You may remember Ayanda which won a £252m deal to supply facemasks of which £155m worth were unusable by the NHS.
And you may remember that civil servants were worried about not giving Ayanda a contract because of the political connections of Andrew Mills who worked for Ayanda as a consultant.
And that the Department of Health didn't consider a potential conflict of interest before giving Ayanda that £252m contract. nao.org.uk/press-release/…
And that Tim Horlick of Ayanda claimed he had just been approached by "a Chinese lady" who offered him a contract which enabled Ayanda to make £40m.
But we hadn't been able to work out what Andrew Mills had made from his consultancy arrangement because he had quite deliberately chosen to change the nature of his company to one that didn't need to publish its accounts.
Someone has helpfully leaked documents to Private Eye showing that Mills was paid £32.4m.
Private Eye also reveals that another Ayanda director made £11.6m commission on the deal.
Together these sums amount to, it seems from Private Eye's reporting, £84m of profits from your taxes going not to suppliers of facemasks but to middle-men who were lucky enough to have the right political connections.
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Labour caving to some of the richest people in the country - whilst raising the tax burden on employing the low paid - has been described as the "lobbying coup of the decade."
But how bad is it? 🧵
Well, we know that Labour promised to raise £565m per annum from taxing private equity properly. But, after lobbying, agreed only to raise 14% of that or £80m.
But in fact, it's worse that that (or better, if you are amongst that mega rich class).
For a particular type of carried interest Labour actually proposes to *cut* tax rates...
Three reasons why inheritance tax on farmland is a good thing (beyond the obvious - that it will raise money). 🧵
First, farmland being subject to inheritance tax will reduce the value it has as a token to pass wealth down tax free between generations, so that farmland is cheaper and farming more profitable.
Second, farmland being subject to inheritance tax will reduce the number of people who hold it as a token to pass wealth down tax free between generations so it is instead held by people who hold it to farm it so it is more efficiently used.
I see my tweets about the effects of Wes Streeting's ban on puberty blockers on younger trans people have been criticised by the DHSC’s adviser on suicides. 🧵
1. What is undoubtedly true is that Victoria Atkins was warned by her own civil servants about the ban on puberty blockers posing “a high risk of self-harm and suicide” and Wes Streeting followed his predecessor in ignoring that advice.
2. Before publishing my thread (below) we went to the Tavistock and Portman with these numbers for a response. Other journalists went to NHS England for a response. Neither denied the numbers and both declined to comment.
Medically, not much will change. The NHS has not prescribed PBs for years. And now families will travel abroad to collect the drugs they know their children need. Streeting can make it less safe for everyone, and impose huge sacrifices on poorer families, but he cannot stop this.
Politically, I can't recall ever feeling this depressed. When the Tories did this cruel ideological act there was hope, for they would soon be out. Now Streeting is doing worse and it feels like there is none. Personally I am finding it *very* hard to assimilate this.
There are widespread rumours (and some evidence) of more to come and inferentially what Streeting is saying is that he will not engage with the trans community or listen to warnings from civil servants or the NHS and he will not engage with suicide data.
Second, given that the structure of the ban recognises the risks to of cutting off puberty blockers for those already prescribed them by the NHS, what steps have you taken to ensure those prescribed puberty blockers privately can continue to access them?