aspiblog

(not satire – it’s the Cameron government!)

The Cameron government has awarded an £80 million NHS contract to a private firm despite the company charging taxpayers £7 million more than an NHS consortium bidding against it:

Stoke NHS hospital scanning contract won by private firm

The government, however, hasn’t said why the firm – Alliance Medical Group – won the contract despite its bid being so much more expensive.

That’s because the bidding process was for some reason secret.

Ian Syme, co-ordinator of pressure group North Staffordshire, said of the awarding of the contract:

“This whole process has been shrouded in secrecy. We don’t even know who – expert adviser or public representative – were on the panel.”

This, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a director of the firm is none other than disgraced ‘cash for access‘ Tory MP Malcolm Rifkind.

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Please feel free to…

(not satire – it’s the UK today!)

Rifkind has resigned as Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

In his resignation statement, Rifkind reckons that the fact he was prepared to be in the pay of the Chinese is not “relevant to my work as chairman of the intelligence and security committee”.

Really?

Anyway, here’s Rifkind’s bizarre resignation statement:

“None one of the current controversy with which I am associated is relevant to my work as chairman of the intelligence and security committee of parliament.

However, I have today informed my colleagues that while I will remain a member of the committee, I will step down from the chairmanship.

The committee is due to be dissolved in little over a month with the prorogation of parliament for the forthcoming general election. The main substantive work which needs to be completed will be the publication of our privacy and security report during March.

Mark Harper the Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions was on Radio4 Today this morning, talking about Cameron’s promise to protect pensions; in his discussion he stated “we can’t tell people how to spend their money“!

Where then does this leave the vow from IDS that he is “testing prepaid cards, onto which we will make benefit payments, so that the money they receive is spent on the needs of the family”? ‘Given the total contrast between Ministers statements, who can we believe, Harper’s – we trust the public or Ids – the poorest must be told where to shop and what to buy’?

Maybe the Tories believe that only people who have retired can manage a budget? Or is it, much more likely in my opinion, the pensioner promise is more about the Conservatives feeling worried they might lose their traditional voting base, by means testing the additional support such as…

(not satire – it’s the UKIP!)

In which we get to hear sage political advice from a UKIP spin-doctor…..

UKIP’s general election campaign launch in Scotland didn’t go exactly to plan yesterday.

First of all a video link to Nigel Farage – who seems to have wisely decided to spend his party’s Scottish campaign down in England safely out of the reach of Scottish voters –  couldn’t take place due to technical difficulties.

And then one of the UKIP candidates said she didn’t know which constituency she was standing in.

“I don’t know where I’m standing, I think it could be Sutherland,” UKIP candidate Annie Murray happily admitted to the assembled media.

And finally, UKIP candidate Emily Santos – who will take on Alex Salmond in the high-profile Gordon constituency – gave a car-crash interview to the media.

When the tongue-tied candidate was completely unable to answer any questions, the panicking UKIP spin doctor accompanying her was heard to…

by Martin Odoni

Given his decreasingly-effective campaign to prove that his party is not a collection of extremist nutcases, it is quite bizarre that Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party’s most beer-swilling man-of-the-(excessively-rich-)people, has become a semi-regular commenter on Fox News Channel. When it comes to presenting outlandish, paranoid, right-wing accusations as substantive fact, the people running Fox News themselves have nothing to learn from anybody, and so becoming their ‘expert-voice’ on European immigration is perhaps not the most convincing way that Farage could demonstrate moderation.

Farage On Fox News, a channel fittingly named after vermin.

Just the fact that Sean Hannity once described Farage as a “future Prime Minister” (perhaps half-jokingly, but no more than half) says little for the network’s connection to reality; the leader of a party with UKIP’s degree of supportive over-exposure in the media will have no prospect of being Prime Minister any time…

Today I came across two articles, once again calling into question the behaviour of Politicians and Government Departments when using statistics; it is clear from these that  “Once again, DWP has shown itself to be a master in statistics manipulation and in the use of selective figures” this was on sanctions; and on pay and living costs “an act of statistical trickery to change the landscape of pay bargaining in the UK for the worse.”

This persistent misuse of data and the ensuing Spin’ fed to the media by the likes of IDS, is precisely what we have been saying this for the past 2 years; and it is the reason for our petition TO: KATHRYN HUDSON PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR STANDARDS to :

“Use the full Powers of the Commission and investigate Iain Duncan Smith Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for his regular use…