£1.4 billion pounds destroyed, eye watering amount of money, any profits associated with the company who supplied it are private as the directors husband and wife are based in Jersey albeit they say they pay U.K. Tax.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cll476qzm85o

British company that "Before the pandemic was already a specialist manufacturer of PPE and had 25 employees." They fulfilled orders placed during the pandemic in full and in good time - not their fault that this incompetent and venal government massively over-ordered by setting up a gravy train for their chums who had no previous background in PPE.

We’ll they won’t be destroying anything anymore because they’ll be toast in a fortnight, it’ll then be Labours turn, then the Torys’s turn, the Labour’s turn etc etc till hell freezes over.

Makes me laugh when I see " billions " banded about. I honestly can't remember the word billion mentioned regarding government spending or the rich people before the pandemic If my memory serves the rail network plan from Boris was something in the region of 650 million. Now price that up a few years later you must be talking 10 billion How so foooked up is this money grabbing World

Was the equipment past it’s use by date, in which case it would be have to be destroyed anyway…..?
Would it have been wasteful to destroy equipment still in date to get rid of storage costs….?

Why did the owners base their business in Jersey for ‘Privacy reasons’…..

I had a friend who transferred one of his businesses to Jersey and used to go there regularly for a month at a time, to keep an "eye" on things.
He put himself up in the best hotel in St Helier and had a beano on expenses. The same guy had a quarter share in about six trawlers and he once told me one of the quarters was owned by Terry Wogan. I just laughed but he insisted it was true.
Now that man could make money. He didn't only know every trick in the book, he invented half of them.
Lovable rogue.

To put this in context this would build another 100 platforms on Hartlepools railway station.

" The train to Cockfosters is leaving on platform 69"

I'll add to 'British company that "Before the pandemic was already a specialist manufacturer of PPE and had 25 employees."

They were actually an importer of PPE from China. It really boils my piss that they caused this and then profited:

Speaking at the time, external, Mrs Stoute said volumes of their product, shipped from China, increased from “eight sea freight containers every month to 800”.

In a post on X, then known as Twitter, in October 2020 she wrote that her “team of 25 people” supplied “one fifth of the PPE national stockpile”.

Obviously there was no mention of 'sale or return'.

This goes back to 2020 by the way….but why wasthe company based on Jersey for ‘privacy reasons’…?

The last time I was on Jersey there was no VAT, is that still the case.
I would suspect it had something to do with tax.

[quote="Snowy"]This goes back to 2020 by the way….but why wasthe company based on Jersey for ‘privacy reasons’…?[/

For private companies based in Jersey it is sufficient that the accounts are available to shareholders, 2 of they can’t be viewed by the public.
Any profits since the contract was fulfilled are not known because in 2021 the co-directors, Sarah Stoute, 50, and her husband Richard, 53, based the business offshore in Jersey for privacy reasons.
Privacy reasons ??

I think we can all draw our own conclusions from that Jamie. I have.

Of course it was privacy reasons, hidden from the taxman. And like many shelter companies on various locations the "Company Office" would have been no more than a brass letter plate on a building wall.

be very interesting if there was a run down of the numbers of each item of PPE that was ordered. doubt we,d ever find out as anything from that period is shrouded in as much secrecy as possible and you are a conspiracy theorist if you try to rock the boat.

Drove through this small place on the Isle of Man and this house had the brass plate of a Large Company on it….head office my arse.

So far the supply company has not been accused of breaking any rules or the Law. They are entitled to move to Jersey and equally entitled to take advantage of the regulations apertaining in that place. As far as they are concerned there's nowt to see and if there was it would be outed and our Jamie would be all over it.
Bless his little cotton socks.

That was the point i was making earlier, I actually know somebody personally who did it, well knew actually he is no longer with us.
The owners of Pools when Hoddy was chairman used the British Virgin Islands for their registration.
We can't blame them for taking advantage where it is available and within the law.
Not sure I would do it but I'd be sorely tempted if it was worth a fortune to do so.

Is it any different to Shipping companies flying a flag of convenience,

its the laws that are wrong not the people using them to their advantage. if we knew of a loophole to save us money and it was legal i,m sure we,d all use it.

Something I object to most strongly, but typical of this country nowadays, lowering standards for the cheapest option.

Now a Czech billionaire wants to buy out the Royal Mail, do the British own anything in the U.K. ?

He’s bought it, it’s a done deal

Wonder where the logistics support for a Falklands type campaign would come from with the flagging out of almost the entire British Merchant Navy with cheap foreign seafarers.
Couldn't see Phillipino crews wanting to put themselves in harms way on behalf of the UK.

Sadly it wouldn’t…..the Navy has been whittled down to a joke….same with all branches of the forces.

I don’t wear cotton socks, seriously they have done nothing wrong, tax avoidance which isn’t illegal, it’s obvious why they moved the company registration to Jersey, they don’t want their accounts opened up for public scrunity.

Me being the ever pessimist the asset stripping will now start, some sold others will cease to exist and the profitable bits will be held onto.

That's called having a choice and using it if you are correct that is. When they use that as their reason i'll believe it but until then I'll mind me own business. I don't like prying eyes around my affairs and I respect them if they take the same stance.

That's what businessmen do, maybe the previous owners should have also considered trimming the sails and they might have fared better.
You don't buy a business for charitable reasons. Look at the big chains that have gone to the wall simply because they couldn't adapt. Workers should back the prudent and efficient attitude a bit more cos that's what keeps them in work and able to pay their way. Far too much reliance paid on the government to pull them out the shit or keep them in the loop without any effort coming back. Free ride Britain needs a bloody good dose of reality and like quick.
Just my opinion you understand.

Yes free enterprise is brilliant, the utilities were all sold off and look what that has achieved, private mostly foreign companies making huge profits of the back of the U.K. citizens. Sewage being dumped in the rivers by water companies who borrowed money to pay shareholders dividends.

Don’t forget we’d always had a local private water company till they sold out to Anglia, but Hartlepool Water was well run, local and very reasonable with its charges.
I suspect the problem is the size of some of these outfits.
But, as strategic assets they must always be in British ownership and no foreign investment, the Victorian’s managed to build it without overseas money.
The country is beginning to look more like a fire sale of our assets, we’ve had weak government for decades and I expect no change on the horizon.

There are always exceptions to everything and nothing is perfect. Utilities and Rail should be in house but we have to remember both the utilities and the railways were massively underfunded for years and still haven't recovered from that. The water and sewage problems have been exasperated by the change in rain patterns in recent years. The new Labour government will have an opportunity to reverse privitisation but will reject the idea like they did last time. So you will be able to blast away at whatever government we have for a few more years yet when it comes to the utilities. It will be interesting to see if you apply the same vigour to Labour as you do to the Tories, all in the interest of fairness and balance you understand.

Last time around Tony embraced privatisation….don’t forget all those PFI Hospitals he lumbered us with, where it cost a fortune just to change a light bulb. And he was fond of a war as well.

Just goes to show any projects governments or local governments get involved in cost a fortune including HS2, private enterprise knows how to screw them and see them as a cash cow.

Some private enterprise, not all private enterprise, but to he honest, government/ politicians can be a bit thick when it comes to financing anything, their ‘vision’ or complete lack of of it and naivety means they get shafted at times.

there are private enterprises and private enterprises. not all are massive companies with thousands of shareholders but one man or family bands who are suffering like we are especially where tax is concerned. the bigger you are it seems there is more you can do to avoid it legally.

The problem with politicians running businesses is if they were any good at it they would be poached by the business sector. As it very rarely happens that tells you all you need to know.

In the past many politicians went into politics after a career nowadays they go into politics after Uni with no real life experience or even real business world experience but they've read the books so consider themselves experts.
MP nominees are now selected by party hq rather than by the local party reps. Mother of all Parliaments is now an absolute joke.

true. everything seems just the opposite of what it previously was. you would not mind if things had improved or the calibre of the individuals in it. possibly this is the reason for the popularity or interest that farage has in his supporters and detractors.