…
🚨 AND ANOTHER 🚨

💵 £5 million+ of contracts for gloves
🟦 To a hotel carpeting firm
🟦 With net assets of £20k

bylinetimes.com/2020/10/24/mil…
💵 Half a billion – £526.3 million to be precise – in PPE deals has gone to firms with links to the Conservative Party 💵

That we know about.

My new @BylineTimes report 🔽 @peterjukes

bylinetimes.com/2020/10/25/500…
February 2020: Firm lists £134,500 assets

April - June 2020: Same firm awarded PPE contracts worth £40.5 million

New @BylineTimes report 🔽
bylinetimes.com/2020/10/26/mil…

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More from @WritesBright

Sam Bright Profile picture
Dec 18, 2023
Tory claim is that corruption was justified because we needed PPE.

I spoke to a PPE supplier on Sunday who’s been supplying the NHS for years.

He said existing suppliers were ready but were ignored by the gov.

This is a story of corruption AND incompetence
It really annoys me when commentators make grand claims having done zero research.

The NAO reports are clear: ministers reacted too late, massively overpaid for equipment, created a system with crap due diligence, and didn't deliver the goods quickly enough. End of story.
An important line from the NAO.

Existing NHS suppliers delivered 738 million items of PPE in April and May '20, while new firms delivered just 235 million (despite the gov. chucking £billions at them).

The established firms had supply chains in place – the Tory donors didn't.
Read 5 tweets
Sam Bright Profile picture
Jan 26, 2023
🔴 NEW for @BylineTimes 🔴

The minutes & correspondence from Boris Johnson's meeting with Cambridge Analytica in 2016 would directly harm UK-US relations if they were released, we have been told.

bylinetimes.com/2023/01/26/min…
🧵 The ICO said that the information would “directly undermine the trust and confidence between the UK and US”.
🧵 @carolecadwalla said that there are now “more questions that remain unanswered about Cambridge Analytica’s involvement with the UK Government.”
Read 4 tweets
Sam Bright Profile picture
Sep 23, 2022
A thread of some of the shocking stats emerging from the budget...

Someone earning £1 million-a-year will be receiving a £55k tax cut – twice the average UK salary
The richest 5% of households will receive 50% of the overall benefit of the government's tax cuts
The poorest half of households will be on average just £230 better off next year as a result of the personal tax cuts
Read 10 tweets
Sam Bright Profile picture
Jul 22, 2022
The Conservatives encourage people living overseas to apply for party membership, via Cities of London & Westminster Conservative Association.

This Conservative association says explicitly that "You do not have to be eligible to vote in the UK to join the Conservative Party".
I've asked the Conservative Party to explain what processes are in place to ensure that foreign actors are not able to join the party en masse in an attempt to influence internal party processes – including a Conservative leadership election.
Even the Telegraph – not exactly the most critical of the Conservative Party – thinks there is something awry telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/…
Read 5 tweets
Sam Bright Profile picture
Jul 4, 2022
🔴 NEW 🔴

@BylineTimes did some Brexit polling with @Omnisis and the results are *fascinating* 👇🏻👇🏻
🇪🇺 64% of people say that they would support a new EU referendum within 10 years.

That includes 40% of 2016 Leave voters and 40% of 2019 Tories.
🇪🇺 53% of people want to see a closer relationship between the UK and the EU in the future.

Only 28% want to see a more distant relationship, while 19% don’t mind.
Read 7 tweets
Sam Bright Profile picture
Jun 15, 2022
Politicians tell us that we live in a meritocracy and yet the Bank of Mum & Dad is the UK's sixth largest lender, relied on by 49% of first-time buyers.

People not being able to get on the housing ladder without parental help is having a massive impact on social mobility.
Especially when our economy is so heavily concentrated in one ludicrously expensive city – London.

We're basically creating a system where the nation's wealth can only be accessed by people lucky enough to inherit property in the capital.
"Housing inequality, not income inequality, primarily determines how much wealth inequality there is in most Western countries".
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-hous…
Read 4 tweets

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