“There were no gowns, visors, swabs or body bags in the govt’s pandemic stockpile when #Covid19 hit UK.”
“The govt ignored warnings from advisers about shortages.”
“NHS staff are being put at risk because of the shortage of PPE.”
Report by @BBCPanorama.
In April, @Channel4News has seen the inventory of the UK govt’s pandemic PPE stockpile. Almost 80% of respirators were out of date when #coronavirus hit.
The UK had had a three month head start to prepare for #COVID19
Covid wasn’t an “invisible mugger”
In early March, the UK had developed 10-minute #COVID19 tests that they were manufacturing...and then exporting around the world!
It would be many months before even frontline NHS staff could be guaranteed swift testing! #PPEScandal #ContractScandal
How did an ex-neighbour of @MattHancock win a big #COVID19 contract?
After initially denying it, Alex Bourne finally admitted he’d exchanged text & email messages with Hancock over several months & participated in a meeting attended by Hancock & Johnson. theguardian.com/world/2020/nov…
“If we already know this much about the only 3 contracts we’ve looked at in detail, what else is there to uncover? There are hundreds of further contracts - some of which we are examining - & many of these will be as bad or worse.” @JolyonMaugham @GoodLawProject #ContractScandal
“If we already know this much about the only 3 contracts we’ve looked at in detail, what else is there to uncover? There are hundreds of further contracts - some of which we are examining - & many of these will be as bad or worse.” @JolyonMaugham @GoodLawProject #ContractScandal
On Friday, @MattHancock’s ex-neighbour told the Guardian that he didn’t have safety certification for vials he’d been supplying since June as part of the £30m govt contract he ‘won’.
About £9 billion in PPE contacts went to companies run by friends or associates of Tory MP’s
In some cases they delivered unusable goods
The govt PPE tsar has financial interests/personal ties to at least 7 companies awarded hundreds of millions of £ in contracts @paraicobrien
“Wow. A PPE supplier speaking to the Public Accounts Committee says they warned the government in DECEMBER 2019 that there would be a shortage of equipment.
They were ignored.”
@WritesBright in @BylineTimes #HerdImmunityScandal #HerdImmunity #COVID19 bylinetimes.com/2021/05/24/gov…
“Ministers used their private emails to hand out taxpayers' money to their mates
The govt admitted it
Now the govt won't search Ministers' private emails to investigate what has gone on & won't secure them for the public inquiry.” @AngelaRayner
#COVID19 bbc.com/news/uk-politi…
"Michael Gove was secretly involved in the process through which a PPE company linked to the Tory peer Michelle Mone secured huge government contracts, according to newly released documents that show private emails being used for govt business." #COVID19 theguardian.com/politics/2022/…
PPE the govt bought for £122m from a company linked to Tory peer Michelle Mone was purchased from China for just £46m
Despite being bought at the start of the #COVID19 pandemic, the 25m gowns were never used by the NHS after govt officials rejected them theguardian.com/politics/2022/…
Gove asked about profiteering on unusable PPE. It smacks of corruption👇
“You forwarded on a contact from Michelle Mone...how do you feel that millions of pounds was wasted because of that introduction?” @KayBurley
Julian Assange is scheduled to appear in a federal court in Saipan, a US commonwealth in the Pacific, where he’s expected to plead guilty to one charge under the Espionage Act & be sentenced to 5yrs
Given he’s already served this time, he should walk free
The public have a right to know what their govts do in their name
Julian #Assange’s prosecution represented a grave threat to press freedom, undermining the key role of journalists & publishers in scrutinizing govts misdeeds & creating a chilling effect
2/. From the start of the pandemic the govt had given #Palantir, a US spyware company with reported links to #CambridgeAnalytica, access to NHS health data
3/. Palantir worked on the NHS data store with #FacultyAI - a company with ties to Cummings
In 2020, @amnesty warned that Big Tech firms might use the COVID crisis to hoover up genomic data, obliterating the last frontier of privacy: our biological selves
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”
Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts”
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)
Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss
“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob
2/. It’s clear that the bomb blasts in Kerman on the 4th anniversary of #Soleimani's assassination by the US, could lead to a quick ratcheting up of dangerous tensions
After Oct 7, the US sent two aircraft carrier groups to the region
3/. Three US soldiers were killed & two dozen injured in an unmanned aerial drone attack on US forces stationed in northeastern #Jordan near the Syrian border, President @JoeBiden said