The Government has been accused of “cronyism” after it emerged that the Health Secretary owns shares in an NHS contract-winning firm which his sister is also connected to. BBC News has the story.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock owns shares in a company which was approved as a potential supplier for NHS trusts in England…
In March, [Matt Hancock] declared he had acquired more than 15% of Topwood Ltd, which was granted the approved status in 2019.
The firm, which specialises in the secure storage, shredding and scanning of documents, also won £300,000 of business from NHS Wales this year.
A Government spokesman said there had been no conflict of interest. …
Mr Hancock declared in the MPs’ register of interests that he had acquired more than 15% of the shares in Topwood, under a “delegated management arrangement”.
Public contract records show that the NHS in England awarded the company a place in its Shared Business Services framework as a potential supplier for local trusts in 2019, the year after Mr Hancock became Health Secretary.
The MPs’ register did not mention that his sister Emily Gilruth – involved in the firm since its foundation in 2002 – owns a larger portion of the shares and is a director, or that Topwood has links to the NHS – as first reported by the Guido Fawkes blog and Health Service Journal (HSJ).
Guido has more:
Not only did Hancock’s sister’s firm win two NHS Wales contracts, it won a place on a framework to provide services to the English NHS in 2019 – half a year after Hancock became Health Secretary. He failed to declare any conflicts of interest in his member’s register.
While many ministers do declare interests of parents and siblings – even when they aren’t directly relevant to their role – the Department for Health wouldn’t be drawn on whether Hancock discussed his family involvement in the firm with the Permanent Secretary or Independent Advisor.
As the HSJ points out, this news comes at a particularly bad time for the Government, though the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) maintains that Hancock “has acted entirely properly”.
The news comes amid increased scrutiny of links between Government and business, in the wake of the Greensill scandal and concerns about how public sector contracts were awarded during the Covid pandemic.
The DHSC spokesman’s full comment on the issue last night was: “Mr Hancock has acted entirely properly in these circumstances. All declarations of interest have been made in accordance with the ministerial code. Ministers have no involvement in the awarding of these contracts, and no conflict of interest arises.”
Unsurprisingly, Labour has jumped on this story, with Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth saying that Hancock’s undeclared interest was “shocking”.
Sadly I suspect no one is surprised any more at the cronyism at the heart of this Government.
The BBC News report is worth reading in full.
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The good news is that these signatories have had the balls to challenge the government and PayPal, the sad news is that their are relatively few of them.
The non-signatories can hang their heads in shame for their cowardice.
Over to you Liz.
Good morning my fellow Sceptics.
Morning, one and all.
The fight continues. It spreads into everything. Shows what we’re up against, and that we are onto them and their lies and corruption.
PS Never-in-a-Month-of-Sundays did I think I’d say this (let alone write it here under my name), but 911 was a put-up job. Better late than never, eh?!
Yes, I only realised this about 9/11 in the last year, having had my eyes opened generally during the Covid thing I became able to see the evidence clearly, 21 years after the event! Am in awe of the people who’ve managed to keep spreading the word for so long.
James Corbett has recently released the third part of his excellent False Flags documentary, centred on 911. Part 1 is here:
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1744-false-flags-watch-along-part-1/
You can find parts 2 and 3 later on his site.
It goes back much further than 9/11. The keystone was the arrival of Benjamin D’israeli into British politics. The type of politics we have now began with him – and it was he who helped launch the Rothschild empire, integrating it into British politics.
Think twice about what you were taught in school about the world wars – you were reading the victor’s version of history.
I like to go back to my 1906 encyclopaedia where possible. Any particular aspect of history? And do I need an earlier or alternative source?
Everyone had better get on to the 911 false flag.
It is the keystone to awakening. It’s incredibly obvious yet causes normie to Gale their eyes at you when you tell them to look at any number of “problems” with the story, like building 7.
I literally had this happen at dinner last night.
Do you know that September was originally month seven in the Roman calendar? It’s believed that the twin towers represented one and one, and building seven was actually number nine. 911 – or, September 11th.
Next you’ll be telling us OCTober was the 8th month.
Mockery is the sincerest form of flattery. In the time you spent writing your comment, you could have checked for yourself. September was originally the seventh month in the Roman calendar.
my point was that the clue is in the name. SEPT=7, OCT=8, NOV=9, DEC=10
It’s illegal. Please stop smoking it.
I have it on good authority that all the people who allegedly died are actually alive on a Pacific island, living in a sort of witness protection programme with rather splendid accommodation prepared months in advance, and protected by the US Marshal Service.
A very welcome development …. but only 42 members of Parliament out of 650 MPs and 800+ members of the House of Frauds is disappointing.
It demonstrates how little regard the vast majority have for democracy and free speech.
You only get a true measure of organisations such as PayPal when they overplay their hand. We can now see exactly how truly hideous they are.
Or how supine and spineless they are. Not sure which is worse.
An important point. This has only been noticed becaus the insidious agenda slithered out of its normally well-hidden pit.
The good news is that now you Pommies have Jacob Rees-Mogg as the relevant minister. The son of the bloke who wrote “Who breaks a butterfly on the wheel?” The tide is turning.
This is gearing up to be a very interesting test of how far the state has been captured by the oligarchy.
On the one hand, this seems like an open and shut case of an intolerable abuse of power that if left to stand sets a chilling precedent that bodes terribly for free speech and liberty.
On the other hand PayPal cannot back down because to do so would be conceding that there are instances that they don’t have a right to shut you off or that their review process is flawed, which opens a massive can of worms.
Now that a significant group of elected representatives has waded in to force the government to address the issue we shall see.
We shall see who the state ultimately stands for. If PayPal is allowed to get away with this and continue in the same way, we’ll know the state is fully captured by the oligarchy. If rules are set so the likes of PayPal aren’t allowed to carry on in this way, we’ll know the state still serves the people at some significant level.
Intriguing.
The FSU is no small fry either.
They have picked a battle with a David that has a bloody big set of sling stones.
Hear! Hear! But PayPal is just one of the Gorgon’s heads. Plenty more needs to be done but it is a start. Policing next…article in DT today interviewing new head of College of Policing – they’ve suddenly realised that they should be getting back to basics, like solving “proper” crimes and avoiding political issues. Who knew???
The State doesn’t like competitors. Paypal might well be thrown to the wolves by the powers that be.
Whilst the declaration from MPs is welcome it’s ruined a bit for me by lockdown fascist Gove being a signatory.
Yes it’s not all that many MPs, but there’s some big-hitters there, and I’m surprised they’ve picked up on this and done anything at all.
Even though it might not seem it I think this country does have a fighting chance of pushing back against the “progressive” corporatist authoritarian groupthink. Truss could turn out to be sounder than Tory leaders of recent memory – that she’s aware of the problem is at least a start.
Someone has to lead the way in sticking up for the values that most people hold dear – truth, fairness, family values and free speech – and it’s probably going to be us – again.
I can’t be the only one who thinks the likes of Gove have put their names to this is because they are desperate to foist a cashless society on us and know that PayPal’s actions in demonstrating the danger it would represent to “dissidents” will make it far harder to achieve.
Looks like Toby Young wasn’t just talking when he said PayPal have “picked on the wrong guy”.
Now I definitely don’t agree with everything Toby Young says, believes or has said. But I’m very grateful to him for setting up LockdownSceptics (now The Daily Sceptic), where his voice – and many others – could be heard. it gave me hope, back in the dark days of lockdown.
And whether I agree with him totally, partially or violently disagree with him on everything is irrelevant anyway: it’s not the point. No-one has the right to shut down legal speech, however much they disagree with what is being said. So, let’s see this campaign get bigger and bigger!
Silver lining: Seemingly this story is everywhere now. There will be people being introduced to the FSU, the DS and UsForThem, who had previously never heard of these organizations through the various press releases. Plus this is good publicity, as it could mean people take pity on the victims of unfair political censorship, increasing public support for them.
It needs to be determined whether PayPal is acting on its own or in collusion with a wider cartel of banks and the payment processing duopoly that is Visa and Mastercard.
Several content creators ran into the same issues with Patreon. After some investigation it was determined that the policies Patreon had in place for certain political content were not its own, but were demanded of it by the credit card payment processors and its banking relationships, without which it could not exist.
The next question one should ask is whether the government can ever be the correct avenue to hold a banking cartel to account. Particularly our government – since it pretty much exists to protect the interests of the Anglo-American world’s banking cartel in the Corporation of London. I’m sure the Remembrancer would have a few words in the Speaker of the Commons’ ear if the conversation strayed into areas the banking cartel wouldn’t like.
Is Trudeau on the Board of PayPal? Just asking.