On the subject of self-build, what would everyone build for themselves if they had the chance, like a lottery win or iffy PPE contract?
I’d go for Anderson’s apartment from the Citadel DLC of Mass Effect...
I’d build a “normal looking house” but with a bigger garage and some more renewable energy provision. Basically my existing home with a few tweaks to make it better.
In NZ and Australia, building land is sold in "sections", of 1/4 acre, and the purchaser builds on it, often via a contractor. Not uncommon to buy a house somewhere else and have it moved to the new site too.
How many houses are typically built on the 1/4 acre ?
They are for a single house, almost always a 3 bed bungalow.
Both countries have vast sprawling suburbs.
With corrugated roofs!
Australasian suburbia is part of the culture there, the areas covered are vast, and some suburbs very posh and others very much not. Generally people want to live there rather than rural areas or city centres though. Not cheap housing though.
Isn’t Melbourne one of the the biggest cities in the world by area?
On the subject of self-build, what would everyone build for themselves if they had the chance, like a lottery win or iffy PPE contract?
I’d go for Anderson’s apartment from the Citadel DLC of Mass Effect...
A detached house with a view of Hampstead Heath and an indoor swimming pool. Not too many bedrooms though, lest I end up with undesirable family houseguests.
Here is another set of figures that really stuck in my memory. It is the average size of new residences built:
US - 2,200 sq ft Ger - 1,600 UK in the 1930s - 1,600 Netherlands - 1,300 Belgium - 1,300 UK today - 800.
Again from memory - but it was something very like this.
Why?
Partly, no doubt, because of smaller families, but that's not enough to explain the difference, and doesn't explain why the Germans, with smaller familes, are building houses twice as big.
Mainly because in the 1930s, before planning regulation, land took up 2% of the cost of building a house. Now, land with planning permission is to rare, that it takes up 70% of the cost of building a house. So developers squeeze as many small, cheap boxes as they can onto tiny plots of land so they can make their margins on the 30% of their cost base where they can make a profit, compared to the 98% 80 years ago.
After living in Germany, it seems really odd to me that houses in the UK are advertised primarily by number of bedrooms rather than by floor area. Yes, I know the floor area is sometimes given in the small print, but in Germany the floor area is the headline figure in an advert, making it much easier to compare properties. Number of rooms comes further down the ad.
Perhaps this is why UK houses are build with as many tiny bedrooms as can be crammed into a small floor area, while German houses tend to have fewer, large rooms!
I did two years worth of research before I bought my new build, but during my hunt it was so frustrating. The amount of three bedroom homes that I saw that would have been lovely two bedroom homes, but were ruined when the developed decided to cram a third room upstairs was mad.
In fact on my estate there are a number of 4-beds that are really no bigger than my 3-bed. Cramp-city-upon-tyne.
British houses are priced by bedroom rather than by floor area, as in most of the world.
My house has 4 double bedrooms, built 20 years ago, but would most likely be built as 5 now or two 4 bed houses. I have a 1/4 acre section.
How do they ensure there is adequate infrastructure like schools, parks, parking, etc?
Schools: It's the government's job to provide schools, if there are people who need a school they build or expand one.
Parks: There are loads of little parks all over the place. I'm not sure exactly what happens with entirely new developments - they seem to have parks, I guess the developers hand the land over to the government, since people want to live near parks.
Parking:
There's no socialized parking in Japan, it's a free market. It works great. You can't park on the street. There's a law that you have to have a contract parking space when you buy a car, but it's avoidable. There are loads of little car parks all over the place - the management companies can convert a vacant bit of land into a car park in pretty much no time. There's a tax on land which ensures that land is nearly always put to some productive use, so if you've got some land that'll be empty for 6 months before you start construction on it, you'll turn it into a temporary car park.
Recently I've been driving into Tokyo (Shibuya) when I go to meet a client because of the rona, and I typically pre-book and pay 2100 yen (15 GBP) to park all day.
What (if any) local criticism of the system is there?
Never heard any, - I guess it exists, but I don't think it's really that politicized. Japan has quite a strong tradition of property rights - for example there's a bit of land sticking out in the middle of Narita Airport where they're hoping to build a runway but they annoyed the farmer in the 1960s and he refuses to sell - so there's not really the assumption that you have in Britain that you have a right to decide what your neighbour does with their land.
I've started getting into Grand Designs. [Is this the start of being middle aged?] Incredible to me how cheaply they seem to build houses, particularly the ones out of wood.
And yet also how badly they estimate costs. It usually ends up 2-3 times what they thought it would
I haven't seen any of those massive cost overrun episodes yet. But huge overruns in time.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
Re planning, all requirements for affordable housing, s. 106 agreements and provision of infrastructure are to go, according to reports. Houses will be built - but all the stuff that needs to go with them - will not and there is no guarantee whatsoever that there will be any money for such stuff (councils are already under huge financial pressure) or that the houses built will be affordable.
Still, when all these new houses built in a rush on flood plains are flooded, it’ll be fun watching Ministers explain how this has happened.
My house was built on green belt, but the developers were required to contribute millions towards building a new primary school in the village, and it’s fantastic. Yes I know that we paid for it in the house price, but if the government wasn’t going to give the council money to build new schools, how else was it going to be built?
It will essentially mean higher taxes to compensate.
Or, more likely, there will be no infrastructure and we will be building the new slums of the future, much like so much of the building in the 1960’s and later turned out to be hideous slums or unsafe buildings.
A look at the evidence being given in the Grenfell Tower inquiry on what happens in reality in relation to building standards should give anyone pause for thought.
No as the plans include a new national charge for developers to fund new schools, roads and GP surgeries
On the subject of self-build, what would everyone build for themselves if they had the chance, like a lottery win or iffy PPE contract?
I’d go for Anderson’s apartment from the Citadel DLC of Mass Effect...
A detached house with a view of Hampstead Heath and an indoor swimming pool. Not too many bedrooms though, lest I end up with undesirable family houseguests.
You could have the bedrooms, but build them behind secret doors or sliding bookcases so that nobody knows they are there but you.
I've started getting into Grand Designs. [Is this the start of being middle aged?] Incredible to me how cheaply they seem to build houses, particularly the ones out of wood.
And yet also how badly they estimate costs. It usually ends up 2-3 times what they thought it would
I haven't seen any of those massive cost overrun episodes yet. But huge overruns in time.
Be warned, it can be an addictive show. Look out for how many times they have no experience of managing such a project. Sometimes it works. Other times...
Here is another set of figures that really stuck in my memory. It is the average size of new residences built:
US - 2,200 sq ft Ger - 1,600 UK in the 1930s - 1,600 Netherlands - 1,300 Belgium - 1,300 UK today - 800.
Again from memory - but it was something very like this.
Why?
Partly, no doubt, because of smaller families, but that's not enough to explain the difference, and doesn't explain why the Germans, with smaller familes, are building houses twice as big.
Mainly because in the 1930s, before planning regulation, land took up 2% of the cost of building a house. Now, land with planning permission is to rare, that it takes up 70% of the cost of building a house. So developers squeeze as many small, cheap boxes as they can onto tiny plots of land so they can make their margins on the 30% of their cost base where they can make a profit, compared to the 98% 80 years ago.
After living in Germany, it seems really odd to me that houses in the UK are advertised primarily by number of bedrooms rather than by floor area. Yes, I know the floor area is sometimes given in the small print, but in Germany the floor area is the headline figure in an advert, making it much easier to compare properties. Number of rooms comes further down the ad.
Perhaps this is why UK houses are build with as many tiny bedrooms as can be crammed into a small floor area, while German houses tend to have fewer, large rooms!
I did two years worth of research before I bought my new build, but during my hunt it was so frustrating. The amount of three bedroom homes that I saw that would have been lovely two bedroom homes, but were ruined when the developed decided to cram a third room upstairs was mad.
In fact on my estate there are a number of 4-beds that are really no bigger than my 3-bed. Cramp-city-upon-tyne.
British houses are priced by bedroom rather than by floor area, as in most of the world.
My house has 4 double bedrooms, built 20 years ago, but would most likely be built as 5 now or two 4 bed houses. I have a 1/4 acre section.
I grew up in a rambling Devon farmhouse. I had a full sized table-tennis table in my bedroom at one point, as well as a bed and all the usual wardrobes etc.
It was about the same size as the ground floor of my current house.
On the other hand, at least in this house the floor meets the wall at all points...
I am in the process of finishing building my own house. We are already getting admiring comments even though it will be another couple of months before we can move in. The phrase “Grand Designs” has been mentioned.
It is very lovely and in keeping with the landscape, unlike so many you see in that programme. The slate work, in particular, inside and out, is a thing of beauty.
The stories I could tell. Photos will be available in due course.
My one piece of advice - as I have things to do - is not do it in the middle of a lockdown.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
I've started getting into Grand Designs. [Is this the start of being middle aged?] Incredible to me how cheaply they seem to build houses, particularly the ones out of wood.
And yet also how badly they estimate costs. It usually ends up 2-3 times what they thought it would
I haven't seen any of those massive cost overrun episodes yet. But huge overruns in time.
Be warned, it can be an addictive show. Look out for how many times they have no experience of managing such a project. Sometimes it works. Other times...
I am in the process of finishing building my own house. We are already getting admiring comments even though it will be another couple of months before we can move in. The phrase “Grand Designs” has been mentioned.
It is very lovely and in keeping with the landscape, unlike so many you see in that programme. The slate work, in particular, inside and out, is a thing of beauty.
The stories I could tell. Photos will be available in due course.
My one piece of advice - as I have things to do - is not do it in the middle of a lockdown.
I’m looking forward to the pictures: making sure that a building looks good from the outside and fits in to its surroundings is something that far to few modern builders seem to have time for.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
In a pandemic that is costing the government over a hundred billion pounds how many doctors and nurses would you be prepared to see die in order to prevent millions from being wasted?
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
Re planning, all requirements for affordable housing, s. 106 agreements and provision of infrastructure are to go, according to reports. Houses will be built - but all the stuff that needs to go with them - will not and there is no guarantee whatsoever that there will be any money for such stuff (councils are already under huge financial pressure) or that the houses built will be affordable.
Still, when all these new houses built in a rush on flood plains are flooded, it’ll be fun watching Ministers explain how this has happened.
My house was built on green belt, but the developers were required to contribute millions towards building a new primary school in the village, and it’s fantastic. Yes I know that we paid for it in the house price, but if the government wasn’t going to give the council money to build new schools, how else was it going to be built?
It will essentially mean higher taxes to compensate.
Or, more likely, there will be no infrastructure and we will be building the new slums of the future, much like so much of the building in the 1960’s and later turned out to be hideous slums or unsafe buildings.
A look at the evidence being given in the Grenfell Tower inquiry on what happens in reality in relation to building standards should give anyone pause for thought.
No as the plans include a new national charge for developers to fund new schools, roads and GP surgeries
Explain how that’s going to work please? How is the charge levied, and when?
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
In NZ and Australia, building land is sold in "sections", of 1/4 acre, and the purchaser builds on it, often via a contractor. Not uncommon to buy a house somewhere else and have it moved to the new site too.
How many houses are typically built on the 1/4 acre ?
They are for a single house, almost always a 3 bed bungalow.
Both countries have vast sprawling suburbs.
With corrugated roofs!
Australasian suburbia is part of the culture there, the areas covered are vast, and some suburbs very posh and others very much not. Generally people want to live there rather than rural areas or city centres though. Not cheap housing though.
Isn’t Melbourne one of the the biggest cities in the world by area?
Yes, and the film "The Castle" about a suburban homeowner fighting compulsory purchase perfectly captures the spirit of a Melbourne homeowner. It was a massive hit there as a result.
How do they ensure there is adequate infrastructure like schools, parks, parking, etc?
Schools: It's the government's job to provide schools, if there are people who need a school they build or expand one.
Parks: There are loads of little parks all over the place. I'm not sure exactly what happens with entirely new developments - they seem to have parks, I guess the developers hand the land over to the government, since people want to live near parks.
Parking:
There's no socialized parking in Japan, it's a free market. It works great. You can't park on the street. There's a law that you have to have a contract parking space when you buy a car, but it's avoidable. There are loads of little car parks all over the place - the management companies can convert a vacant bit of land into a car park in pretty much no time. There's a tax on land which ensures that land is nearly always put to some productive use, so if you've got some land that'll be empty for 6 months before you start construction on it, you'll turn it into a temporary car park.
Recently I've been driving into Tokyo (Shibuya) when I go to meet a client because of the rona, and I typically pre-book and pay 2100 yen (15 GBP) to park all day.
What (if any) local criticism of the system is there?
Never heard any, - I guess it exists, but I don't think it's really that politicized. Japan has quite a strong tradition of property rights - for example there's a bit of land sticking out in the middle of Narita Airport where they're hoping to build a runway but they annoyed the farmer in the 1960s and he refuses to sell - so there's not really the assumption that you have in Britain that you have a right to decide what your neighbour does with their land.
Thank you so much. That’s very interesting.
How much of Japanese housing stock is in high rise compared to the traditional British suburb?
New British estates have green areas of “parkland” however most of the time it is not given to the council and is looked after privately by the homeowners, on top of council tax. Of course it’s still open to the public, and entirely unregulated.
So @Philip_Thompson what are your opinions on a land tax if we want to copy the Japanese system?
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
You're missing the point. It was one of a plethora of orders placed. Enough did arrive that PPE was available. By adding extra clauses making payment contingent we may not have got any PPE at all as it was in high global demand so could have gone elsewhere.
The government has also ordered 250 million doses of vaccine despite the fact that we only have 66 million people and none of the vaccines may work.
Fast, cheap or right but only two of three - if you want to keep it cheap then which of fast or right do you want to drop?
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
In a pandemic that is costing the government over a hundred billion pounds how many doctors and nurses would you be prepared to see die in order to prevent millions from being wasted?
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
Again missing the point. Nothing was delivered. There was no benefit to this contract at all. None. Other than for Horlick and chums who trousered millions. And apparently suffer no penalties for not having delivered.
Buy all means put in quick orders but make sure that if the companies turn out to be all mouth/no trousers you get your money back.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
You're missing the point. It was one of a plethora of orders placed. Enough did arrive that PPE was available. By adding extra clauses making payment contingent we may not have got any PPE at all as it was in high global demand so could have gone elsewhere.
The government has also ordered 250 million doses of vaccine despite the fact that we only have 66 million people and none of the vaccines may work.
Fast, cheap or right but only two of three - if you want to keep it cheap then which of fast or right do you want to drop?
If a company wants paying without delivering and without some clause - like an escrow clause - or some means of repayment, I’d stay well away. This contract delivered unusable rubbish months late. They were neither fast nor cheap nor right.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
Ok, then scale up your bureaucracy to thousands of different types of contracts and you have an army of bureaucrats delaying signing off and then those supplies are no longer available. You're still judging this with the benefit of hindsight, badly too, in your system the NHS would have been starved of PPE waiting for lawyers and different levels of bureaucracy and more nurses and doctors would have contracted the virus resulting in more deaths, both patient and medical staff.
Creating a perfect system in an imperfect world isn't possible. There will always be grafters and fraudsters whatever checks you put in place and when urgency is necessary they will prosper. The real criticism of the government is failure to engage domestic manufacturing companies in January and February as it did with vaccines and ventilators. Once that mistake was made we were always going to be at the mercy of the Delboys of the world.
The Government’s spin doctors on here really will defend the indefensible. If I had approached the Government promising millions of masks, are you suggesting they should have paid me millions “just in case I delivered”, ‘cos pandemic? Give me a break.
I’d love to know what percentage of government orders were with reputable companies and what percentage were with shell companies with zero trading history.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
I am in the process of finishing building my own house. We are already getting admiring comments even though it will be another couple of months before we can move in. The phrase “Grand Designs” has been mentioned.
It is very lovely and in keeping with the landscape, unlike so many you see in that programme. The slate work, in particular, inside and out, is a thing of beauty.
The stories I could tell. Photos will be available in due course.
My one piece of advice - as I have things to do - is not do it in the middle of a lockdown.
I’m looking forward to the pictures: making sure that a building looks good from the outside and fits in to its surroundings is something that far to few modern builders seem to have time for.
Indeed. Lots of houses around here have hideous pebbledash. We have made a point of using slate so that it is of the place and fits in and, where we haven’t, there will be trellises with climbing plants to make beautiful.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
You're missing the point. It was one of a plethora of orders placed. Enough did arrive that PPE was available. By adding extra clauses making payment contingent we may not have got any PPE at all as it was in high global demand so could have gone elsewhere.
The government has also ordered 250 million doses of vaccine despite the fact that we only have 66 million people and none of the vaccines may work.
Fast, cheap or right but only two of three - if you want to keep it cheap then which of fast or right do you want to drop?
If a company wants paying without delivering and without some clause - like an escrow clause - or some means of repayment, I’d stay well away. This contract delivered unusable rubbish months late. They were neither fast nor cheap nor right.
They weren't but on aggregate the government got it right (they got what they were ordering) and fast (it came in quickly).
It was expensive because they paid companies like this as well as the companies that got the contracts that gave the stock, but the government didn't know at the time which would be right and which wouldn't. Fast, cheap or right applies over the aggregate of the decision making not each individual contract - if you want to apply it to each individual contract then the aggregate would have been slow. Which would have meant extra deaths and potentially billions in damage to the economy.
How much of Japanese housing stock is in high rise compared to the traditional British suburb?
I haven't seen any statistics but going by the general vibe of things: Like I say there's hardly anything in Japan over 11 floors (I mean these big developments exist, but as a proportion it must be tiny). I'd guess the difference is that suburbs and small cities have a lot more in the range of of 5 to 11 floors. Basically then like I say you walk a couple of hundred meters away from the station and it's mostly detached residential houses and low-rise apartment buildings. My impression is that Britain has *way* less building around stations, especially in random suburbs.
BTW being able to build higher around stations also makes living without a car much more viable, since you can simply get far much more stuff - shops, doctors, dentists, restaurants - within walking distance. There's also less attachment to public-facing stuff being on the ground floor, although I'm not sure how the rona is affecting that since elevators now feel kind-of icky.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
But what was delivered was wrong, and late?
For sure, I'm not saying that the signing of the contract was a good thing, it was, however, inevitable given we had no domestic manufacturing. In a system where sellers are engaged with multiple buyers at the same time there is urgency to get things moving or have supplies bought out from under you by a competing buyer. That was the market, I mean we even had suggestions that the government would need to change its foreign policy towards HK to keep China on side for timely PPE deliveries at the time so a few dodgy contracts aren't a huge deal in that light.
Ultimately the choice was buy whatever was available and ensure the NHS got the necessary supplies or stick in a bunch of bureaucracy to weed out these Delboy types and hope that those delays to the procurement process don't cause further shortages.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
Ok, then scale up your bureaucracy to thousands of different types of contracts and you have an army of bureaucrats delaying signing off and then those supplies are no longer available. You're still judging this with the benefit of hindsight, badly too, in your system the NHS would have been starved of PPE waiting for lawyers and different levels of bureaucracy and more nurses and doctors would have contracted the virus resulting in more deaths, both patient and medical staff.
Creating a perfect system in an imperfect world isn't possible. There will always be grafters and fraudsters whatever checks you put in place and when urgency is necessary they will prosper. The real criticism of the government is failure to engage domestic manufacturing companies in January and February as it did with vaccines and ventilators. Once that mistake was made we were always going to be at the mercy of the Delboys of the world.
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
I didn't say before the decision was made, I said before the decision comes into force. Those two are very different things!
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
You're missing the point. It was one of a plethora of orders placed. Enough did arrive that PPE was available. By adding extra clauses making payment contingent we may not have got any PPE at all as it was in high global demand so could have gone elsewhere.
The government has also ordered 250 million doses of vaccine despite the fact that we only have 66 million people and none of the vaccines may work.
Fast, cheap or right but only two of three - if you want to keep it cheap then which of fast or right do you want to drop?
If a company wants paying without delivering and without some clause - like an escrow clause - or some means of repayment, I’d stay well away. This contract delivered unusable rubbish months late. They were neither fast nor cheap nor right.
They weren't but on aggregate the government got it right (they got what they were ordering) and fast (it came in quickly).
It was expensive because they paid companies like this as well as the companies that got the contracts that gave the stock, but the government didn't know at the time which would be right and which wouldn't. Fast, cheap or right applies over the aggregate of the decision making not each individual contract - if you want to apply it to each individual contract then the aggregate would have been slow. Which would have meant extra deaths and potentially billions in damage to the economy.
I’ve worked closely with purchasing departments. It takes 30 seconds to do a credit check on a supplier. There would be zero bureaucratic overhead to have seen that these guys were a bunch of cowboys. I hope our Government is doing all they can to get our money back.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
Ok, then scale up your bureaucracy to thousands of different types of contracts and you have an army of bureaucrats delaying signing off and then those supplies are no longer available. You're still judging this with the benefit of hindsight, badly too, in your system the NHS would have been starved of PPE waiting for lawyers and different levels of bureaucracy and more nurses and doctors would have contracted the virus resulting in more deaths, both patient and medical staff.
Creating a perfect system in an imperfect world isn't possible. There will always be grafters and fraudsters whatever checks you put in place and when urgency is necessary they will prosper. The real criticism of the government is failure to engage domestic manufacturing companies in January and February as it did with vaccines and ventilators. Once that mistake was made we were always going to be at the mercy of the Delboys of the world.
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
Ok, do it for 10,000 different contracts with different suppliers from all over the world under different jurisdictions in real time. I think you need to get real.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
Ok, then scale up your bureaucracy to thousands of different types of contracts and you have an army of bureaucrats delaying signing off and then those supplies are no longer available. You're still judging this with the benefit of hindsight, badly too, in your system the NHS would have been starved of PPE waiting for lawyers and different levels of bureaucracy and more nurses and doctors would have contracted the virus resulting in more deaths, both patient and medical staff.
Creating a perfect system in an imperfect world isn't possible. There will always be grafters and fraudsters whatever checks you put in place and when urgency is necessary they will prosper. The real criticism of the government is failure to engage domestic manufacturing companies in January and February as it did with vaccines and ventilators. Once that mistake was made we were always going to be at the mercy of the Delboys of the world.
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
None. Nobody died because of that because the PPE did arrive on aggregate.
If your "five minutes" per supplier caused delays because some suppliers rejected your clause and sent their shipment elsewhere where they wouldn't need to have cash tied up in an escrow or be at risk of repayment then how many would that have killed?
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
I didn't say before the decision was made, I said before the decision comes into force. Those two are very different things!
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
So if a government minister unlawfully makes a decision to deport someone, potentially to their death, you think judicial review should wait until they are already dead?
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
In a pandemic that is costing the government over a hundred billion pounds how many doctors and nurses would you be prepared to see die in order to prevent millions from being wasted?
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
You seem to have missed the bit where the 50 million ffp2 masks were not safe to use. So not a good option at any price.
The Government’s spin doctors on here really will defend the indefensible. If I had approached the Government promising millions of masks, are you suggesting they should have paid me millions “just in case I delivered”, ‘cos pandemic? Give me a break.
Rachael Reeves today: The government buying PPE from companies with no record of delivery is a scandal.
Rachel Reeves in April: The government not buying PPE from companies with no record of delivery is a scandal.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
It really isn't, not in the context of fixing a £1.7tn economy and doing whatever was necessary to keep NHS staff protected when 50-60,000 people per day were being infected. You're speaking with the benefit of hindsight and judging a situation in that light. The alternative was to put a bunch of bureaucratic checks in place and add weeks of delays to deliveries that were urgently needed.
You are missing the point. The stuff wasn’t delivered at all or on time. So there was no value at all in handing over money and getting nothing for it in return. It would have taken any half-competent lawyer 5 minutes to put in a clause in the contract stating that no money would be paid until delivery and/or held in an escrow account in a bank in Britain until delivery of goods fit for purpose.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
Ok, then scale up your bureaucracy to thousands of different types of contracts and you have an army of bureaucrats delaying signing off and then those supplies are no longer available. You're still judging this with the benefit of hindsight, badly too, in your system the NHS would have been starved of PPE waiting for lawyers and different levels of bureaucracy and more nurses and doctors would have contracted the virus resulting in more deaths, both patient and medical staff.
Creating a perfect system in an imperfect world isn't possible. There will always be grafters and fraudsters whatever checks you put in place and when urgency is necessary they will prosper. The real criticism of the government is failure to engage domestic manufacturing companies in January and February as it did with vaccines and ventilators. Once that mistake was made we were always going to be at the mercy of the Delboys of the world.
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
None. Nobody died because of that because the PPE did arrive on aggregate.
If your "five minutes" per supplier caused delays because some suppliers rejected your clause and sent their shipment elsewhere where they wouldn't need to have cash tied up in an escrow or be at risk of repayment then how many would that have killed?
So you do agree the Government should have paid me millions to supply masks, just in case? Or does that only apply to friends of the Government. This whole thing stinks.
The Government’s spin doctors on here really will defend the indefensible. If I had approached the Government promising millions of masks, are you suggesting they should have paid me millions “just in case I delivered”, ‘cos pandemic? Give me a break.
Rachael Reeves today: The government buying PPE from companies with no record of delivery is a scandal.
Rachel Reeves in April: The government not buying PPE from companies with no record of delivery is a scandal.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Well, that’s my afternoon sorted. Set up a company. Tell government that I can produce a vaccine by September. Ask for money. Send money offshore.
When my doctor friends tell me that it’s a bit more complicated tell government that but, hey, it was worth a punt and what’s £100 million in the grand scheme of things and I do have lots of spare slate which could be used for paving in hospitals, going cheap, and I’ll throw in the delivery.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
In a pandemic that is costing the government over a hundred billion pounds how many doctors and nurses would you be prepared to see die in order to prevent millions from being wasted?
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
You seem to have missed the bit where the 50 million ffp2 masks were not safe to use. So not a good option at any price.
If those were the only masks ordered it would be relevant. Were they?
You need to look at the decision making in aggregate. If you want to look at the decision making per decision then you would need to analyse each purchase more up front which would have meant delays. Orders like this may have been caught then and stopped - but in doing so you might not have had any masks at all.
Better to order more than you need, get it in fast, then sort it out and get rid of the rubbish (or send it elsewhere where it can be used) than to be tardy and have nothing at all while the whole world is scrabbling for supplies.
Cyclefree seems to be acting as if it was up to us to add an escrow clause and we just didn't think of that, but it was a sellers market. The whole world was desperate for masks wherever they could be found. She said if someone demands payment up front then stay away but what if every single supplier is demanding payment up front? What if every other country bar yours is prepared to pay up front? Should we just say to your NHS colleagues "sorry we've got no masks"?
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Nah the time wasting Labour supporting oik should know her place.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Nah the time wasting Labour supporting oik should know her place.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Nah the time wasting Labour supporting oik should know her place.
Well, that’s my afternoon sorted. Set up a company. Tell government that I can produce a vaccine by September. Ask for money. Send money offshore.
When my doctor friends tell me that it’s a bit more complicated tell government that but, hey, it was worth a punt and what’s £100 million in the grand scheme of things and I do have lots of spare slate which could be used for paving in hospitals, going cheap, and I’ll throw in the delivery.
What could possibly be wrong with any of that?
If only you'd had the hindsight to do that with PPE in April it might have worked, though you'd be in the same category as all of the scummy Delboys like this chancer so if you could live with that then sure.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Yes it would. She could have been relocated and then given compensation by the review.
Either way this proves my point to Gallowgate that the distinction between after the decision is made but before it is implemented it matters.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
Those of us who remember April remember the huge scramble to get PPE when it turned out that everyone in the world was doing the same and that supplies the government thought it had secured ended up being diverted by other governments. Going through the full formal tending process when headlines were screaming that we had less than 24 hours of stock left was not going to happen. That corners got cut is not exactly a surprise.
I seem to remember a list of suppliers compiled by Labour where a significant number tuned out to be dodgy to say the least.
The fact that the stories about shortages which had been dominating the headlines went away almost overnight suggests that whatever they did worked.
Are we going to see similar complaints about the vaccines that the government is currently backing when some turn out to be useless I wonder?
A deal brokered by a government adviser who advises the company’s board!
So he knew what he was talking about!
Seriously, getting PPE at that point was literal life and death stuff: speed was more important than anything else.
You might have a point if the stuff arrived and worked and only then was the money paid over. But it either didn’t arrive or is useless and still the money has been paid over. That is the scandal - not the speed or trying everything in an emergency but that money was paid to a company with no track record based in a tax haven run by people with no experience of this (I have had experience of Tim Horlick in the past - seeing him involved does not reassure me) via a lot of dubious and unnecessarily complicated transactions (a sure sign that something odd is happening) which the government is trying to hide and still the NHS did not get what it needed.
What are the chances of getting that money back do you think?
It’s incompetent at best. At worst .....
You are right that something went wrong here (and the role of the advisor does look iffy to be honest). I think the point I am trying to make is that I would have been amazed if there hadn’t been money wasted so mere in the whole program and, as long as there were enough that did work, I’m not going to get too worked up at it under the circumstances.
£252 million is too much money to be wasted. No money should have been paid over until goods of the quality needed were handed over and there should have been an effective means of getting the money back. Is there? It seems not. That is a disgrace, quite apart from anything else which may have gone on.
In a pandemic that is costing the government over a hundred billion pounds how many doctors and nurses would you be prepared to see die in order to prevent millions from being wasted?
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
You seem to have missed the bit where the 50 million ffp2 masks were not safe to use. So not a good option at any price.
If those were the only masks ordered it would be relevant. Were they?
You need to look at the decision making in aggregate...
Indeed. Given the fundamental unpreparedness of government in this case, a rapid and disorganised scramble for kit was inevitable. Risks would have to be taken, prices well over the odds would have to be paid, and it was extremely likely that a number of suppliers would unjustly enrich themselves delivering (or not delivering) what is generic kit.
Given the above, it ought to have been axiomatic that they avoid deals with connected parties unless there was a very good reason indeed. In this case, there was no good reason at all.
Incompetent or corrupt; the usual choice of judgments.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Yes it would. She could have been relocated and then given compensation by the review.
Either way this proves my point to Gallowgate that the distinction between after the decision is made but before it is implemented it matters.
You’ve failed to acknowledge my point about people being deported to their deaths. What compensation should a dead person receive from the government?
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
There are people in here who will kiss the govt's a*rse no matter what...
Doing a basic credit check, a look on Companies House to see how long the business has been running and inserting a "safety clause" in the contract boilerplate should be standard procedure.
After all, the alarm bells should have went off went it turned out that Prospermill lacked banking facilities as pointed out in the Tweet.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
The decision is the unlawful part, not the action.
What punishment should the government have received for their illegal decision to prorogue Parliament?
Re yesterday's discussion, mainly with Philip, re Govt contact and trace handing out family contact information on an individual basis, each one to a different contact and trace person (as criticized on Newsnight) as opposed to giving a family group to an individual contact person to contact:
Today's figures:
Govt contact and trace 61% successful Local contact and trace 93% successful
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
I didn't say before the decision was made, I said before the decision comes into force. Those two are very different things!
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
So if a government minister unlawfully makes a decision to deport someone, potentially to their death, you think judicial review should wait until they are already dead?
Ffs get a grip.
I said "barring anything truly extreme". Someone dying because of deportation is truly extreme.
However aren't appeals already a part of the deportation process? So it shouldn't need judicial review since appeals are already available. But yes if for some reason there's something truly abhorrent that can result in death then that is different to eg a planning decision going wrong where compensation can be paid after the fact or a corrupt individual can go to prison after the fact.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
It's your thinking but the reasoning seems to match the governments.
Re yesterday's discussion, mainly with Philip, re Govt contact and trace handing out family contact information on an individual basis, each one to a different contact and trace person (as criticized on Newsnight) as opposed to giving a family group to an individual contact person to contact:
Today's figures:
Govt contact and trace 61% successful Local contact and trace 93% successful
Isn't that because local government can do more options like knocking on doors? Which centralised call centres aren't doing?
I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation we had.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
I didn't say before the decision was made, I said before the decision comes into force. Those two are very different things!
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
So if a government minister unlawfully makes a decision to deport someone, potentially to their death, you think judicial review should wait until they are already dead?
Ffs get a grip.
I said "barring anything truly extreme". Someone dying because of deportation is truly extreme.
However aren't appeals already a part of the deportation process? So it shouldn't need judicial review since appeals are already available. But yes if for some reason there's something truly abhorrent that can result in death then that is different to eg a planning decision going wrong where compensation can be paid after the fact or a corrupt individual can go to prison after the fact.
You only dislike judicial review because you’re bitter your party got caught unlawfully trying to silence parliament. That is all this is about. There is no rational reason to change judicial review apart from pettyness.
Get real. I could have drafted a repayment/escrow clause in 5 minutes. There are plenty of lawyers in government who could have done it. There would have been no delay.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
There are people in here who will kiss the govt's a*rse no matter what...
Doing a basic credit check, a look on Companies House to see how long the business has been running and inserting a "safety clause" in the contract boilerplate should be standard procedure.
After all, the alarm bells should have went off went it turned out that Prospermill lacked banking facilities as pointed out in the Tweet.
The Tories are the finest government that money can buy...
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
It's your thinking but the reasoning seems to match the governments.
In general this government philosophically thinks much like I do, which is why I like it. When the government didn't (like last year under Theresa May) I was a vocal critic.
I can’t wait until a future Labour government does something verging on the unlawful and it can’t be challenged because Boris and Cummings neutered JR out of bitterness. The whinging and whining will be something to behold, because it will happen.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
I didn't say before the decision was made, I said before the decision comes into force. Those two are very different things!
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
So if a government minister unlawfully makes a decision to deport someone, potentially to their death, you think judicial review should wait until they are already dead?
Ffs get a grip.
I said "barring anything truly extreme". Someone dying because of deportation is truly extreme.
However aren't appeals already a part of the deportation process? So it shouldn't need judicial review since appeals are already available. But yes if for some reason there's something truly abhorrent that can result in death then that is different to eg a planning decision going wrong where compensation can be paid after the fact or a corrupt individual can go to prison after the fact.
You only dislike judicial review because you’re bitter your party got caught unlawfully trying to silence parliament. That is all this is about. There is no rational reason to change judicial review apart from pettyness.
It’s quite frankly pathetic.
Not at all, since the Parliamentary decision matched what I said should happen. It was an after the fact review not a before the fact one.
Parliament broke up, they did all the ceremonies, they went home and then the court case happened. I'm entirely and 100% fine with that.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
I imagine he has a different take, but that illustrates why reviews can and in many cases should take place beforehand. Not so much it prevents anything happening, but many decisions are too significant in effect to determine after the fact they are unlawful and it may not be possible to compensate any affected parties in a reasonable way.
Reviews being before is a feature not a bug. If the feature is abused you fix it not eliminate it. Thats the same thinking as that ridiculous advice on believing victims which sought to address one issue and in effect turned a fundamental principle of innocence until proven otherwise on its head.
Sure it is hard to prove people guilty but thats the point. And its annoying to have a decision stalled but that's the point - you stop unlawfulness, not merely punish it after the fact. And the price of delay even though it was lawful must be borne.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Yes it would. She could have been relocated and then given compensation by the review.
Either way this proves my point to Gallowgate that the distinction between after the decision is made but before it is implemented it matters.
The JR process therefore provides an opportunity for the government to correct its course before it incurs millions of pounds in compensation payments.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
That is incorrect. Judicial review typically occurs after a decision is taken. The idea is that it reviews whether that decision was made lawfully as per the express wish of Parliament.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
I didn't say before the decision was made, I said before the decision comes into force. Those two are very different things!
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
So if a government minister unlawfully makes a decision to deport someone, potentially to their death, you think judicial review should wait until they are already dead?
Ffs get a grip.
I said "barring anything truly extreme". Someone dying because of deportation is truly extreme.
However aren't appeals already a part of the deportation process? So it shouldn't need judicial review since appeals are already available. But yes if for some reason there's something truly abhorrent that can result in death then that is different to eg a planning decision going wrong where compensation can be paid after the fact or a corrupt individual can go to prison after the fact.
You only dislike judicial review because you’re bitter your party got caught unlawfully trying to silence parliament. That is all this is about. There is no rational reason to change judicial review apart from pettyness.
It’s quite frankly pathetic.
Not at all, since the Parliamentary decision matched what I said should happen. It was an after the fact review not a before the fact one.
Parliament broke up, they did all the ceremonies, they went home and then the court case happened. I'm entirely and 100% fine with that.
Your mental gymnastics is something to really behold.
Well, that’s my afternoon sorted. Set up a company. Tell government that I can produce a vaccine by September. Ask for money. Send money offshore.
When my doctor friends tell me that it’s a bit more complicated tell government that but, hey, it was worth a punt and what’s £100 million in the grand scheme of things and I do have lots of spare slate which could be used for paving in hospitals, going cheap, and I’ll throw in the delivery.
What could possibly be wrong with any of that?
The name of the company will be Snotty Masks Limited. May not protect against Covid but will against sleaze. Possibly. If anyone cares.
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
It's your thinking but the reasoning seems to match the governments.
In general this government philosophically thinks much like I do, which is why I like it. When the government didn't (like last year under Theresa May) I was a vocal critic.
I wasnt suggesting you are a yes man, you certainly are not. Just that you align here so your antipathy likely reflects theirs.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
Yes it would. She could have been relocated and then given compensation by the review.
Either way this proves my point to Gallowgate that the distinction between after the decision is made but before it is implemented it matters.
The JR process therefore provides an opportunity for the government to correct its course before it incurs millions of pounds in compensation payments.
I think you're losing sight of that.
So have an appeals process beforehand where it suits to avoid compensation but not where it doesn't.
Either way recourse to the law is still available, even if it is after the fact not before it.
Does @Philip_Thompson not realise that JR applications are reviewed already for merit in advance? You cant simply bring a vacuous case without any legal basis behind it.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
I must say I'm a bit puzzled by the Prospermill/Ayanda furore. I started reading the Twitter thread by Jo Maugham QC, which was full of indignation, mainly on the curious grounds that one of those involved is an unpaid adviser to the Board of Trade. And indeed the first few of the tweets suggested it was all heading for a major scandal, with £252m looking as though it was going to be squandered on non-existent masks and the taxpayer scammed by some shysters.
Then it turns out that 50 million masks were indeed delivered and the contract duly fulfilled. I'm struggling to see what the major scandal or grounds for legal action are here. It's not the fault of the company or its Chinese suppliers that after the order was placed, the NHS decided it didn't want to use masks with ear-ties rather than round-the-head ties. Would it have been any better if similar masks had been procured in the normal way from an existing supplier after a conventional tender process?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That's an excellent post and yes it is a very reasonable point. I do think that there should be a high standard of "irreparable harm" to have a before the fact injunction and JR. But yes JR as politics I do not like.
I must say I'm a bit puzzled by the Prospermill/Ayanda furore. I started reading the Twitter thread by Jo Maugham QC, which was full of indignation, mainly on the curious grounds that one of those involved is an unpaid adviser to the Board of Trade. And indeed the first few of the tweets suggested it was all heading for a major scandal, with £252m looking as though it was going to be squandered on non-existent masks and the taxpayer scammed by some shysters.
Then it turns out that 50 million masks were indeed delivered and the contract duly fulfilled. I'm struggling to see what the major scandal or grounds for legal action are here. It's not the fault of the company or its Chinese suppliers that after the order was placed, the NHS decided it didn't want to use masks with ear-ties rather than round-the-head ties. Would it have been any better if similar masks had been procured in the normal way from an existing supplier after a conventional tender process?
Tbh, if the masks are usable for the public then he government should take delivery and distribute them to medical institutions across the countries so that patients are able to get one in case they have forgotten to bring one.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
In which case, I think things need to pretty much stay as they are.
I must say I'm a bit puzzled by the Prospermill/Ayanda furore. I started reading the Twitter thread by Jo Maugham QC, which was full of indignation, mainly on the curious grounds that one of those involved is an unpaid adviser to the Board of Trade. And indeed the first few of the tweets suggested it was all heading for a major scandal, with £252m looking as though it was going to be squandered on non-existent masks and the taxpayer scammed by some shysters.
Then it turns out that 50 million masks were indeed delivered and the contract duly fulfilled. I'm struggling to see what the major scandal or grounds for legal action are here. It's not the fault of the company or its Chinese suppliers that after the order was placed, the NHS decided it didn't want to use masks with ear-ties rather than round-the-head ties. Would it have been any better if similar masks had been procured in the normal way from an existing supplier after a conventional tender process?
It also turns out that the masks failed to meet the agreed specifications and have not been used in the NHS as originally desired (see various responses from govt. in the Tweets below)
It also lacks basic common sense to have a govt adviser set up a company and accept a very contract from the govt he advises because it opens up the opportunity for litigation and the destruction of reputations.
What ever happened to being beyond the possibility of impropriety? Of being been seen to act to high standards of behaviour?
I am in the process of finishing building my own house. We are already getting admiring comments even though it will be another couple of months before we can move in. The phrase “Grand Designs” has been mentioned.
It is very lovely and in keeping with the landscape, unlike so many you see in that programme. The slate work, in particular, inside and out, is a thing of beauty.
The stories I could tell. Photos will be available in due course.
My one piece of advice - as I have things to do - is not do it in the middle of a lockdown.
Is it local slate? Can be very hard to source such things with so many quarries closed.
I've started getting into Grand Designs. [Is this the start of being middle aged?] Incredible to me how cheaply they seem to build houses, particularly the ones out of wood.
And yet also how badly they estimate costs. It usually ends up 2-3 times what they thought it would
I haven't seen any of those massive cost overrun episodes yet. But huge overruns in time.
Be warned, it can be an addictive show. Look out for how many times they have no experience of managing such a project. Sometimes it works. Other times...
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
The answer has to be sort out trade agreements with everyone, and protect, so far as possible, the British economy. The trouble is that none of that is likely to be dramatic and eye-catching.
See what you mean! In other words, yes, there will be eye-catching drama, but with PM Johnson having to explain himself. And there won't be a fridge in which to hide. One wonders, how many old-fashioned Conservatives there still are in the House; who put honour and reputation above fortune, or perchance, becoming a Lord.
Why do you think the government wants to limit judicial review? So that the government won’t have to explain itself.
Or so the government can actually act without taking forever being dragged through the courts to make any decisions. The same as dealing with planning issues.
Let the public at elections be the ones that judge the government's decision making, not lawyers.
Ah yes, I forgot. You want the government to be above the law not subject to it.
Divine right of World Kings - the Tory party’s new mission statement.
No I want the government to set the law. I want the public to hold the government to account.
The right of the voters not kings. The government are put there and held to account by the voters.
However you finesse it, you are still saying that the government should not be subject to the law.
It’s very simple: if you accept that the government should be subject to the law then there has to be a means by which that is enforceable ie by citizens taking the government to court and the government having to obey the law and court rulings.
If you don’t accept that then you want the government to be above the law.
I have no problems with the government being subject to the law after the fact. If I steal and am caught then I am subject to the law and can be fined or jailed after the fact.
I object to judicial reviews being abused for time wasting and obstructionism. If the government has broken the law then I have no problem with a review after the fact determining the law was broken and applying an appropriate punishment. That way the law is enforceable, but the system can't be abused by obstructionism.
Not wanting the system abused friviously is quite different to stating governments should only be accountable at the ballot box. The latter very much would mean governments could wilfully be unlawful and hope the unlawfullness is popular.
If the government is to be challenged on lawfulness then we cannot so flippantly erode JR. And your justifications reveal it would be flippantly done as the itd be done in anger because how dare anyone but the voters judge it.
If the system is too easy to abuse it needs revision. Itd be far from the only legal issue that needs revision. But it would need to be done cautiously, with care and consideration. Your words, if reflective of the government position, demonstrate no intention of such care or consideration. Just 'voters judge not lawyers'.
My words are my own thinking and I have no connection to the government or politics in general other than it is an interest of mine. So please do not judge the government by anything I ever say, unlike HYUFD I don't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
It's your thinking but the reasoning seems to match the governments.
In general this government philosophically thinks much like I do, which is why I like it. When the government didn't (like last year under Theresa May) I was a vocal critic.
It's odd, though, that someone who thinks themselves a libertarian would be against the constraint on arbitrary government that judicial review provides.
I can’t wait until a future Labour government does something verging on the unlawful and it can’t be challenged because Boris and Cummings neutered JR out of bitterness. The whinging and whining will be something to behold, because it will happen.
Re yesterday's discussion, mainly with Philip, re Govt contact and trace handing out family contact information on an individual basis, each one to a different contact and trace person (as criticized on Newsnight) as opposed to giving a family group to an individual contact person to contact:
Today's figures:
Govt contact and trace 61% successful Local contact and trace 93% successful
Isn't that because local government can do more options like knocking on doors? Which centralised call centres aren't doing?
I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation we had.
Oh absolutely and there could be many reasons for the difference. Clearly easier if done locally.
BUT when you knock on a door you speak to the whole family (who are in at the time) and follow up those who aren't later.
THAT is the whole point of handing family details to one person to follow up and not 6 (or whatever it may be) to separate individuals.
It is quicker, it is cheaper, and it gets a higher contact and response rate.
I suspect the reason they don't do it centrally is simply they get a list of names and not households.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
You are aware that the Spanish numbers on worldometer INCLUDE antibody testing? So not all new cases. Yesterday 2,900 on Worldometer, 1,800 new cases
Re yesterday's discussion, mainly with Philip, re Govt contact and trace handing out family contact information on an individual basis, each one to a different contact and trace person (as criticized on Newsnight) as opposed to giving a family group to an individual contact person to contact:
Today's figures:
Govt contact and trace 61% successful Local contact and trace 93% successful
Isn't that because local government can do more options like knocking on doors? Which centralised call centres aren't doing?
I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation we had.
Oh absolutely and there could be many reasons for the difference. Clearly easier if done locally.
BUT when you knock on a door you speak to the whole family (who are in at the time) and follow up those who aren't later.
THAT is the whole point of handing family details to one person to follow up and not 6 (or whatever it may be) to separate individuals.
It is quicker, it is cheaper, and it gets a higher contact and response rate.
I suspect the reason they don't do it centrally is simply they get a list of names and not households.
Following the logic of your argument yesterday you would send 6 different individuals to the house to speak to 6 different people in the house.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Just because parliament has agreed to the funding of something, that does not automatically make that something legal.
Hmm, I think national lockdowns are about to become a thing in a lot of European countries again. I'm surprised that Spain hasn't already implemented a full national lockdown the figures are very bad, they are looking at 4-6k new cases per day at the moment. Only the UK and Italy look like a second wave might not be as bad, it could be because both had such publicly awful initial outbreaks that tourists are avoiding them or people are too scared to travel.
You are aware that the Spanish numbers on worldometer INCLUDE antibody testing? So not all new cases. Yesterday 2,900 on Worldometer, 1,800 new cases
You need to look at the PDF for the detail, Spain only includes cases from day before in the headline but the PDF adds in cases from the days before which is why the numbers from the government headline doesn't match up to what is being reported elsewhere.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
In @Philip_Thompson’s world a minister can simply ignore the requirements of statute, make an unlawful decision, enact it, and then tell the court “oh well its done now, soz”.
And face punishment after the fact.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
I’ve been watching “Legal Masses” on YouTube. He is an American lawyer who specialises in copyright law, but has been commenting on some of the stuff happening in Portland and in particular the injunctions.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
That is already the case! You cant judicially review Parliament, because it is against the law (as enacted by Parliament) which the courts are judging unlawfulness!
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
Parliament passes law X on the climate change. Parliament passes law Y on air quality. Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
Is the budget not law then?
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
A budget allocates money for the government to spend. That’s it. What part of that is problematic?
Nothing. You are the one who wants to review it!
No I don’t... What makes you say that?
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TQkHGtjE3I
My house has 4 double bedrooms, built 20 years ago, but would most likely be built as 5 now or two 4 bed houses. I have a 1/4 acre section.
Parks: There are loads of little parks all over the place. I'm not sure exactly what happens with entirely new developments - they seem to have parks, I guess the developers hand the land over to the government, since people want to live near parks.
Parking:
There's no socialized parking in Japan, it's a free market. It works great. You can't park on the street. There's a law that you have to have a contract parking space when you buy a car, but it's avoidable. There are loads of little car parks all over the place - the management companies can convert a vacant bit of land into a car park in pretty much no time. There's a tax on land which ensures that land is nearly always put to some productive use, so if you've got some land that'll be empty for 6 months before you start construction on it, you'll turn it into a temporary car park.
Recently I've been driving into Tokyo (Shibuya) when I go to meet a client because of the rona, and I typically pre-book and pay 2100 yen (15 GBP) to park all day.
Never heard any, - I guess it exists, but I don't think it's really that politicized. Japan has quite a strong tradition of property rights - for example there's a bit of land sticking out in the middle of Narita Airport where they're hoping to build a runway but they annoyed the farmer in the 1960s and he refuses to sell - so there's not really the assumption that you have in Britain that you have a right to decide what your neighbour does with their land.
But huge overruns in time.
But the one last night built an amazingly cool 4 bed treehouse, with a ludicrously complicated design, without cranes in a protected woodland area for 280k.
https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/28-new-tv-series-the-treehouse
It was about the same size as the ground floor of my current house.
On the other hand, at least in this house the floor meets the wall at all points...
It is very lovely and in keeping with the landscape, unlike so many you see in that programme. The slate work, in particular, inside and out, is a thing of beauty.
The stories I could tell. Photos will be available in due course.
My one piece of advice - as I have things to do - is not do it in the middle of a lockdown.
- Have a plan.
- Be entirely prepared for this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-rmAQos3yE
There is an old saying: You can be good, fast or cheap - but only two two of those three.
During the pandemic fast was the priority. Cheap went out the window. By acting as the government did it went fast (it got orders in quickly) and right (PPE of the right quality was ordered in enough quantity and quality to get to people) but it wasn't cheap because millions got wasted on orders that turned out to be the wrong quality. So be it. The alternative to fast and expensive was either fast and wrong (so not having enough PPE arrive at all) or slow and cheap. Neither were a better option.
This is not hindsight at all. It is basic stuff.
The excuses being given for basic incompetence or worse are pathetic.
How much of Japanese housing stock is in high rise compared to the traditional British suburb?
New British estates have green areas of “parkland” however most of the time it is not given to the council and is looked after privately by the homeowners, on top of council tax. Of course it’s still open to the public, and entirely unregulated.
So @Philip_Thompson what are your opinions on a land tax if we want to copy the Japanese system?
I think the system as a whole has some merit.
The government has also ordered 250 million doses of vaccine despite the fact that we only have 66 million people and none of the vaccines may work.
Fast, cheap or right but only two of three - if you want to keep it cheap then which of fast or right do you want to drop?
Buy all means put in quick orders but make sure that if the companies turn out to be all mouth/no trousers you get your money back.
FFS! How hard is this simple point to understand?
Creating a perfect system in an imperfect world isn't possible. There will always be grafters and fraudsters whatever checks you put in place and when urgency is necessary they will prosper. The real criticism of the government is failure to engage domestic manufacturing companies in January and February as it did with vaccines and ventilators. Once that mistake was made we were always going to be at the mercy of the Delboys of the world.
I’d love to know what percentage of government orders were with reputable companies and what percentage were with shell companies with zero trading history.
If governments are wilfully unlawful they should be investigated by the Police and prosecuted for any crimes they commit same as anyone else. My understanding (and I may be wrong) is judicial review is typically an injunction done before decisions come into force to ensure the decision is lawful first and then the act can be done. I am saying, barring anything truly extreme, it should be the other way around. The act should happen and THEN the review and any related prosecution if appropriate should occur.
My understanding is that if someone is corrupt or commits malfeasance in a public office then that is a common law crime that the CPS can prosecute. I am not for one second saying that shouldn't occur.
Shows that you know very little about judicial review.
It was expensive because they paid companies like this as well as the companies that got the contracts that gave the stock, but the government didn't know at the time which would be right and which wouldn't. Fast, cheap or right applies over the aggregate of the decision making not each individual contract - if you want to apply it to each individual contract then the aggregate would have been slow. Which would have meant extra deaths and potentially billions in damage to the economy.
BTW being able to build higher around stations also makes living without a car much more viable, since you can simply get far much more stuff - shops, doctors, dentists, restaurants - within walking distance. There's also less attachment to public-facing stuff being on the ground floor, although I'm not sure how the rona is affecting that since elevators now feel kind-of icky.
Ultimately the choice was buy whatever was available and ensure the NHS got the necessary supplies or stick in a bunch of bureaucracy to weed out these Delboy types and hope that those delays to the procurement process don't cause further shortages.
Instead of which the government handed over money and got nothing in return. How many people died because of that? And you seek to justify it?
A review that is done after the decision is made but before it comes into force would meet both your and my phrasing. Changing the words changes the meaning.
I see no reason to change judicial reviews that are done after a decision has come into force.
If your "five minutes" per supplier caused delays because some suppliers rejected your clause and sent their shipment elsewhere where they wouldn't need to have cash tied up in an escrow or be at risk of repayment then how many would that have killed?
Ffs get a grip.
Rachel Reeves in April: The government not buying PPE from companies with no record of delivery is a scandal.
I don't agree regarding JR.
Let's use R (Coughlan) v North and East Devon Health Authority [1999] EWCA Civ 1871 as an example.
Miss Coughlan was (is?) a severely disabled person who was invited to live at purpose built accommodation which was described to her on numerous occasions as a "home for life". Similar statements were made to the group of residents as a whole.
Nevertheless the Council decided to close the home and sought to relocate her elsewhere.
She brought the JR. The decision was overturned and she continued to live at her existing accommodation.
It would hardly have served her to have brought her JR after the home had been closed, perhaps even demolished, at a time when it was a fait accompli.
When my doctor friends tell me that it’s a bit more complicated tell government that but, hey, it was worth a punt and what’s £100 million in the grand scheme of things and I do have lots of spare slate which could be used for paving in hospitals, going cheap, and I’ll throw in the delivery.
What could possibly be wrong with any of that?
You need to look at the decision making in aggregate. If you want to look at the decision making per decision then you would need to analyse each purchase more up front which would have meant delays. Orders like this may have been caught then and stopped - but in doing so you might not have had any masks at all.
Better to order more than you need, get it in fast, then sort it out and get rid of the rubbish (or send it elsewhere where it can be used) than to be tardy and have nothing at all while the whole world is scrabbling for supplies.
Cyclefree seems to be acting as if it was up to us to add an escrow clause and we just didn't think of that, but it was a sellers market. The whole world was desperate for masks wherever they could be found. She said if someone demands payment up front then stay away but what if every single supplier is demanding payment up front? What if every other country bar yours is prepared to pay up front? Should we just say to your NHS colleagues "sorry we've got no masks"?
Either way this proves my point to Gallowgate that the distinction between after the decision is made but before it is implemented it matters.
If you break the law then you can be punished after the fact. But yes its done then. So both the law and the voters should be able to enact punishment after the fact.
I believe in general crimes should be punished after they're committed not before they are.
Given the fundamental unpreparedness of government in this case, a rapid and disorganised scramble for kit was inevitable. Risks would have to be taken, prices well over the odds would have to be paid, and it was extremely likely that a number of suppliers would unjustly enrich themselves delivering (or not delivering) what is generic kit.
Given the above, it ought to have been axiomatic that they avoid deals with connected parties unless there was a very good reason indeed. In this case, there was no good reason at all.
Incompetent or corrupt; the usual choice of judgments.
You haven’t thought this through at all.
Doing a basic credit check, a look on Companies House to see how long the business has been running and inserting a "safety clause" in the contract boilerplate should be standard procedure.
After all, the alarm bells should have went off went it turned out that Prospermill lacked banking facilities as pointed out in the Tweet.
What punishment should the government have received for their illegal decision to prorogue Parliament?
Today's figures:
Govt contact and trace 61% successful
Local contact and trace 93% successful
However aren't appeals already a part of the deportation process? So it shouldn't need judicial review since appeals are already available. But yes if for some reason there's something truly abhorrent that can result in death then that is different to eg a planning decision going wrong where compensation can be paid after the fact or a corrupt individual can go to prison after the fact.
I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation we had.
It’s quite frankly pathetic.
Parliament broke up, they did all the ceremonies, they went home and then the court case happened. I'm entirely and 100% fine with that.
Reviews being before is a feature not a bug. If the feature is abused you fix it not eliminate it. Thats the same thinking as that ridiculous advice on believing victims which sought to address one issue and in effect turned a fundamental principle of innocence until proven otherwise on its head.
Sure it is hard to prove people guilty but thats the point. And its annoying to have a decision stalled but that's the point - you stop unlawfulness, not merely punish it after the fact. And the price of delay even though it was lawful must be borne.
I think you're losing sight of that.
Either way recourse to the law is still available, even if it is after the fact not before it.
It is a very different legal system in many ways, but one thing that struck me time and again was the concept of “irreparable harm” which is required for an injunction, in other words something is likely to happen that cannot be put right with money.
When you talk of punishment for a minister who gets this wrong it is highly unlikely that that will mean prison or even a fine for them personally. They might get sacked (though I wouldn’t hold my breath) but more likely the department will have to pay damages; but not all wrongs can be set right with money.
The problem arises I think when Judicial Review is used not because the government got anything wrong in law but because the plaintiff is politically opposed to the policy and, having lost the political argument, wants to delay it as much as possible.
Perhaps a compromise would be to continue to allow judicial review for the executive decisions made by government or its agencies, but to prevent it for Acts of Parliament or anything which has been voted on House of Commons?
Then it turns out that 50 million masks were indeed delivered and the contract duly fulfilled. I'm struggling to see what the major scandal or grounds for legal action are here. It's not the fault of the company or its Chinese suppliers that after the order was placed, the NHS decided it didn't want to use masks with ear-ties rather than round-the-head ties. Would it have been any better if similar masks had been procured in the normal way from an existing supplier after a conventional tender process?
There is nothing to change, because that’s already the system.
It also lacks basic common sense to have a govt adviser set up a company and accept a very contract from the govt he advises because it opens up the opportunity for litigation and the destruction of reputations.
What ever happened to being beyond the possibility of impropriety? Of being been seen to act to high standards of behaviour?
What ever happened to trust?
If you are planning to go on it, have a couple of preplanned crises, otherwise they will create some.
I recommend "Your House Made Perfect" over GD any time, or "The House that 100k Built", or even Sarah Beany's "Double the House for Half the Money".
Far more realistic.
And remember that McCloud's basic profession is interior decoration. Though he has broadened his horizons a little.
https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/dfts-27bn-roads-plan-in-heathrow-style-legal-challenge-05-06-2020/
This seems to be an attempt at a Judicial Review of something that was in the budget and so has been voted on by Parliament. Are you saying it has no chance of success or am I missing something?
BUT when you knock on a door you speak to the whole family (who are in at the time) and follow up those who aren't later.
THAT is the whole point of handing family details to one person to follow up and not 6 (or whatever it may be) to separate individuals.
It is quicker, it is cheaper, and it gets a higher contact and response rate.
I suspect the reason they don't do it centrally is simply they get a list of names and not households.
Parliament passes law Y on air quality.
Parliament passes budget allocating money towards theoretical scheme Z.
Government then proceeds with scheme Z but without taking into account the law of X and Y. It can then be judicially reviewed, as the Government is not taking into account the law that Parliament has passed.
If they wanted to, they could pass a 1 sentence law that exempts the scheme from the provisions in law X and Y, or amends law X and Y to not apply to scheme Z. In which case JR would not be possible.
People have to remember that the Government governs through Parliament. Not in spite of it. We all must follow laws that are already written.
This is where I do part company from you then: judicial review of Acts of Parliament.
Just because Parliament has approved money to be spent on Scheme Z does not mean they approve of the Government to disregard law X and Y.