jobs for the boys

The Pandemic Bonanza Nobody Asked For

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that viruses spread fast — but apparently not as fast as public money does when the right “mates” are in the room. While the rest of us were learning to bake sourdough and ration toilet roll, a select circle of well‑connected friends, siblings, and conveniently adjacent acquaintances were discovering that government procurement could be a sort of high‑stakes supermarket sweep. Millions of pounds flew out the door in contracts so hastily approved they may as well have been scribbled on the back of a napkin.

And what did we get for this whirlwind of public generosity? Mountains of unusable equipment. Masks that didn’t fit. Gowns that tore. Tests that failed. Entire warehouses filled with products so unsuitable they were quietly dumped, written off, or left to gather dust like monuments to bureaucratic optimism. The question that still hangs in the air — heavier than aerosol particles in a poorly ventilated room — is simple: was any of that money ever returned? Or did it vanish into the same black hole where accountability goes to die?

The whole episode exposed a government structure so opaque it makes a brick wall look transparent. Emergency powers were meant to speed up lifesaving decisions, not open a VIP lane for anyone with the right surname. Yet here we are, years later, still trying to untangle who benefited, who approved what, and why basic oversight evaporated the moment urgency entered the chat.

Calling the system “broken” feels generous. It functioned exactly as designed — just not for the public. If anything, the pandemic didn’t corrupt the structure; it revealed the corruption baked into it. And unless we demand real transparency, this won’t be the last crisis where public money moves faster than public scrutiny.