What does that actually mean and doesn’t it rely on the source of what you actually read?
and the Pope is a catholic - quelle horreur!! he speaks about religion!! how dare he 
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Having been through the process of complaining about an English Lawyer to the solicitors regulation authority (SRA) and the Legal Ombudsman (or complaint was upheld on certain counts and a fine given), I’m left feeling that however corrupt a lawyer or the same for the government, nothing really happens. They just have no teeth,
I will follow this story with interest, a high court case has more possibilities for a better outcome I hope, these people’s actions should be held accountable. The best thing about Michael Gove was the ‘slap Michael Gove app’ that appeared on Facebook before the previous election!!
This is even worse and involves your friend and mine the obnoxious Priti Patel:
Dear Jane,
Government gets a bona fide PPE offer from a would be supplier. The company has sourced the PPE, submitted a bid and passed through the technical checks. They’re close to signing on the dotted line. But at the eleventh hour they get dropped. Instead, Government buys the same thing from someone else. Someone who came in later but with close connections to Cabinet Ministers - and at an eye watering price.
This is a story we have heard, with close variants, again and again. But Government secrecy means we haven’t been able to corroborate it - until now.
The bare facts of what Good Law Project has learned about two contracts awarded to Pharmaceuticals Direct Limited (PDL) are extraordinary. We hold documents evidencing that:
- Priti Patel and Boris Johnson’s adviser Munira Mirza pushed the case of two middlemen for PDL with Cabinet Office;
- the first middleman was Samir Jassal. He is a Conservative councillor who has been photographed with Boris Johnson (and May and Cameron) and who has personal links to Priti Patel and a string of other high profile Conservative politicians;
- the second middleman was Surbjit Shergill. A company he owned went from £200 to almost £10m in value in the year of the pandemic. Documents leaked to Good Law Project suggest he billed PDL over £16m for his services;
- the first contract, for IIR face masks, was signed only six days after a direct intervention from Priti Patel – and for a price materially above the average price;
- the second contract, for ‘Meixin 2016V’ FFP3 face masks, was concluded on 7 July - and only after officials from the political hub of PPE procurement, the Cabinet Office, overruled objections from DHSC that it was overpriced by £50m;
- another bidder had passed technical assurance – and had even been sent a contract – to supply Meixin 2016Vs at the same time and in meaningfully the same quantity. On 2 July they were told Government had already bought enough of that type of mask. Five days later Government spent over £100m buying Meixin 2016Vs from PDL.
Good Law Project has published a long read on how a number of politicians and advisors intervened in PDL’s bid for a lucrative contract. We link to all the key documents. And there is more to come. All involved say they did nothing wrong - and their responses can be found in the long read. We think the evidence we have published speaks for itself.
This story will be published more widely tomorrow but we wanted to make sure those on our mailing list, including you, received it first. If you want to share this breaking story with your friends and family, you can do so below:
We are taking legal action over the award of contracts to PDL. If you are in a position to do so, you can donate here.
Thank you,
Jo Maugham
Director of Good Law Project
Only with your support can we continue to hold the Government to account. If you are in a position to do so, you can make a donation here:
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Michael Gove is appealing against the ruling that he broke the law regarding to the contract with Public First.
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Good Law Project
Dear Jane,
The statement issued by Downing Street when Michael Gove lost the Public First case (“We welcome the judgment”) might almost have made you think he had won. He didn’t of course – and the finding he had broken the law by awarding a contract to friends of Dominic Cummings was a powerful vindication of Good Law Project’s analysis of the Government’s attitude to public money as “institutionalised cronyism”.
In any event, Mr Gove has now revealed the truth of who actually won in the High Court by deciding to appeal the decision. You can read the (highly critical) decision of Lord Justice Coulson giving him permission here.
We think his decision to spend more public money on an appeal is likely to be driven by a desire to postpone a further embarrassing loss in a separate challenge we are bringing. We are challenging another lucrative contract awarded to allies of Michael Gove, this time to a company called Hanbury. It was due to be heard later this month but will now be delayed.
However, the appeal gives us a chance to plan to revivify the arguments we ran below that there was time for a proper competitive tender process and/or no need to give such a long and valuable contract without any tender process.
All of that having been said, we have to recognise Government spent an extraordinary £500,000+ on a one day hearing below - approximately twice what we managed to raise to fight and win the case. With that in mind, we have decided to reopen our crowdfunding page.
Thank you,
Jo Maugham
Director of Good Law Project
Only with your support can we continue to hold the Government to account. If you are in a position to do so, you can make a donation here:
Copyright © 2021 The Good Law Project, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email as you opted in to hear more from Good Law Project.
Our mailing address is:
The Good Law Project
3 East Point
High Street, Seal
Sevenoaks, Kent TN15 0EG
United Kingdom
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.