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

[knocky1]

Quick tally up suggests these group to companies increased their profits collectively by 100 fold

Just incredible

My immediate tally is 5-10 fold average.
The £5 billion unrecoveredfalse claims on covid loans is also in Private Eye.
The £3-5 billion false claims on the eat out unthought offer also listed.

Rule Britannia.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Quick tally up suggests these group to companies increased their profits collectively by 100 fold

Just incredible

Why is it incredible? The country wanted to spend what ever it cost for tests etc, were spending 2 billion a month on tests by the end and people had a go when they stopped and wanted us to carry on spending.

The whole world wanted this stuff

I believe you were backing us continuing the spending from memory, im not sure you can criticise the cost now.

 

[nicko31]

My immediate tally is 5-10 fold average.
The £5 billion unrecoveredfalse claims on covid loans is also in Private Eye.
The £3-5 billion false claims on the eat out unthought offer also listed.

Rule Britannia.

I make £20m pre-pandemic versus £1056m post, about 50 times between friends.

The fact is many approved vendors were shunned during the pandemic, numerous cronies found themselves catapulted into the governments VIP lane

Now we pay

Where's the tax payers alliance on this?

 

[knocky1]

I make £20m pre-pandemic versus £1056m post, about 50 times between friends.

The fact is many approved vendors were shunned during the pandemic, numerous cronies found themselves catapulted into the governments VIP lane

Now we pay

Where's the tax payers alliance on this?

I fully agree but my pedantic nature questions the 100 fold increase. You've halved it to 50 already but I demand more. I'm looking at the increase in dodgily accounted, excluding director's £million pay outs, profit margins.
The friends of Boris had to outlay a fair bit to China and elsewhere to get their free money from Boris.

 

[beorhthelm]

I fully agree but my pedantic nature questions the 100 fold increase. You've halved it to 50 already but I demand more. I'm looking at the increase in dodgily accounted, excluding director's £million pay outs, profit margins.
The friends of Boris had to outlay a fair bit to China and elsewhere to get their free money from Boris.

its superfical list focus on one area and missing a lot of businesses and billons of budget. its as if people only care about profit and not money spent. but we want more spent, no not there, other there.

 

[The Clamp]

A few highlights from tomorrow’s headlines include

Energy bills to hit 5k in Spring

Truss rejects calls for windfall tax on energy giants.

Truss says she’ll lift ban on fracking

Various hysterical headlines about the U.K. summer weather

And my favourite in The Metro…

PM Turns Up For Meeting

 

[nicko31]

its superfical list focus on one area and missing a lot of businesses and billons of budget. its as if people only care about profit and not money spent. but we want more spent, no not there, other there.

Yes we should care about the profit, this is public money we are taking about.

Companies should be forced to be open book before being awarded contracts.

 

[beorhthelm]

Yes we should care about the profit, this is public money we are taking about.

Companies should be forced to be open book before being awarded contracts.

so company A gets a 1bn contract, will make 10% margin, thats ok. co B gets a 200m contract makes a 50% margin, thats a problem... is that how it should work? or look at the service provided.

there is definatly a lot of questions over awards and in future there should be a pre-approved list for suppliers. there was also screams to do something, anything at the time and no one had apparently planned for this despite department with hundreds of people. focus is on the wrong problems. not too concerned Radox made 300m profit if they delivered what was asked and (as they were) the only company able to do so in early days. there's companies that did big contracts with large gross margins that dont make that list, which is very odd.

 

[Berty23]

Has the media made the link between a drought being announced very soon and the favourite to be pm talking about supporting fracking rather than solar farms. Correct me if I am wrong but fracking relies on a heck of a lot of water, while solar farms benefit from hot and sunny weather. Am I the only one who thinks championing something needing water and attacking something needing the current weather is a bit weird?

 

[The Clamp]

Has the media made the link between a drought being announced very soon and the favourite to be pm talking about supporting fracking rather than solar farms. Correct me if I am wrong but fracking relies on a heck of a lot of water, while solar farms benefit from hot and sunny weather. Am I the only one who thinks championing something needing water and attacking something needing the current weather is a bit weird?

Liz Truss is all about tax cuts for energy giants, promotion of fossil fuels and no windfall tax for energy companies. She is in bed with fossil fuel companies. That is why she is about to be installed as our new over-lord.

She’s a shill. A stooge. A demented and pliable puppet leader for large corporations to make dance to their tune. She’ll say whatever she is told to say. Do whatever she is told to do.

She is mentally backwards. She is weak of character. She is stupid and she is our next PM.

 

[MJsGhost]

Where's the tax payers alliance on this?

55 Tufton St, along with a lot of other crackpot, right wing, Brexit promoting, climate-denying think tanks.

 

[Randy McNob]

If windfall taxes are "Labour idea" presumably corporations earning billions in profits while ordinary people pay through the nose and pushed into fuel poverty is a conservative idea?

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[drew]

so company A gets a 1bn contract, will make 10% margin, thats ok. co B gets a 200m contract makes a 50% margin, thats a problem... is that how it should work? or look at the service provided.

there is definatly a lot of questions over awards and in future there should be a pre-approved list for suppliers. there was also screams to do something, anything at the time and no one had apparently planned for this despite department with hundreds of people. focus is on the wrong problems. not too concerned Radox made 300m profit if they delivered what was asked and (as they were) the only company able to do so in early days. there's companies that did big contracts with large gross margins that dont make that list, which is very odd.

I think it is right to look at why company B is making that amount of profit when it is public money and that profit is going to shareholders. No one is suggesting companies shouldn't make profit, if they didn't, they shouldn't be in business, but there is a thing such as excess profit, especially when you are making it at the expense of the tax payers pocket and even more so when there is a massive global problem.

Would you have the same attitude if we were at war and company B were making munitions and instead of making as much as they could, they took 50% of the contract as profit?

The other aspect of these covid contracts is the shortcut that many 'friends' of the tories had to getting awards. There were numerous stories of legitimate businesses not getting the ear of ministers yet it seems, in one case, that even a friendly pub landlord was able to land a lucrative contract!! The public inquiry will no doubt reveal the number of chancers that got rich!!

 

[A1X]

Ladies and gentlemen, our next Prime Minister

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[Blue Valkyrie]

The longer this goes on the more hopeless Dismal Liz sounds.

Hardly the best of the best.

 

[beorhthelm]

I think it is right to look at why company B is making that amount of profit when it is public money and that profit is going to shareholders.

and what if those shareholders just ponied up millions to fund the expansion of the business to fullfill the urgent demand? i get the argument on excess profit, and most just got lucky with some contracts to supply, risk free. but some didnt and years of investment, loses paid off. its crass way to look at the outcome, they profited more than x so thats bad, with no knowledge of background or details. as i say its a very odd list focusing on one area it seems and then not very exhaustively over 200 companies got test and trace contracts for example.

 

[beorhthelm]

Ladies and gentlemen, our next Prime Minister

she is a very odd lady. still holding a little hope Sunak can turn it around, maybe the inconsistancy from Truss will sound alarm bells.

 

[Acker79]

and what if those shareholders just ponied up millions to fund the expansion of the business to fullfill the urgent demand? i get the argument on excess profit, and most just got lucky with some contracts to supply, risk free. but some didnt and years of investment, loses paid off. its crass way to look at the outcome, they profited more than x so thats bad, with no knowledge of background or details. as i say its a very odd list focusing on one area it seems and then not very exhaustively over 200 companies got test and trace contracts for example.

But isn't that the point of this:

Yes we should care about the profit, this is public money we are taking about.

Companies should be forced to be open book before being awarded contracts.

If companies are forced to be open books for these contracts, it gives us the opportunity to look at the profits and look at the context of those profits that allows 'us' to account for all the points you're raising (I say 'us' I'm not sure I'd be able to make heads or tails of a company finance report, but whoever is responsible for the reviewing of the contracts).

 

[WATFORD zero]

she is a very odd lady. still holding a little hope Sunak can turn it around, maybe the inconsistancy from Truss will sound alarm bells.

Nice bit of balance after your long shift of defending the Government's awarding of PPE contracts

 

[beorhthelm]

But isn't that the point of this:



If companies are forced to be open books for these contracts, it gives us the opportunity to look at the profits and look at the context of those profits that allows 'us' account for all the points you're raising (I say 'su' I'm not sure I'd be able to make heads or tails of a company finance report, but whoever is responsible for the reviewing of the contracts).

i dont think you could say, reliably, before a contract whether the profit will be excessive or not. easy enough to forecast higher cost projections, and at the time of Covid it was more important to supply wasnt it?