Published today: almost £19m of contracts to Wernick Buildings Limited for work that started on 21 September but the contract for which was concluded only eight days ago. atamis-1928.cloudforce.com/sfc/p/#0O00000…
S Wernicke & Sons (Holdings Limited) is its immediate parent company.
A David M "Wernick" and S Wernicke & Sons (Holdings Limited) have made a series of donations to the Conservative Party, including one just weeks before they started work.
But I'm sure there's nothing at all to see here.
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The personal attacks from @Jacob_Rees_Mogg won't make the scrutiny of his Government's misspending go away. They reveal merely how much his Government abhors what scrutiny represents.
This is how this Government reacts to private citizens who speak truth to power. Not by responding on the substance - because they cannot. But with personal attacks. Just like every ugly demagogue from history. They shame England. They shame our democracy.
(Also very pleased to see a rare appearance in print of @gem_abbott, our Legal Director. She has been targeted here by a number of those who call themselves 'feminist' but hate us for our work on trans rights. This is as good a moment as any to give the facts of her appointment.
I appointed her to work one or two days a week, freelance, when @GoodLawProject had only one employee. I had no prior personal connection with her at all. None. She had come to my attention through her work on period poverty with @free_periods which involved law and campaigning.
The publication of politically sensitive contracts was delayed for many, many months. Hancock's officials were asked by Number 10 to delay publication to help with press handling. Those are the facts (see eg Pestfix contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/8f2e317…).
Their breaches of the law would have been even more serious had @GoodLawProject not sued. That's what the Court found.
In Italy they call it "illicit". But in the UK we institutionalised it with a VIP lane into which Government Ministers introduced their associates, often without recording that they had done so, or why.
You don't believe me? Here is what the NAO said. But I don't understand any of our fraud agencies to be taking the remotest interest. Perhaps they're afraid of being embarrassed by what they uncover.
When we are told we are more impactful than the Opposition we are not cheered by the compliment, or critical of the Opposition, we are alarmed by the Government's success in reducing Parliament to an irrelevance.
Politically appointed regulators, a dominant and tame state news agency, the use of public money for Party purposes, a civil service neutral only in name, and an irrelevant Parliament is pretty close to a prescription for the end of democracy.
The Law Lord, Devlin, captured the innate conservatism of the judiciary in his description of them as a "body of elderly man who have lived on the whole unadventurous lives… old-fashioned in their ideas." But even they are likely to be further reigned in by this Government.
You can read the Government's Statement of Costs - totally over £508,000 - here. rebrand.ly/d-costs-1502
Government used an incredible 11 solicitors (4 senior solicitors, i.e. over 8 years PQE), 6 junior counsel and 2 QCs.
As a result, Government has incurred £70k communicating with themselves internally. Note – this is not communicating with counsel, which they include separately. This is just their lawyers, speaking to themselves.