London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

UK ‘wasted’ BILLIONS fighting Covid-19 as inadequate crony firms were awarded govt contracts

UK ‘wasted’ BILLIONS fighting Covid-19 as inadequate crony firms were awarded govt contracts

A New York Times investigation into the UK’s handling of the pandemic reveals misuse of government funds on a massive scale during its Covid-19 response, calling it “one of the greatest spending sprees in Britain’s postwar era.”
The report, titled ‘Waste, Negligence and Cronyism: Inside Britain’s Pandemic Spending’, was published on Thursday. In it, the Times says that “about $11 billion went to companies either run by friends and associates of politicians in the Conservative Party, or with no prior experience or a history of controversy.”

The newspaper based its findings mainly on data provided by Tussell, a research firm that has been tracking UK government contracts and spending in response to Covid-19 since the pandemic began in February.

According to Tussell, the government has spent almost $22 billion on personal protective equipment (PPE), its Test and Trace Programme and hospital supplies.

The Times analyzed the list of companies that had been given contracts to supply PPE and found that billions of dollars in contracts were given to companies connected to, among others, Conservative politician and former investment banker Lord Paul Deighton, who quickly awarded massive contracts to multiple firms where he had financial interests or his own personal connections.

At the same time, many companies that were “often better qualified” to produce PPE but went through the usual channels, submitting applications for contracts online, didn’t even receive a response, according to the Times.

It also says that in the frenzy of scrambling for supplies at the beginning of the pandemic in March, the government ignored the rules of awarding procurement contracts, failing to carry out proper checks and setting up a “VIP lane” for streamlining applications of well-connected firms.

“Dozens of companies that won a total of $3.6 billion in contracts had poor credit, and several had declared assets of just $2 or $3 each. Others had histories of fraud, human rights abuses, tax evasion or other serious controversies,” the report says.

Astonishingly, a few were even set up “on the spur of the moment or had no relevant experience” and yet still won contracts, it added.

The Times gives one example where a company called Ayanda Capital, whose senior board adviser was also a member of a government body, received nearly $340 million to provide PPE.

When it delivered $200 million worth of face masks, it turned out that they were not fit for purpose because “the ear loop fastenings did not match the government’s new requirements.”

The UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, the body in charge of procurement, disputed the claims and issued a statement to the Times, insisting that all contracts were awarded with “proper due diligence.”

Labour Party MP Meg Hillier, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, expressed her frustration to the Times: “The government had license to act fast because it was a pandemic, but we didn’t give them permission to act fast and loose with public money.”

This isn’t the first time the media has cried foul at the UK government’s coronavirus response measures.

In November, the Guardian reported that the chair of the vaccine taskforce, Kate Bingham, came under scrutiny for allocating more than £670,000 ($900,000) to pay public relations consultants. Bingham just so happened to be married to a Tory MP who went to Eton college at the same time as Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and she herself attended a private school with Johnson’s sister.

Also last month, the Financial Times reported that the UK had spent more money on combating Covid-19 than “almost all comparable countries but still languishes towards the bottom of league tables of economic performance in 2020 and deaths caused by the virus.”

The FT quoted the independent Office for Budget Responsibility as saying that the British economy was set to shrink by 11.3 per cent in 2020, and that the government would need to borrow some 80 percent more than other leading G7 countries to cover its pandemic-related financial problems, while the UK death toll from Covid-19 was expected to be 60 percent higher.

The publication said the poor performance was due to the government’s failure to stop the virus from spreading in the spring and autumn.The total number of coronavirus infections in the UK now stands at almost 2 million, making it the seventh worst-affected country worldwide, with more than 65,000 deaths to date.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×