This tweet is useful, not least because of the included extract from the Sunday Times:
Devastating story about David Cameron in today’s Sunday Times, alleging he sought to make money out of the wages of NHS staff coping with the pandemic, and the government tried hard to accommodate him. If true, surely the greatest ethical scandal in British political history pic.twitter.com/8vrQ6SL61U
— Robert Harris (@Robert___Harris) April 11, 2021
Was this corrupt? Not by any criminal standard. But what it does say is something more telling.
It would seem Cameron, Greensill and those they tried to sell this to in the UK government and elsewhere believed that the NHS really could be so cash strapped that it could sell its potential to receive future cash payments from the UK government as the security to back a bond it would issue, presumably at quite high price with a good cut for Greensill built in, to fund an NHS pay rise.
This is corrupt, in the sense that all involved should know that nothing on earth could require this because at any time the government could have costlessly provided all the money the NHS might have needed to provide a pay rise, and yet the idea was still promoted for private gain. There was, then, a blatant attempt made to advance private interest at cost to the public purse. It did not happen, yet the fact that it was even attempted is shocking.
I stress, because nothing was agreed and these bonds were not used that there is no wrongdoing, but what did happen was that ignorance, reaching right up it seems to former prime ministerial level, about the way in which government creates money and does so costlessly was to be exploited in a way that could have been very costly, and all for absolutely no public purpose or benefit.
It is only time in this case before ignorance will be used to justify such a scheme, such is the way of this government. And all because throughout government there is no understanding of modern monetary theory.
That is the scandal here.
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In a way isn’t this just a further extension of the whole PFI idea? – another appalling scam and financial disaster for the public sector.
It seems politicians have learnt nothing from the scandle of PFI. Unless what they learnt is how easy it is to make money off the public purse?
Whether you understand MMT or not, the idea that the NHS can borrow more easily or more cheaply than the UK Government (using future payments from the Government as collateral) is absurd.
Suggesting ignorance as the reason is far too kind, Richard. If the NHS were a private organisation then this sort of borrowing against future income might possibly make sense….. and the efforts to introduce this borrowing mechanism are a clear attempt to create the financial infrastructure that will enable the NHS to function as a private enterprise.
To push this agenda at this time is truly dreadful. The fact that Cameron thought it worth while says all you need to know about the state of thinking towards the NHS in the current Government.
Maybe I was being too careful…..
Surely the lid’s going to blow on the murky inside dealings of this Tory Government sometime soon. There was a good article from Nick Corbishley on this subject on Naked Capitalism last week –
“Downing Street’s dodgy dealings with Citigroup and Greensill show just how far the British government is willing to go to line the pockets of banks and other financial firms while bleeding taxpayers dry.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/04/fallout-from-greensill-collapse-splatters-british-government.html
Although someone needs to have a word with Nick to use “public purse” or “public ATM” in lieu of “taxpayers”.
“Bulls are there to be petted, preened and polished, cows are there to be milked”.
Them and us attitudes have always been with us, but are now institutionalised.
Incredible!
It shows you how Neo-liberalism has rendered society blind.
Anything goes so long as someone is making money out of it because ‘making money’ is about always extracting a rent and rent only.
And Cameron did what – a PPE at Oxford!!!!!
Bullshitter!! I’m fuming…………………
“Bullshitter!! I’m fuming…………………”
I can understand your anger – but I’m surprised that anybody is surprised. Moron-cons dad was a tax-dodger and as they say, the apple never falls far from the tree. Also Moron-con probably looks at his mates (Gidiot etc) sees what they have and wants the same, hence the Green-swill scheme (what a difference an “s” makes eh!).
What all this shows is an emptiness at the core of people in government (I apply this comment as much to Liebour under B.Liar as the Troyscum under assorted wretches). They have, for the most part, no interest in UK people or indeed the UK, what matters is personal gain (or positioning for personal gain – in fariness to Moron-con he is too stupid to do even that – B.Liar being an altogether difference example). They have no interesting ideas, but they do have their hands on the propaganda levers (BBC et al, ad nauseum )… which means UK sheeple for the most part either iggnore or go along with “events”. Thus I have to disagree with Mr Liddle’s “shirley” comment ….sadly no lid will blow because UK sheeple have been groomed and manipulated to the point where they love their groomers – even as they are being abused – they don’t know it. The events surrounding Mrs Windsor demonstrate this: people are told both what to think & how to feel.
“there is no understanding of modern monetary theory.” I would say “there is no willingness to understand modern monetary theory”. If I can get the gist of it, it can’t be beyond the understanding of the political classes. It just doesn’t suit their narrative so they persist with the story that Government finances are the same as household finances.
True
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