Establishment networking, sleaze and corruption. A handy compendium.

[agricola]

Nothing to see here.......

Firm part-owned by Boris’s £1m donor wins £80m MoD contract

Christopher Harborne is the largest single shareholder in QinetiQ, which announced a lucrative government deal this week

www.opendemocracy.net

TBF the entire history of QinetQ is one of outright shadiness.

 

[MrSki]

Fingers crossed.

 

[brogdale]

Sky producer appearing to confirm what many suspected...

 

[brogdale]

Shame it's just his job...

 

[brogdale]

Classic Francis Urquhart; it's always the cover-up...

 

[Lurdan]

 

[ruffneck23]

 

[bluescreen]

So he IS the same William Shawcross who wrote the official biography of the Queen Mother.

 

[Lurdan]

Entertaining and detailed profile of Zahawi in the FT:

From Iraqi oilfields to Tory HQ: how Nadhim Zahawi mixed business and politics - Financial Times (archived)

 

[teqniq]

What is that stench?

REVEALED: Politically connected broker made £17m profit on ‘VIP’ PPE contracts - Good Law Project

goodlawproject.org

 

[teqniq]

More PPE corruption:

Firm won £25.8m PPE contract after Greg Hands approached by Tory activist

Exclusive: New Tory chair referred Luxe Lifestyle in April 2020 despite it apparently having no history of supplying PPE

www.theguardian.com

 

[agricola]

Glad to see one of the biggest obscenities of the 90s is being challenged:

Guy Hands firm challenges MoD over controversial £8bn property estate

Annington Property launches judicial review arguing ministry does not have right to take back houses after ‘disastrous’ sell-off

www.theguardian.com

 

[teqniq]

This is excellent:



From

 

[teqniq]

NEW: Company with just £85 in the bank made £20m profit after Dominic Cummings referred Innova Medical into the ‘VIP’ lane - Good Law Project

 

[teqniq]

Chip off the old block here:

MP's daughter threatened to sue for 'VIP lane' commission - Good Law Project

goodlawproject.org

 

[bluescreen]

London is the libel capital of the world.

Not sure if this is the best place to post it, but here's a good introduction to the latest on SLAPPs and libel tourism in LRB.
It's paywalled so here's the archived version

Peter Geoghegan · Short Cuts: Libel Tourism · LRB 16 March 2023

archived 7 Mar 2023 16:41:54 UTC

archive.ph

<snippages>

[A few weeks after attending an MoJ discussion on Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs)] I received a ‘pre-action letter’ from Boies Schiller Flexner, a law firm in New York whose clients have included Al Gore and Harvey Weinstein. The letter stated that openDemocracy, of which I am the editor-in-chief, had defamed a UK-registered shell company called Jusan Technologies. Four months earlier, we had reported that Jusan held billions of dollars in assets that were ultimately controlled by the Nazarbayev Fund, whose chairman is the former leader of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. The letter claimed that our reporting had caused significant financial loss to Jusan in the UK. At the time of our story, it is believed Jusan had at most a single employee, no website and no address.

Prigozhin tried to shut Bellingcat up about his activities with Wagner Group

But rather than pursue Bellingcat, which is based in the Netherlands, he went after the site’s founder, the British journalist Eliot Higgins, for his social media posts about the story. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, part of the Treasury, issued waivers to allow the London law firm Discreet Law to represent Prigozhin. A man who is forbidden to enter the UK or hold a British bank account was given permission to harass a British journalist. The Office of Financial Sanctions also signed off on the lawyers’ hotel and flights to meet Prigozhin in St Petersburg. The case collapsed when Discreet Law withdrew their services after the invasion of Ukraine, and was eventually struck out last May. Higgins was left with costs of £70,000.

You don't have to be based in the UK to sue or be sued.

A 2020 survey by the Foreign Policy Centre found that almost three-quarters of investigative journalists in 41 countries had received legal correspondence as a result of information they had published. The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Vance Centre for International Justice in New York are launching an initiative called Reporters Shield, largely funded by USAID, which will provide journalists and news organisations around the world with libel lawyers, training and pre-publication legal checks (for a membership fee). British journalists will need it. Dominic Raab promised to ‘put an end to this bullying and protect our free press’, but no parliamentary time has been allotted to Slapp reform. Last summer, the former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi issued legal threats against journalists who asked questions about his tax affairs.

 

[teqniq]

bluescreen I posted the Bellingcat SLAPP story in the Russian Oligarch thread but thanks for posting it here as well

In other news, yes folks it's snouts in trough:

REVEALED: Tory donor’s firm lobbied health minister two weeks before landing controversial hotel quarantine contract - Good Law Project

goodlawproject.org

 

[MrSki]

Led by Donkeys expanding their work.

 

[brogdale]

Led by Donkeys expanding their work.

Stupid greedy cunts

 

[MrSki]

Longer clip here.

 

[teqniq]

As a result of a Private Eye investigation questions have been asked in parliament about this:

 

[teqniq]

The stench of corruption is strong in this one:

Tory MP Adam Afriyie who repeatedly promoted vaping didn’t declare wife’s shares in vape retailer

 

[teqniq]

Ashcroft this time:

Healthcare firm owned by Tory grandee landed £53million in NHS contracts

Tory grandee Lord Ashcroft controlled Medacs Healthcare when it was handed 10 NHS deals worth up to £53million between September 2021 and December 2022, contract notices have revealed

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[teqniq]

Tory donor whose mum put Boris Johnson up rent-free gets £12.7m Government deal

 

[teqniq]

Javad Marandi: Tory donor's link to massive money laundering probe

 

[Lurdan]

Long report in the FT about the Teeside freeport shenanigans.

Trouble in Teesside: a Tory rising star and a divisive property deal - Financial Times (archived)

 

[teqniq]

The real sting in this one apart from the blatant cronyism of course is that when the contact was withdrawn by government they got £38.6m settlement fee. Wholesale taking the piss.

EXCLUSIVE: WhatsApp messages reveal Matt Hancock helped Tory donor win covid contract that cost the taxpayer £38m - Good Law Project

goodlawproject.org

 

[teqniq]

More dodginess and as I suspected would happen Gove has refused permission for the National Audit Office to conduct a full investigation into what has happened here:

Teesworks: the mask slips

"More questions are being asked about the role of a small coterie of businessmen in the regeneration project and the secrecy surrounding land and money deals."

northeastbylines.co.uk

 

[teqniq]

Houchen is claiming 'naivety' now.......

How the ‘naive’ golden boy of levelling up got hit with claims of criminality and corruption

 

[teqniq]

Another grifting PPE scumbag:

‘Unfit’ PPE worth millions helped ‘playboy’ buy two mansions

Glove tycoon Robert Gros splashed millions on luxury homes and planned to build cinema, disco and golf simulator

www.opendemocracy.net