Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

There's a far bigger cronyism scandal than Cameron's lobbying or Johnson's flat. But the media - in particular the BBC - has disgracefully failed to hold the government to account for it.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

What is so frustrating about this is that the @GoodLawProject, which arguably now does the best investigative journalism of any organisation in the UK, handed these massive stories on a plate to the media. But most of the media, most of the time, turned up their noses.

The work had already been done, so the old excuse - "it's too complicated, too expensive, too risky" - simply didn't wash. The GLP had the government bang to rights. But it got away with gross corruption, because the media, as a whole, wasn't interested.

This was not a trivial matter. People, including healthcare workers, died because of missing or inadequate PPE. The government put delivering contracts to its mates - via the "VIP Lane" - above delivering protection to frontline workers and patients.

The government actively encouraged the sort of health profiteering during a national emergency that was portrayed in The Third Man.
A number of Harry Limes have become extremely rich as a result.
Why wasn't this treated as a massive, defining national scandal?

"Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money?"

"Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays."

The issue is not that the BBC never covered the scandal - sometimes they did so, and well. But they came *extremely* late to the party, and even then, instead of giving it the daily headlines it required, reported it sporadically and way down the bulletins.