Donors who gave Tories £1m between them are handed public health jobs
Sajid Javid: smug Sajid has been challenged to explain what guarantees he has secured to ensure that the new appointees will not use their positions to put private profit over public health.
Look out – the Tories are handing public health jobs to cronies with links to private health investment in their latest lurch towards NHS privatisation.
In March, Oluwole Kolade, a managing partner of Livingbridge, a private equity firm with extensive investments in private healthcare, was made a non-executive director and deputy chair of NHS England for three years.
And Simon Blagden, a chairman of Fujitsu UK, which sued the NHS over a failed IT project, was made a member of the UK Health Security Agency advisory board in April.
How can these be appropriate appointments? They will not support public health because their financial interests lie in the exploitation of health care as a market for making a grubby profit.
Here are some more details:
In just over a decade, Kolade has donated £859,342 to Conservative party headquarters; the party’s London mayoral candidate in 2021, Shaun Bailey; and the party’s branch in Hitchin and Harpenden. About a third of the donations – £300,000 – have been made since Boris Johnson became prime minister.
Kolade is a managing partner of Livingbridge, a private equity firm with extensive investments in private healthcare. Livingbridge’s portfolio includes multiple NHS suppliers, and private dental companies, care providers and fertility firms.
Since 2005, Blagden and companies he is associated with have donated £376,000 to the Conservatives. These include Pietas Ltd, a firm he was director of from 2000 to 2020, and Avre Partnership Limited, which he has been director of since 2014.
He was also a chairman of Fujitsu UK, which sued the NHS over a failed IT project. A parliamentary committee’s inquiry into the debacle in 2013 cited reports that a sum of £700m was sought from the Department of Health.
The government says political activity is not a bar to holding a public appointment and any such activity, including donations, is declared when such an appointment is made.
That’s all very well, but it seems to This Writer that shareholding in private health companies – or in companies that have tried to get contracts in the public health system – indicate a conflict of interest that should indeed bar the candidate (or should I say condidate) from the role.
Source: Two donors who gave Tories £1m between them handed public health jobs
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Widespread corruption within the fascist tories! As usual greedy male owned corporate companies give money to fascist tories and then they are rewarded with very very profitable fake jobs within the soon non existent NHS!!
Definitely conflict of interest unless one is a fascist tory wealthy supporter and then it is simply left hand giving and right hand receiving huge sums of money in return from the fascist tories!
I just wish that the HMRC, the police, the fraud squad, the public prosecution service and judiciary would start doing their jobs, and start arresting, prosecuting, and handing out prison
sentences to these MPs and their wealthy tax evading parasitic leeches who are involved in lies, theft, fraud and corruption!