“The question every journalist should be asking Michael Gove now is: why did he or his office fast-track a firm run by a major Tory donor, who also donated to his Tory leadership bid, for a lucrative £160m Covid contract? This looks like really ugly stuff” mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
This (probably deliberately) misses the point.
If a Minister refers a friend and you're a civil servant you're going to be heavily inclined to give that friend a contract because you'll know the friend will kick off to the Minister if you don't.
If a Minister refers a friend and you're a civil servant you're going to be heavily inclined to give that friend a contract because you'll know the friend will kick off to the Minister if you don't.
That's obviously true. But these emails show it happening. Civil servants were worried that Andrew Mills would kick off if they didn't give Ayanda a contract. Another has talked about it being "career impeding" to stand in a Minister's way.
How did Ayanda (which didn't have a Ministerial referrer we know about but had a consultant who was an adviser to Liz Truss) winning its £252m contract work out for the taxpayer?
Not so good: what looks like £84m in profits to middlemen and £155m on facemasks the NHS can't use.
Not so good: what looks like £84m in profits to middlemen and £155m on facemasks the NHS can't use.
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