£37 billion to Tory mates to do FA

catinstalbans

catinstalbans

Well-known member
It turns out that the world beating waste of money that is Tory Peer Dido Harding's money spinning track and trace operation did not bother to use the information gathered from 100,000s check ins at pubs, restaurants hairdressers and shops in the latest report about the Conservative government's inept handling of the Covid19 pandemic.
To put this in context- they could have provided every adult with a mid range smartphone equipped with GPS and paid them £100 if they checked in every day in the autumn and it would still have been cheaper than Boris Johnson's money laundering racket.
Along with the compulsory nature of forcing businesses to use the scheme the whole track and trace fiasco amounts to much the same thing as a mafia protection racket but judging from the guidance given to businesses if there was a case it seems to have been a protection racket without providing any actual protection.
I wonder how many thousands of people contracted the virus without being contacted thus establishing the base for the second wave and another 50000+ deaths.
It also puts in to context the contempt this government has for health service workers with it's 1% pay increase or the millions of front line public service workers with their pay freeze while the Tory spivs lined their pockets with corrupt contracts.
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
It's quite telling that the replies avoid the issue, probably just embarrassed that their money is being stolen.
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Agreed.

It's a bit like this...

"So, Boris, Priti and Dom came round, shat on my rug, killed my cat, pissed in my kettle and then ate all my biscuits"

"Yeah, but Labour are down 2 points in the polls so shut up"

I'm not especially impressed with Labour atm, but that's kind of beside the point. The big success of the pandemic has been the distribution of the vaccine and that's been the one area where it seems to me the government *haven't* outsourced and used the resources of the state.

I credit them for that, but massive questions remain about a lot of other stuff, especially in the light of that stuff being massive spending by a party who for a long time have insisted that there's no money.

It just feels odd to me that some of tbe same people who have defended austerity very strongly for years are now breezily unconcerned about spending that has had little or no impact and some of which seems it might be questionable in terms of process/ethics.

It seems the rules are - it's fine to piss money up the wall if it's your team doing it...
 
catinstalbans said:
It turns out that the world beating waste of money that is Tory Peer Dido Harding's money spinning track and trace operation did not bother to use the information gathered from 100,000s check ins at pubs, restaurants hairdressers and shops in the latest report about the Conservative government's inept handling of the Covid19 pandemic.
To put this in context- they could have provided every adult with a mid range smartphone equipped with GPS and paid them £100 if they checked in every day in the autumn and it would still have been cheaper than Boris Johnson's money laundering racket.
Along with the compulsory nature of forcing businesses to use the scheme the whole track and trace fiasco amounts to much the same thing as a mafia protection racket but judging from the guidance given to businesses if there was a case it seems to have been a protection racket without providing any actual protection.
I wonder how many thousands of people contracted the virus without being contacted thus establishing the base for the second wave and another 50000+ deaths.
It also puts in to context the contempt this government has for health service workers with it's 1% pay increase or the millions of front line public service workers with their pay freeze while the Tory spivs lined their pockets with corrupt contracts.
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Don’t know who Dildo Harding is but just be positive cat my old friend, just think of the many many thousands that won’t die in the future because of our governments fantastic world beating vaccine roll out👍🏻👍🏻
 
Poultongirl said:
Don’t know who Dildo Harding is but just be positive cat my old friend, just think of the many many thousands that won’t die in the future because of our governments fantastic world beating vaccine roll out👍🏻👍🏻
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I think this proves my point above and especially td's.
 
Scaramanga said:
I see Labour doing well in the latest Yougov poll CAT, 13 points adrift 😂😂
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Says a lot about the state of this country that despite so much kleptocracy, working class people still gush over the Tories. This isn't a labour vs conservative thread. I'm truly amazed how this country puts up with this nonsense. Then again the fodder are so distracted and froth at the mouth by Meghan and Nicola that Rees Mogg could ram his middle finger in their ass and they would blame an immigrant in a dinghy.
 
I went to a couple of pubs on a regular basis 2-3 times a week and scanned in my details as requested or when booking on line always gave my details. On the day before the last lock down I was speaking to one of the Landlords who said that in all that time they had not been contacted once to say that someone had tested positive which he was very surprised about.
 
I am not sure where the £37 billion figure comes from in regards to wasted payements for Track & Trace (seems a very high number) but for sure Cat is making a valid point that many of the Govt's decision making processes in the past 12 months have been abysmal.
From Hancock to Williamson et al it was pure panic stations at times and often of their own making due to austerity measures in the wrong place.

In their defence, making decisions when tired and under pressure and when you have no precident or experience is tough. I am sure they were easily influenced by companies such as Serco who are slick when it comes to winning projects globally (they are strong even in the Middle East on capital projects) and saw a solution which was defendable under scrutiny.
Hindsight shows, they got it woefully wrong in so many of their decisions. Luckily for them, (or was it good decision making?) they got it right in regards to vaccine contracts, strategy and roll out.
 
20togo said:
another morning and another hate filled rant from Commie Cat and backed up by the dope FY8. As per usual it's one trick Cat who has nothing else in his locker to post about. Just a normal day then. And of course shandy piles in who seems to have a chip on both shoulders. All rather amusing.
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Please could you make a contribution on the subject of the thread rather than frothing with your hate filled agenda against other posters.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
Please could you make a contribution on the subject of the thread rather than frothing with your hate filled agenda against other posters.
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Oh do shut up. Most of your contributions are just thumb ups to anyone who comments with disagreements on my posts.
 
20togo said:
another morning and another hate filled rant from Commie Cat and backed up by the dope FY8. As per usual it's one trick Cat who has nothing else in his locker to post about. Just a normal day then. And of course shandy piles in who seems to have a chip on both shoulders. All rather amusing.
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'Dope' 😀

Coming from someone who appears to have no education to speak of I'll take that as a compliment.
 
Chunkylad said:
I am not sure where the £37 billion figure comes from in regards to wasted payements for Track & Trace (seems a very high number) but for sure Cat is making a valid point that many of the Govt's decision making processes in the past 12 months have been abysmal.
From Hancock to Williamson et al it was pure panic stations at times and often of their own making due to austerity measures in the wrong place.

In their defence, making decisions when tired and under pressure and when you have no precident or experience is tough. I am sure they were easily influenced by companies such as Serco who are slick when it comes to winning projects globally (they are strong even in the Middle East on capital projects) and saw a solution which was defendable under scrutiny.
Hindsight shows, they got it woefully wrong in so many of their decisions. Luckily for them, (or was it good decision making?) they got it right in regards to vaccine contracts, strategy and roll out.
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Huffington Post reports

“Boris Johnson’s controversial Test and Trace service is to get another £15bn in government cash, the small print of the Budget has confirmed.
The funding for 2021/22 comes on top of this year’s spending allocation of £22bn, taking the total bill for the controversial service to a huge £37bn over two years.”
 
here you go EBSN, please can i have a thumbs up, it boosts my rating score.
 
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Chunkylad said:
I am not sure where the £37 billion figure comes from in regards to wasted payements for Track & Trace (seems a very high number) but for sure Cat is making a valid point that many of the Govt's decision making processes in the past 12 months have been abysmal.
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Possibly related to this: Fullfact: Flawed comparisons between test and trace systems go viral

Finally the post claims that England’s Test and Trace system cost £22 billion.

This is the amount of money allocated to Test and Trace in 2020/21 by the UK government, but the amount spent has been considerably lower.

Up to October £4 billion had been spent, one third less than was planned by that point, with considerable underspends on laboratories, machines and mass testing.

As mentioned above, this money is not just spent in England. For example the NAO reports that, to October 2020, £1.3 billion had been spent on laboratories from this budget, which includes labs in all four UK nations.


Apparently Wednesdays budget contains another £15bn so the two figures have been added together to get the £37bn.

Note that about 80% of the T&T budget is spent on the testing side of it, unfortunately if you want to do 500,000 tests a day it's going to cost quite a lot to do it.

Also, if the trace side of T&T isn't working then how come Sir Weird Stammer has been forced to self isolate 3 times (IIRC) and I believe the Welsh Labour leader is today doing the same.

So a system that offers previously unimaginable testing capacity and delivered under budget, don't expect to read that from the usual suspects.
 
Shandypants said:
Says a lot about the state of this country that despite so much kleptocracy, working class people still gush over the Tories. This isn't a labour vs conservative thread. I'm truly amazed how this country puts up with this nonsense. Then again the fodder are so distracted and froth at the mouth by Meghan and Nicola that Rees Mogg could ram his middle finger in their ass and they would blame an immigrant in a dinghy.
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im certainly not gushing over the tories merely pointing out to the board lunatic that their beloved ( they could do anything and he/she would still hate the Tories)Labour party are having a nightmare. I’ve repeatedly said on here I’m not a Tory, but while Labour pander to the hard Left I can’t vote for them.
 
Lost Seasider said:
Possibly related to this: Fullfact: Flawed comparisons between test and trace systems go viral

Finally the post claims that England’s Test and Trace system cost £22 billion.

This is the amount of money allocated to Test and Trace in 2020/21 by the UK government, but the amount spent has been considerably lower.

Up to October £4 billion had been spent, one third less than was planned by that point, with considerable underspends on laboratories, machines and mass testing.

As mentioned above, this money is not just spent in England. For example the NAO reports that, to October 2020, £1.3 billion had been spent on laboratories from this budget, which includes labs in all four UK nations.


Apparently Wednesdays budget contains another £15bn so the two figures have been added together to get the £37bn.

Note that about 80% of the T&T budget is spent on the testing side of it, unfortunately if you want to do 500,000 tests a day it's going to cost quite a lot to do it.

Also, if the trace side of T&T isn't working then how come Sir Weird Stammer has been forced to self isolate 3 times (IIRC) and I believe the Welsh Labour leader is today doing the same.

So a system that offers previously unimaginable testing capacity and delivered under budget, don't expect to read that from the usual suspects.
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That's from October so a bit odd that they were granted an extra £7 billion in November if they hadn't spent there initial funding wouldn't you say?
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
So the money was spent by the end of October?
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Not according to the NAO.


Edit:

I did find this: Test & Trace spending to 30/09

About £2.6bn total to that date, but £1.5bn for September alone with an average of 230,000 tests per day, if the aim was to double that output that implies £3bn/month for 6 months to the end of the financial year, £18bn + £2.6bn already spent is roughtly what the total budget was.
 
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Lost Seasider said:
Not according to the NAO.
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No, that was from October, it suggests the money was allocated but not spent, not that there's any difference, so why did they prop it up with another £7 billion less than a month later, it just doesn't really make sense?
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
No, that was from October, it suggests the money was allocated but not spent, not that there's any difference, so why did they prop it up with another £7 billion less than a month later, it just doesn't really make sense?
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See the edit to my post above.

I think there was also a plan for much greater use of the LF tests, which seems to have been overtaken by events.

In fact we don't know exactly how much has been spent on T&T to date, it could be that the actual spend is far below the amount budgeted.


Edit:

In fact a simple multiplication of the amounts known to be spent by Sep/Oct by the number of tests conducted 90/22 x £2.6bn or 90/32 x £4bn would suggest a total cost to date of £11bn or thereabouts.
 
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Lost Seasider said:
See the edit to my post above.

I think there was also a plan for much greater use of the LF tests, which seems to have been overtaken by events.

In fact we don't know exactly how much has been spent on T&T to date, it could be that the actual spend is far below the amount budgeted.
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It doesn't change the fact that the original amount is the amount allocated to it, money that can't go anywhere else, money to a private company for a service that doesn't work.
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
It doesn't change the fact that the original amount is the amount allocated to it, money that can't go anywhere else, money to a private company for a service that doesn't work.
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It can go back to the treasury, or never leave it in the first place, and there's no evidence that it has been spent or ever will be.
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
It is, that's money gone from the public purse.
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You have evidence for this?

You do understand that projects can come in under budget, and if the cost is less than the budget the don't just make a big pile of the money that's left over and set fire to it.
 
fcblackpool said:
No. Have you?

You can't return 'spent' money, whether taken place or based on commitments. Besides, whoever authorised the contracts in the first place always would have a 'it's not my money' attitude.
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You've no idea what has been spent or committed in contracts, all we know is what was budgeted, the fact that something has been budgeted does not mean that it has been spent.
 
If the Mods instituted a policy where any post that contained any of the words “hate-filled, rant, agenda, negativity, positivity, hypocrisy, hypocrite” was automatically deleted then the problem would soon resolve itself. Until then everyone has the option of the “Ignore” feature I suppose.
 
Poultongirl said:
Don’t know who Dildo Harding is but just be positive cat my old friend, just think of the many many thousands that won’t die in the future because of our governments fantastic world beating vaccine roll out👍🏻👍🏻
Click to expand...
Pronouncing your ignorance on a thread about the very subject is not going to impress many posters.
 
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