COVID Cronyism and Mone – The Tip of the Iceberg: Byline Times’ Full Story of the PPE Cash Carousel 

We still don’t have the full picture of the chaos of the COVID years – the billions wasted, the lives needlessly lost, and the decisions facilitated through WhatsApp messages that have mysteriously vanished. 

But Byline Times has attempted to shed some light on the years of scandal, before the public inquiry got underway.

We hope our reporting stands as testament to the need for vigilant journalism, to shine a light on the murkiest days of the pandemic.

This is a snapshot of our reporting on the Coronavirus ‘cash carousel’ and what happens when cronyism seeps deep into British politics. 

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The Crisis Begins

Within weeks of the first lockdown, Nafeez Ahmed on Byline Times became arguably the first journalist to break the story of the emerging personal protective equipment (PPE) scandal. 

On April 2 2020, he exposed how lucrative contracts were being awarded to Conservative Party associates. 

Boris Johnson’s Government had appointed a giant haulage firm with financial ties to the Tory Party to be in charge of a new supply channel for PPE to the NHS. Its founding executive chairman was Steven N. Parkin, a top Conservative Party donor who has attended exclusive ‘Leaders Group’ meetings and donated almost £1 million to the party in the preceding five years. 

This set the tone for an extensive investigation into COVID-19 contracts, shedding light on a concerning trend of cronyism.

That May, Stephen Delahunty on Byline Times revealed that another Conservative donor was involved in the COVID-19 contracts.

Europa Worldwide Group – the managing director of which was a personal donor to Johnson – was found to be arranging PPE supplies for the NHS and manufacturing testing kits. 

No one would begrudge firms being involved in ‘helping’ the emergency effort. But the lucrative profits secured off the back of many of these deals, often going to Conservative-linked figures, began raising eyebrows. 

This newspaper continued – pretty much alone – in examining these contracts.

In July 2020, Delahunty revealed that companies with no prior experience or expertise were inexplicably receiving multi-million-pound contracts. This was despite the looming threat of legal challenges over what was to be dubbed the ‘VIP Lane’: pathways for firms to win government contracts with little oversight and through referrals from well-connected politicians. 

Brexit featured too. That same month, Stephen Komarnyckyj discovered that an award of a PPE contract to a company that had no cash stemmed from the UK choosing not to join the EU-wide PPE purchasing scheme. 

In quick succession, we found that a recruitment firm with just £322 in net assets had received an £18 million Government contract. By this time, legal campaigners at Good Law Project were on the case. But their revelations and ours were still largely going unreported in the rest of the established media. 

Three more contracts emerged in July, going to a fashion company, a trade consultant and a gambling company. It was beginning to look desperate – and fishy. 

Using a legal loophole designed for emergencies, the Government was able to award these huge contracts without any competition. And, it seems, without even basic due diligence checks. 

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A New Phase

Things got even weirder that August, when Byline Times revealed the companies linked to the exclusive Plymouth Brethren religious sect which were mopping up huge COVID contracts. And still the warning signs kept flashing, as we dug up dormant firms which emerged from seemingly nowhere to win millions in PPE deals. 

All these contracts could be justified if they were effective in saving lives. But in August 2020, we began to see the true picture: much of the PPE purchased at vast sums couldn’t actually be used. It wasn’t up to scratch. Meanwhile, NHS staff continued to complain of shortages and shoddy equipment.  

Labour MP Dawn Butler was among the first politicians to sound the alarm following our reporting. She told Byline Times that summer that the award of the new contracts to unheard-of firms was “yet another example of questionable procurement contracts” by the Government and that “the list seems to be growing day by day”. 

“There is no competitive tendering and no transparency,” she added. “The full extent of this scandal must be brought to light, with full details published of all contracts, so this does not happen again. We all deserve to know how our public money is spent.”

Did ministers listen? 

It seemed not. September came around, and Sam Bright reported that the Government spent more than £300 million on overalls for NHS staff – at a cost of £840 per bodysuit actually delivered.