EXC: The chair of the UK's vaccine task force showed “official sensitive” government documents to a $200-a-head event for elite US venture capitalists last week

Kate Bingham, a Boris Johnson appointee, showed guests a list of products which the government is set to invest in 1/
Bingham spent 1hr with the “networking event” for women in private equity held by a Massachusetts firm

Her PowerPoint included a sensitive internal breakdown of vaccines.

Blue: "We haven’t necessarily signed contracts with all of them so far. But they’re all in our sights.” 2/
Bingham combines the role with her job as managing director of SV Health Investors, a private equity firm

Like Dido Harding, she is married to a Conservative MP: Treasury Minister Jesse Norman.

She also went to school with Rachel Johson

3/
In her talk she said she expects all over-50s to have vaccine available by Easter

But she also showed docs predicting up to 40% may never take it

There's “concern” over whether vaccines will “actually work". There isn't “any data” on whether it works for those with flu 4/
As a result officials are mulling a major “three-visits” programme that will see vulnerable given on flu vaccine and two for COVID next year

She also disclosed that the government will “literally dispatch roving teams on motorbikes” to deliver the vaccine to the vulnerable 5/
There is an important “debate” to be had, she added, about whether or not to vaccinate children.

As it stands, it is "highly unlikely" we'll have legislation to make vaccines mandatory and, therefore, improbable there will be herd immunity

6/
Sir Alistair Graham, a former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said it was “seriously ill-advised” to give. “It must raise a question as to whether she is a suitable person to be chairing a task force like that,” he said. /7
@JonAshworth said: “‘There are serious questions here as to why this information was shared at an international online conference where attendees paid for access. We are in a public health crisis and this information that ministers should be shared with the public.” 8/
More in tomorrow's ST with the excellent @Direthoughts - follow one of the best investigative reporters around now

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More from @Gabriel_Pogrund

11 Oct
£3bn is larger than the budgets of many government departments - but taxpayers don't know how it has been spent.

How did the blackhole emerge? 1/5
In August three MPs and the Good Law Project, a non-profit organisation, launched legal action against the government  over  its allegedly “persistent and unlawful failure” to disclose details of  Covid-19-related spending 2/5
The claimants argue that   the state has breached a law that requires  contracts to be published within 30 days.
They have also posed Qs about firms that have secured lucrative work, like PestFix, a family-run pest control firm which has received at least £32m to produce PPE 3/5
Read 6 tweets
3 Oct
EXC w/@TomCalver2: Wealthy areas are avoiding lockdown despite having higher COVID-19 rate than poorer areas under measures

This is warning of public health director for one of Lancashire's biggest councils in leaked memo to govt

Risks "double whammy" of Covid & more inequality
Eg. Rishi Sunak and Robert Jenrick's seats are not currently subject to lockdown measures

However, they have higher coronavirus infection rates than areas that are

This is consequence of a lack of standardisation. There is no cases threshold beyond which measures are imposed
@SteveReedMP: "We're at a critical stage in our fight against this virus. It is crucial the public have maximum confidence in the decision-making process. That can only happen with far greater transparency from Whitehall and council leaders in the room when decisions are taken"
Read 4 tweets
3 Oct
At Tory conference today, @rosskempsell chaired a superb @Policy_Exchange panel on the civil service — offering rare insight into govt plans for Whitehall

It confirmed "hard rain's gonna fall" thesis, yes, but possibly on ministers as well as mandarins

Some highlights here 1/
Lord Theodore Agnew, Cabinet Office minister + key figure behind Whitehall revolution, revealed "I'm pushing very very hard to get senior civil service posts out of London"

There's too much "metropolitan elite type thinking", it's "suffocating", stifles "diversity of thought" 2/
The clear implication is this will not merely be junior officials. Nor limited to quangos or arms-length bodies - ie ONS to Newport or Environment Agency to Bristol in the past

"The key element" he said, is getting "higher propotion of senior civil servants" outside the M25 3/
Read 16 tweets
13 Sep
EXCLUSIVE 🚨 Thousands of people with COVID-19 are taking tests that will never be analysed, warn government docs marked "official sensitive"

Our "world beating" testing programme has a 185,000 swab backlog and is so stretched it's sending tests to labs in Italy and Germany 1/5
Most UK laboratories are clearing fewer tests than their capacity, as they are hit by “chaos” in supply chains, per the leak

The govt claims it has capacity for 375,000 tests a day

But the actual number of people being tested for coronavirus is closer to 62,000 a day (2/5)
Randox, a Northern Ireland firm, pays Tory MP Owen Paterson as a consultant. It won a £133m testing contract unopposed at the start of lockdown

It disposed of 12,401 used swabs in a single day on 2nd Sept

The firm has voided more than 35,000 used test kits since August (3/5)
Read 5 tweets
2 Aug
Exc🚨A former Labour official behind the BBC Panorama on antisemitism has revealed he was the subject of a criminal investigation until last month

Sam Matthews was summoned for an interview under caution in the dying days of Corbyn leadership after a complaint by the party

1/5
Labour reported Matthews to ICO, which has powers to investigate criminal breaches and bring prosecutions leading to prison

It accused Matthews of breaching Data Protection Act by accessing/leaking data to the media

The stories concerned Labour's handling of anti-semitism

2/5
ICO criminal investigations team told Matthews on 19 Feb “You are now suspected of a criminal offence” and cautioned him

However, they dropped the investigation after he challenged the basis of their inquiries. ICO had to admit it had no evidence he unlawfully obtained data

3/5
Read 5 tweets
16 Jul
Exc: GMB has launched an investigation into its own finances months after its general secretary, Tim Roache, resigned amid sexual misconduct claims

Scandal-hit union is separately alleged to have paid for lie detector test to help Roache when claims first emerged

1/4
Paul McCarthy, regional secretary, and Gary Smith, secretary of GMB Scotland, said to have demanded action

They're pointing the finger at officials including Lisa Johnson, whose friends say probe is vexatious, part of wider power struggle

One said it's "trial by rumour mill"2/4
Those behind the probe say it's vital to lift the lid on the Roache era

Critics say Johnson is being unfairly targeted because of suspicion she'll run for gen sec and that real issue is misogynistic culture

Understood senior women have grievances against men at GMB 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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