Jeremy Hunt has easily verifiable form when it comes to abuse of his position, corporate favouritism, exploitation of nepotism and a penchant for crony capitalism. Are his headless chickens finally coming home to roost?
On one of its better days in recent years, the Daily Telegraph this morning leads with the news that the long-suspected illegal NHS data sharing scam has surfaced at last. There is a lot more to be revealed about this….although doubts must remain as to whether the highest levels of it will see the light of day.
It’s almost four years since The Slog revealed that disgraced DWP supplier ATOS (caught cheating the Civil Service in a series of concurrent frauds ranging from false invoices, false cases of job-filling and rampant overcharging) had inexplicably been appointed to manage data for the NHS. The company’s appointment directly involved Jeremy Hunt…the chap also serially involved in dealings with G4S, the incompetent private sector cheats who have, over the years, screwed up every contract from US border controls to security for the 2012 London Olympics. Hunt himself, of course, abused his position as Culture & Media Secretary by flagrantly favouring Newscorp during the BSB takeover fiasco, and then redacting over 150 emails from the enquiry that followed.
Over the last three years, I’ve received three separate ‘tips’ from NHS insiders alleging that civil servants, ATOS executives “and others” were conspiring to supply data to large concerns with health-related business interests, direct marketing potential and legal defence issues in the UK. The allegations have suggested variously that motives range from bribes, benefits in kind, tax haven contributions and promises of well-paid corporate positions in a wide range of large globalist companies on one side, to huge corporate savings and ability to “hit the ground running” in the market for taking over health care from the beleaguered NHS.
The problem with all three blows of the whistle was a total lack of firm evidence to stand up what seemed in every case to be highly plausible accusations.
The case recently investigated by the Telegraph seems to confirm that ‘The data covering almost 180,000 patients – every case of lung cancer diagnosed in England over a four year period – was given by health officials to a firm which has acted to cigarette giants Philip Morris International for almost three decades’.
This is so close to the scenario outlined by one Slog informant – the same one who leaked Hunt’s fast-track plans for privatisation to me five years ago – I have to now be almost certain that the person concerned was telling the truth. (At a public meeting in London in December 2012, I met an NHS mutualist who, on discovering who I was, shook my hand vigorously and described the story as “100% correct in every detail”).
The phrase ‘health officials’ could of course mean anything….and may suggest the Telegraph team’s attempt to protect the whistleblower(s) concerned. All I can do here is give some solid pointers as to why Jeremy Thaiping-Erreur may well this morning be a headless chicken in need of Imodium:
- Questions have long been unanswered as to whether any Chinese Walls really exist between the Health Secretary and his cousin Baroness Nettlestone….the private health industry’s whore in the House of Lords. Slog allegations about corrupt dealings between the two of them at the British Council remain uncontested by either party.
- Rumours persist that Rupert Murdoch values Hunt’s position as Health Secretary, which he sees as a serious media-supply opportunity for Newscorp.
- The Philip Morris connection may well in turn lead to other Big Beast Tories in both houses of Parliament.
- Certain Blairite members of the Upper Chamber may also find themselves answering a lot of impertinent questions about Caribbean apartments and allegedly perfectly innocent offshore accounts
- IT failures by Atos in 2007, 2011 and 2016 led Whitehall to review the company’s status as a government supplier. But less than a year later in June 2017, it signed long contracts with several large NHS trusts – most notably UCHL – to manage patient data. The Health Secretary must surely now face questions as to why he seems so ready to give second, third and fourth chances to private Government suppliers found to be incompetently, serially incompetent.
I posted only last week on the rise and rise of the Junta towards Number 10 Downing Street. It is becoming daily more and more obvious that Jeremy Hunt is the Chosen One of the Corporate Fascism UK plc fanatics. Britons now face a golden opportunity to nail this Barabbas to the cross.
If you have solid information relating to the data sharing scandal, please contact me at jawslog@gmail.com.
In the meantime, stay tuned.
The Slog 