"Medpro was incorporated on 12 May 2020 and referred to the HPL by Baroness Mone the same day."
HPL is the High Priority Lane, part of a portal established on the Gov.uk website for private companies to supply products and services related to PPE and medical devices desperately needed for the spreading pandemic. Imagine that. A newly established business is on the fast track for high-value contracts within hours! Amazing what can be done with the right connections.
They made an offer the next day for 210 million Type IIR face masks. Issues were raised internally in the DHSC about the very recent incorporation of Medpro and the potential for conflict of interest, given Baroness Mone’s husband’s involvement but nevertheless, they somehow got an order on 2 June. This was for about £20 million and seems to have been OK.
The problem came with the supply of sterile surgical gowns. The first offer from Medpro came on 17 May but was for non-sterile products. This was issued by Medpro director Anthony Page who had been appointed on 12 May. Four days later, after being told only sterile gowns were being sought, Page sent in an offer for 50 million units on 2 June.
Anthony Page, lives in the Isle of Man. He resigned in May 2023 but seems to have no record of having worked in PPE procurement previously. Page did all the detailed negotiations.
There followed quite a number of exchanges trying to establish if the gowns met the required standard and internally, questions were raised about the wisdom of giving such a large order (over £250 million) to a small company like Medpro.
Page tried reassuring them:
“We have all been in business together for over 20 years, we have 100 people on the ground in China and supply retailers and Governments all over the world. PPE Medpro was specifically set up to supply the NHS in the UK only. … We want to reassure the NHS that we always deliver 100% quality and on time.” He goes on to ask what more was needed 'to get this over the line'.”
Despite having no margin and with more delays, Page was getting increasingly agitated (strangely for an order on which they claimed to be making nothing), and there were further emails to the purchasing team. Finally, on 27 June, a signed contract was sent to PPE Medpro with a final agreed price of £4.88 per unit, giving a total contract value of just shy of £122 million. Not bad for a company set up six weeks before with £100 share capital.
However, contrary to Page's claim about removing Medpro's margin 'entirely', Ms Mone later admitted she actually 'benefited' by £60 million from the government contracts they obtained. Hardly no margin entirely, and all for simply shuffling paperwork while acting as a middle-man. Altruism it was not.
As it turned out, the gowns were tested and found not to be of the sterility required. Out of 140 tested, 103 failed. They were then rejected. The government launched legal proceedings, and yesterday Mrs Justice Cockerill ordered PPE Medpro to repay £122 million. PPE Medpro have spent £4.3 million defending the action, another waste of money.
It's a story of greed and avarice running way ahead of competence and people getting involved in things they didn't really understand. Whether the government will ever see any of the £122 million is another matter. I suspect not.
US Government shut down.
It’s a strange quirk of US politics that Congress must vote each year on government spending plans and, with the usual close balance between Republicans and Democrats, there is frequently an impasse before agreement is reached. The result is a so-called shutdown of government.
Federal employees, including the military, aren’t paid, and many programmes are suspended. Things limp on after a fashion on the understanding that workers will eventually get the money they're owed. This nearly happened in March despite the Republicans having a majority in both houses. Some fiscal hawks in the GOP refused to support Trump’s spending plans, and an extension was agreed until 30 September.
That ran out on Tuesday night. At a press conference, Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt and VP Vance blamed the Democrats, ignoring the fact that the Republicans still have a majority in the Senate and the House and should be able to get the budget approved without opposition votes.
They claimed the Dems want Medicaid extended to illegal immigrants, a claim with zero evidence and which the Democrats have consistently and repeatedly denied. It is, in fact, against Federal law to provide Medicaid for undocumented migrants.
They have given up on shame.
Quantico
Well, Trump and Hegseth didn't demand any pledges of allegiance from the military leaders gathered in Virginia on Tuesday, but it was a bizarre meeting anyway.
All the top brass flew in from around the globe to listen to Trump’s standard hour-long rambling diatribe against reality. The one he gives to anyone who'll listen. He talked about climbing stairs, how immigrants are coming into the USA from jails abroad, Biden being an autopen (no really!), that he won all seven swing states, how people love his signature, how Putin told him the US was the hottest country in the world, etc, etc.
The audience listened in silence to Trump, looking and sounding as if he had been completely sapped of all energy and on life-support, droning interminably on and on and on.
It was amazing to think there was a human being inside Trump who actually thought anybody in the hall would be interested in what he was saying. I would be embarrassed to give that speech to a primary school class.
The most terrifying part was when he appeared to call for war with his own citizens:
Trump faced backlash from Democrats following a speech to U.S. military brass where he raged about a domestic “war from within,” and suggested “dangerous” American cities would be used as “training grounds for our military.”— HuffPost (@huffpost.com) 30 September 2025 at 20:52
It only confirmed that the POTUS is completely mad.
