The Critical Commentator

Weekly come the stories of huge sums of public money spent with seeming disregard for value, without tender or transparency, for services of dubious value or poor quality, to companies and consultants which often have close links to power. Though public attention is fixed on lockdowns and curfews, a bad smell grows - and the government would be wise to start clearing the air... A sweet manufacturer from Co Antrim swapped gob-stoppers for gowns and won contracts worth £107 million without competitive tender. Ayanda Capital, a family office specialising in currency trading and private equity signed a £252 million contract for safety equipment, later supplying 50 million masks that could not be used. While there may be good reasons for these decisions, the government's persistent secrecy on this front does not allay suspicions of incompetence at best and deals for mates at worst. Occupying the next carriage of the gravy train we have the management consultants, the global giants popul...

... But if the French are once again expelling our English words from their soil ("vintage", "fast fashion" and even "designer" were given their marching orders last night and ferried across the Channel at gunpoint), then I am calling for a suitable diplomatic response, in the form of tit-for-tat expulsions of French words from English. La falaise a Fecamp, France Claude Monet (1840-1926) Photo Credit: Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums [CC BY-NC] ... I've had enough of  "bonhomie" too, which only means "drunkenness", about which there is nothing bon at all. Oh, and "bon viveur" which only ever meant a fat, handsy, old lech who wouldn't live past 60. It is a typically French concept and totally irrelevant in the Britain of 2020, where we've all got to lose weight, get sober, stay in and shut up. And they can have back "jus" too. It's bloody gravy, mate. And I'm bored with feeling compelled by the ...

... In recent months the audience for the BBC's international channel, BBC World News, has grown by 12 million to 112 million. It has grown 50 per cent year-on-year in the United States, where it benefits from a society polarised in its politics and attitudes to media. Americans, as a whole, see the BBC as more reliable than any other national or international news brand and second in trust only to local TV. News From Abroad Carlton Alfred Smith (1853-1946) Photo Credit: Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens [CC BY-NC]  But the BBC World News channel is in peril, according to a recently written letter by James Angus who oversees it. World news is "wholly commercially funded, and arguably not sustainable in its current form", says the note, passed to me by a concerned party. The advertising market on which this channel depends has collapsed in the face of the pandemic. But the BBC's state-backed global rivals do not relent. Beijing generously funds CGTN; the Kremlin ban...

 Wanted: a rich tenant to take on a struggling stately home in Somerset. "No lefties or Marxists" need apply, says Sir Benjamin Slade, (74) the cash-strapped aristocrat who hopes to find tenants to help pay the bills while his wedding venue business limps through the pandemic. "They can also bring as much wine as they like, as long as it's high quality and I'm allowed to drink it," he adds. He has put Maunsel House, his 14th century manor house in North Newton, near Bridgwater, Somerset, on the rental market for £20,000 a month. The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke Richard Dadd (1817-1876) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND] ... "London is like a dreadful ghost town right now. All this crap about not being able to have more than six people in your garden. Well, my garden is 12 acres and I've got 98 acres of parkland and 34 bedrooms so there's no problem for social distancing... We need the punters. We want amusing ones though. Good right-wing, hunt...

This week we heard that there has been a surge in demand for the "surveillance software" that allows employers to check that staff are working from home, rather than shirking from home, or, perhaps, wasting endless hours staring into space while caught up in existential terrors. (When I die will I really be dead? I know I will be, but how can this be so?) Turning Point Alexander Johnston (1815-1891) Photo Credit: Croydon Art Collection [CC BY-NC] ... one of the things that the software tracks is the websites you are visiting and, in some instances, it will even tell your employer which of these sites are "productive" and which are "unproductive". So, essentially, your boss will have access to your search history, which, I know, is everyone's worst nightmare. In fact, when I put it to slave niece - see past references - that this is now how it works, she said: "My God, that's tantamount to looking directly into your soul!" And there is som...