FACE MASKS FOR BRITAIN : GREAT NEWS FOR PEOPLE WORRIED ABOUT DYING PREMATURELY FROM CORONAVIRUS TODAY after Downing Street finally settled on which friend to give the contract for masks to, without contest.
The company that has landed the lucrative contract deals day by day in novelty shoe trees, with its only board member, Roger Daltbee-Spleen, having set up the booming enterprise last weekend.
“The company currently holds an impressive £1.50 in assets,” a Downing Street spokesman said, “but this is set to ramp up overnight to hundreds of millions of pounds. They will swiftly be diversified into numerous currencies in a dizzying and complex network of offshore currency accounts. But don’t worry, those taxpayer pounds, euros, dollars, roubles and lira will come flooding back to Blighty when the FX rate is just right.”
But there have been some murmurs of Mr Daltbee-Spleen being a bit too chummy with Prime Minister Cummings, and could that have influenced the decision to use the little known 2015 legislative instrument to essentially gift him a mountain of public cash?
That said, we’re asking questions, not making accusations, maybe it’s just stressed out ministers making decisions in a rush in the middle of a crisis. Much like when Grayling gave the ferry contract to a firm with no ferries.
“That sort of talk is essentially treason,” the Downing Street source replied, with a stern face, “I would suggest you don’t use those words. Or even ask those questions. We have awarded the right contracts to the right people at the right time throughout the Covid-19 crisis. Which by the way, was the fault of the last Labour government.”
But surely the standard and transparent tender process could have been followed had the government begun preparing for the Covid-19 crisis when it was first warned about it in January?
“I would advise you not to ask that question again either. Some people may get the impression our whole management of the Coronavirus crisis has been premeditated.”