Union source emphasises it's "not over til it's over", but seems Starmer faces humiliation over electoral college reforms if he brings to vote
Trade Union & Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO) meeting was "BAD": "nobody" defended Starmer, even moderate unions look uncertain
Am told that Starmer claimed he was trying to find a consensus, but wouldn’t actually address the issues. He was instead "bollocked"
Source says unions "one by one" claimed they hadn't been consulted by leader's office ahead of reforms, with even head of TULO saying they weren't involved in discussions...
.@siennamarla hearing similar - seems Starmer may have squandered late opportunity to bring unions round.
Ofc much of the horse-trading happens behind the scenes, but sense is he did not make life easy for those minded to do a deal
With 20 minutes to go, unresolved question is whether Starmer defers vote on reforms until tomorrow's NEC rather than tonight.
Looks increasingly likely he will buy himself time, albeit not confirmed yet.
Hearing Gary Smith of GMB was "generally furious", repeatedly asking Starmer if he appreciated how "embarrassing it is" for Labour to be backing £10 an hour, not the £15 advocated by his union
So broader grievances dovetailing with anger over reform.
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Greensill takes aim at Lord Myners, who has been one of the leading critics of the company
Says Myners "seemed amenable" to the idea of becoming an adviser to his company during a meeting they had - and that he had a follow up encounter with the chairman of Greensill Capital 2/
Greensill says that Lord Myners prepared a statement which the company was preparing to publish - but never did.
"My question in parliament was linked to open ended funds and illiquidity. I've asked many other question of the same issue in my time in parliament...
🚨On 5 March 2020, David Cameron wrote to the Bank of England, saying: "I do a lot of work with Greensill Capital, now the world leaders in this space. We would be keen to help. . ."
In a separate email he said: "We would be keen to step and help during the current difficulties"
On 9 March, Jon Cunliffe, agreed to meet Cameron/Greensill so they could present their ideas to him directly.
"Cameron explained how Greensill Capital worked, and asked if he and Lex Greensill could come in to brief Jon and other about this. Jon agreed." bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/fi…
On 16 March, Greensill told the Bank of England about his NHS payday scheme, saying: "We . . .have agreed to pay all NHS employees and contractors daily."
There was no such agreement at the time, nor was there ever one.
At a push a few thousand out of 1.4m NHS staff used it.
EXCLUSIVE: Kate Bingham, chair of Boris Johnson's vaccine taskforce, has charged taxpayers £670,000 for her own team of boutique PR consultants
According to leaked docs, eight full-time consultants from London firm Admiral Associates are on the equivalent of £165K salaries 1/
Bingham, who is married to Tory minister, Jesse Norman, and went to school with Rachel Johnson, is said to have "insisted" on hiring the team.
This is despite fears that they duplicate work of press officers at BEIS, where task force sits
Source: "I don't know what they do." 2/
Alok Sharma, the business secretary, did not sign off the expenditure, which has cost around £500K already, with contracts running until the end of the year
Instead, it was signed off by a civil servant
The team helps with day to day comms - and a Spotify vaccine podcast 3/
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.
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