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
About which the P³ says:
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.
No. That’s not what was on offer at all. This is:
Earnd offered the scheme free to workers, who could opt to receive their wages on a daily or weekly basis. The organisation providing the immediate payment in such instances was Earnd, which would later recoup staff salaries from the NHS.
Greensill framed the scheme as benevolent, saying the aim was to help alleviate NHS workers’ stress during the pandemic. But two senior former employees say the plan was to convert the NHS’s future payments into bonds and sell them internationally. They also used the credibility of working with the NHS via the service, and a separate pharmacy scheme agreed by Cameron during his time in office, to demonstrate their credibility with investors.
Bloody stupid idea if you ask me but it is still entirely different from what the P³ thinks it is. It’s entirely bugger all to do with NHS cashflows and wholly to do with NHS staff cashflows.
Twat.
The P³ again:
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.
Actually, ignorant fuckwit seems a better description.
Well you say “ignorant” Tim, but is he ignorant or is he just lying.
I say this because I offered a comment (very unusually under my real name) on Saturday on his post on the DoE’s death and in response he flat-out lied about me. No ifs or buts, he just told an untruth.
I had noted that, contrary to his assertion, he had indeed had a choice whether to post something on it, had written his post, expressed his opinions and now others were free to form their opinions on him. Note I did not offer any direct view myself on his post. I left it to inference and Boy Oh Boy did the think-skinned reptile infer. His gimps then provided the pile-on he intended, in response to which he told them I had commented again. This time though the comment was so bad it revealed me to be a troll and was too poor for him to allow past his moderation process.
The only problem is… I DIDN’T COMMENT AGAIN. There was no reply from me. He invented it!
He further suggested fellow ‘trolls’ had followed on from me, but believed it might have been me using another name. Did he really believe that though? Because he has in the past told ‘trolls’ that he can tell the IP address they use and so can block them when they try to use alternative pseudonyms. Well then, if so, surely he knew they (if they truly exist) weren’t me.
Any explanation he might offer for this just wouldn’t really seem to add up. What does add up, what is irrefutable, is that I didn’t send him any further comment, didn’t ‘troll’ him, but he definitely claimed that I did. And he didn’t make this false claim about any anonymous correspondent using a pseudonym, he made it about me. As such I believe I have been libelled and traduced. I will need to consider what I want to do about that. In saying that, my experience does lead me to wonder how many other people he has libelled down the years, what their reactions might have been and whether that is in any way linked to his down-sizing from Downham Market to Ely.
This is a way of providing greater liquidity to individuals – rather than having to wait until the end of the month to be paid, people would be able to access the money as soon as it was earned. Workers are thus providing working capital to their employers because the pay is a month in arrears, this allows the workers to access the money immediately. And it looks like the idea was to split the gains from not using external agency staff but instead to use the NHS “bank” of (temporary) employees.
https://www.sbs.nhs.uk/news-nhs-sbs-and-earned-join-forces
The problems caused by the inability of people with low income to shift funds intertemporally is well established. For example this paper shows lumping welfare payments raises crime rates as recipients run out of money at the end of the month:
https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article/93/1/97/57922/Welfare-Payments-and-Crime
His cretinous hangers-on really showed their true, vile colours on that thread. If I had read Spud’s post at the time, my thoughts would have been pretty much the same as yours, David. Why did the bloated tosser feel obliged to offer up his worthless opinions?
I never warmed to Cameron. Even when he’s criticised by Mad Murph I don’t warm to him.
The people who called him Blair Lite were prescient.
I haven’t clicked – is it just New Wonga?
Err, Ken, are NHS employees so lowly paid that they notably start mugging little old ladies that last Thursday of each month?
David Giles
I thank you for those comments on that thread and the backstory – I think it’s important to realize we are dealing with someone fundamentally evil. A man for whom personal liberty is very much secondary to his concept of ‘the Greater good’. Thankfully he can’t even maintain the pretence (Whether through age or through being a fundamentally unpleasant person) of amiability required to succeed in his aims. His comments on the blog reflect the unpleasantness of both him and his ‘audience’ who in some cases (I’m thinking of the truly appalling Andrew Dickie and Carol Wilcox, who actually come across even less sympathetic than he does) are even worse
@Ducky
No, the crime data is just a way to show that budgeting is problematic for those on very low incomes. Here’s a different paper that shows that the timing of benefits has an impact on calorie intake:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272704000751
(Interestingly it goes against the permanent income hypothesis and suggests an element of quasi-hyperbolic discounting.)
@PF
No, this service appears just to allow people to access their earned income on a daily or weekly basis rather than having to wait until the end of the month. Wonga and other payday lenders would advance money but charge high interest rates, no interest is payable, but this service would not allow individuals to borrow against unearned income. (So at the end of the first week, under this Earnd service an employee can gain access to that week’s income rather than waiting until the end of the month, but cannot draw down the second week’s income).
@David Giles
It isn’t the first time we know he has flat out lied.
A while back he had written one of his usual muck-raking accusatorial blogs about someone (I forget who) and one of the regulars here (Bongo?) tricked him by sending an email supposedly from a firm of lawyers threatening to sue. Spud obviously shat his pants and took the blog down.
A few days later the blog reappeared (presumably after Spud had read the comments on here in which the trick was discussed) and instead of admitting he’d been fooled, Spud made up some farcical story about how someone had impersonated a solicitor and that he knew this because he’d phoned the solicitor named in the email as the sender. He even elaborated by hinting that rogue elements in the SNP were no doubt responsible, that this impersonating was a serious offence and that the police were going to be involved.
All bollocks because the ‘solicitor’ and the ‘firm’ were entirely fictitious. IIRC, the name used for the firm was NKVD Solicitors….
It’s like his “a journalist asked me about this” or “an MP asked me to explain” preambles before he launches into a dreary word-vomit of whatever it is he wanted to talk about.
He’s a nasty, venomous little toad.
FWIW, I agreed entirely with your sentiments on his post. I guessed at the time he wouldn’t be able to resist spewing some of his bile and spite at a time when he could easily have just kept quiet.
Andrew C
‘Rogue elements of the SNP’
That has made me chuckle, brings back memories of I think Erich Honecker and Chang Song Taek commenting approvingly in the comments section.
Re: your last paragraph – I guess that’s an example of him ‘speaking the truth to power’ (At least in his own fevered imagination)
Ken – was being at least slightly facetious.
Ken
Thanks. So it’s subtly different (in my mind!)…
Ken,
“ The problems caused by the inability of people with low income to shift funds intertemporally is well established.”
I wonder which way the causality runs?
Some anecdotes:
I remember watching a program on low level criminals, the sort that were always up for nicking from supermarkets and the like. They interviewed a Scottish barrister who dealt with a lot of it and he made the point that most of them couldn’t plan for tomorrow, why on earth did the State think they could plan for a month between welfare payments?
One of my corporals ran up so much debt that in the end he had to be kicked out. During discussions with him and his wife they did not understand money and how to budget. The garage owner and shop keepers in Platres, Cyprus, extended them credit but they couldn’t get their heads round it was against the following months money. We tried to help them but it just wasn’t sinking in.
Finally, my own brother. If ever there was someone who you would think had nothing but bad luck it would be him. But when you dig deep it’s just very poor organisation that sees him in the positions he finds himself. Again, no amount of advice works, he just can’t think ahead.
@david Giles – you forgot the most important rule when dealing with the spud -“Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Both Get Dirty and the Pig Likes It” or alternatively ““Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
The asslickers on tax research are even viler than the potato and that takes some doing.
I would never have thought that anyone could stoop as low as Mike Parr, one of Spud’s most assiduous sycophants, until I read his comments on that blog post
@BiND
Oh causality runs both ways. We know this from studies of payday lenders. There is overwhelming evidence that payday lending leads to an increase in financial problems (in other words offer the opportunity to those incapable of planning and they get into trouble). But, there is really good evidence that not having access to payday lending is bad for a subset of the poor – so studies of availability of payday lending after natural disasters like earthquakes leads to more defaults as the diligent poor cannot shift money from the future to do things like repair cars and thus end up defaulting.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X11000870
Diogenes
I think to an even greater degree than Murphy, Parr’s comments speak far more about him than the late Duke of Edinburgh. Tim ought to put up a post emphasizing that this is the type of person being accommodated on Murphy’s blog. But then we know from history that evil attracts like minds and when you are as evil as Murphy, of course you’re going to get that ‘quality’ of follower.
“I remember watching a program on low level criminals, the sort that were always up for nicking from supermarkets and the like. They interviewed a Scottish barrister who dealt with a lot of it and he made the point that most of them couldn’t plan for tomorrow, why on earth did the State think they could plan for a month between welfare payments”
I’ve always said that welfare payments should be given out on a daily basis from some central point. In order to get them you’d have to turn up at 9am (like workers do at their place of employ) and sit and wait to be called. Eventually you’d get ‘paid’ for your waiting, and you could go home with your cash. Rinse and repeat 5 times per week. Don’t turn up, no cash. Get a few days work doing something else, no problem because you can’t be in 2 places at once. The idea being to freely provide money to people who need it, but make getting it cost something, the only thing that such people have, which is time.