[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[WATFORD zero]

yep, i know businesses where running like that, and lots of grants went to expanding business, improving equipment and premises. point is its aftertiming to complain about this when everyone was calling for more assistance and assitance now, and there was broad policy support. the only complaint were for more support, or to cover wider groups. those that did call out for some controls needed got shouted down at the time. this was the policy the country demanded.

The poor Government had no choice but to do exactly what they did (similar to the PPE contracts, Track & Trace, Care Homes, etc etc etc) because it was what the country DEMANDED, apprarently.

It's not as if they employ tens of thousands of experts in all of these areas who could have advised them

 

[beorhthelm]

The poor Government had no choice but to do exactly what they did (similar to the PPE contracts, Track & Trace, Care Homes, etc etc etc) because it was what the country DEMANDED, apprarently.

It's not as if they employ tens of thousands of experts in all of these areas who could have advised them

they do and we've found they didnt always know what on earth should be done. Care home debacle and Test & Trace were product of departmental advise.

could have done alot different, do you remember calls for more controls and limits on furlough though?

 

[WATFORD zero]

they do and we've found they didnt always know what on earth should be done. Care home debacle and Test & Trace were product of departmental advise.

Can you give the source of information to support your statement that 'Care Home and Track and Trace being product of departmental advice' and not as a result of Ministers of State decisions please ?

 

[Is it PotG?]

.....do you remember calls for more controls and limits on furlough though?

That ugly word, hindsight appears to rear it's ugly head again.

 

[Is it PotG?]

He’s just told you. Pay attention man instead of scrabbling to defend the indefensible. Again.

I am a little thick. I read it again, still can't see any time frames for the millions of claims. Again.

Hey ho. I shall return to scrabbling, or cluedoing.

 

[A1X]

Tory’s claiming they are using the billions of units of useless PPE to CREATE ENERGY….by burning it.

Best bit of spin since Alan Partridge reframed his book pulping as “a fascinating day out”.

Perhaps Rishi ought to just cut out the middle man and start burning some £50 notes for energy. His boss can tell him how to do that.

 

[beorhthelm]

Can you give the source of information to support your statement that 'Care Home and Track and Trace being product of departmental advice' and not as a result of Ministers of State decisions please ?

for care homes you'll find some in the recent court case if you get into the detail and past the headlines, you'll see its largley about policy from PHE and NHS commissioning board (co-defendents). indirectly, Scotland and Wales had similar outcomes from similar policies as their departments followed same script. Track & Trace is a meme, Test & Trace was response from PHE which is standard as department responsible, we'll hear about the detail how involved the ministers where in the public enquiry. lets be honest, Hancock was a rabbit in headlights, signing the cheques.

 

[nicko31]

Tory’s claiming they are using the billions of units of useless PPE to CREATE ENERGY….by burning it.

Best bit of spin since Alan Partridge reframed his book pulping as “a fascinating day out”.

What amazes me is our favourite thinktank on Tuffton Street that cares about government transparency and an end to wasteful government spending is remarkably silent on this stuff

Getting very hot under collar about green levies though

 

[The Clamp]

I am a little thick. I read it again, still can't see any time frames for the millions of claims. Again.

Hey ho. I shall return to scrabbling, or cluedoing.

That’s because he didn’t give a time frame. I think I we can assume a schedule of works would operate on an “ASAP” system.
Nobody is saying it would be easy but it would have saved tens of billion of pounds so in my opinion, the government had an obligation to try.

And to now investigate.


They could have started with the low hanging fruit; the friends and family of Tory MP’s who were given grants and contracts worth billions despite either being totally unsuited for grants and contracts, already multi millionaires who simply did not need a grant or, as in Patel’s pals’ case, being a business that folded in 2018.

If they wanted to at least attempt to sort it and recoup some of our tax money, they could. But if they investigate the average man on the Clapham omnibus, they would be under pressure to investigate their friends and themselves. And we all know how that works out for them.

I find it remarkable that your tax money can be written off so readily by the government and you continue to defend them. Say thank you to the nice mugger.

 

[WATFORD zero]

for care homes you'll find some in the recent court case if you get into the detail and past the headlines, you'll see its largley about policy from PHE and NHS commissioning board (co-defendents). indirectly, Scotland and Wales had similar outcomes from similar policies as their departments followed same script. Track & Trace is a meme, Test & Trace was response from PHE which is standard as department responsible, we'll hear about the detail how involved the ministers where in the public enquiry. lets be honest, Hancock was a rabbit in headlights, signing the cheques.

So they WERE the result of Ministerial decisions following advice from the various departments and experts

 

[rogersix]

How?

I'll ask you the same.

How long do YOU think thorough checks would have taken for the millions of claimants?

i've no idea, how long would it take

and how long would it take to check the product you are bulk purchasing, is the stuff you want for million of pounds?

(asking for a nation)

 

[WATFORD zero]

I am a little thick. I read it again, still can't see any time frames for the millions of claims. Again.

Hey ho. I shall return to scrabbling, or cluedoing.

You deserve a break

I should think most people would find 4 and a half continuous days of 13-14 hour shifts on NSC tiring.

*edit*

And even when you've logged off and are pretending that you are doing something else, you're still hovering over NSC, ready to log on at a second's notice



I really think you should step away from the keyboard, just occasionally for your own health. I genuinely do

 

[drew]

the suggestion is Tresuary should have borrowed more last year, on longer dates at lower rates, to offset potential short term rises. more debt a bit cheaper. it may also be monetising the QE debt, shfting some from BoE to Treasury. its not as straight forward as announcing you'll flood the market on gold.

The good old Gordon Brown selling off the family silverware!! Fact is numerous central banks had been selling off gold over the previous 10 years and, let's be honest, what purpose do the gold reserves serve? Also, apparently the auction was supposed to be secret but Peter Tapsell scuppered that by asking a question in Parliament thus letting the cat out of the bag!!

 

[beorhthelm]

So they WERE the result of Ministerial decisions following advice from the various departments and experts

yes. ministers followed advise, wasnt always right action to take in retrospect.

 

[Audax]

Did you mention any time frames in there?

I seriously admire how simple it could have been done. Is this your field of expertise?

I'm a Product Manager. So yes, stuff similar to this is what I do on a daily basis. We never release something and then go "job done, what's next?" We release, we monitor, we analyse, we make improvements, and continue that cycle until the potential for improvement is small enough that the cost of making the improvements is too high.

In terms of time frames: there is no specific time frame. It's all about ensuring you have that post-launch monitoring in place, and act on anything that monitoring picks up - be that opportunities to improve what you're doing, or opportunities to reduce / eliminate risks in what you're doing. From what we know currently, it does not appear that the government did that. They did, eventually, identify a very large amount lost through fraud. But as far as I can tell that was after the fact, not as it was happening, because if they'd had robust monitoring in place I can't see how the fraud amount would have got so large.

 

[beorhthelm]

I'm a Product Manager. So yes, stuff similar to this is what I do on a daily basis. We never release something and then go "job done, what's next?" We release, we monitor, we analyse, we make improvements, and continue that cycle until the potential for improvement is small enough that the cost of making the improvements is too high.

In terms of time frames: there is no specific time frame. It's all about ensuring you have that post-launch monitoring in place, and act on anything that monitoring picks up - be that opportunities to improve what you're doing, or opportunities to reduce / eliminate risks in what you're doing. From what we know currently, it does not appear that the government did that. They did, eventually, identify a very large amount lost through fraud. But as far as I can tell that was after the fact, not as it was happening, because if they'd had robust monitoring in place I can't see how the fraud amount would have got so large.

they weren't (aren't) politically strong enough to take any action, because it would look like they taking away from hard working people etc. can we call it fraud when the rules are so lax anyway? for example self employed could claim and still work, expected grants to be declared and taxes paid, as stated policy (as far as im aware). as i say, who voiced the objections that the scheme was too loose at the time? only fringe conservatives.

 

[Audax]

they weren't (aren't) politically strong enough to take any action, because it would look like they taking away from hard working people etc. can we call it fraud when the rules are so lax anyway? for example self employed could claim and still work, expected grants to be declared and taxes paid, as stated policy (as far as im aware). as i say, who voiced the objections that the scheme was too loose at the time? only fringe conservatives.

There were varying types and levels of fraud going on. Some of it, you can absolutely argue was an unavoidable cost of providing support. Some of it, however, sits at the other end of the scale: where individuals / groups deliberately set out with the intent of defrauding the government and were able to do so for prolonged periods of time because the government didn't do enough to close down the gaps created by the (rightly) rapid roll out. Some of the techniques used by the organised fraudsters were allowed to go on for far too long (if they ever did actually get shut down).

An urgent need to get it rolled out doesn't excuse incompetence in how it was managed after roll out.

 

[Is it PotG?]

I'm a Product Manager. So yes, stuff similar to this is what I do on a daily basis. We never release something and then go "job done, what's next?" We release, we monitor, we analyse, we make improvements, and continue that cycle until the potential for improvement is small enough that the cost of making the improvements is too high.

In terms of time frames: there is no specific time frame. It's all about ensuring you have that post-launch monitoring in place, and act on anything that monitoring picks up - be that opportunities to improve what you're doing, or opportunities to reduce / eliminate risks in what you're doing. From what we know currently, it does not appear that the government did that. They did, eventually, identify a very large amount lost through fraud. But as far as I can tell that was after the fact, not as it was happening, because if they'd had robust monitoring in place I can't see how the fraud amount would have got so large.

I'm sure your role is fulfilling and varied, as well as being highly skilled. To compare it to dishing out millions of claims in a unique situation nationwide though might be overstating it a tad.

An ice cream man for example, responsible for distributing when the weather dictates it and quickly so they don't melt.

Yes, we should have used an ice cream man.

 

[Audax]

I'm sure your role is fulfilling and varied, as well as being highly skilled. To compare it to dishing out millions of claims in a unique situation nationwide though might be overstating it a tad.

An ice cream man for example, responsible for distributing when the weather dictates it and quickly so they don't melt.

Yes, we should have used an ice cream man.

And with that reply ... welcome to my ignore list. What a load of baloney.

 

[Since1982]

Didn't we lose out on the developer contributions because the then tory town council prevaricated about formulating a town plan?

I'm near the Woolpack, so quite close to the development.

Not sure about the reason to be honest - at that point I was living in Hassocks and watching the ineptitude of their neighbourhood plan working group allow MSDC to walk all over them. I do know that the development is funded / led by Homes England and that has something to do with it. I'm at Worlds End so no direct impact but it will have an effect across the whole town - not against the development but BH seems to be screwed over by the Tories at every turn which probably explains why they have just one town and one district councillor left.