Has the Conservative Party lost all sense of competence

Yes absolutely. All the PFI contract companies. The train companies, school academy chains, Toll roads and bridges. Health contractors. It's everywhere.

Not just Carillion, mostlyharmless.
Virgin do it, too.

Carillion:

I had not realised that Carillion was previously Tarmac, somehow I must have missed that years ago.

Still 150 short of a majority.

A lot of posts on GN hint that the posters opinion is that there are deserving and undeserving poor.

It’s as if they haven’t moved on since birth.

Ten is not enough, fortunately.

Watch out for Balfour Beatty going next. They are the equivalent of Carillion.

I see Maybot has added 10 Tory peers to the Lords to try to counter what will be a Lords push back on Brexit.

Deserving and undeserving, Alexa?

Just started reading A Christmas Carol again. The films show the squalor, but omit Dickens' feelings about poverty.

harmless thank you.

I read these things and bang it off onto GN thinking that others have read it as well.

Carillion builds schools, roads, hospitals – and it’s meant to be a big part of HS2. What’s more, if it goes bust, the bill will be picked up by taxpayers.
Is it this ww?
Privatisation (or PFI) not really a panacea is it?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/12/building-company-carillion-collapse-schools-roads-hospitals-hs2-taxpayers-bill?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

My guess is that the incompetence results from simplistic remedies for social ills, for instance lack of attention to causes of ill health and causes of crime and consequent punishments upon disadvantaged individuals. Punishments aren't as effective as eliminating causes of disruption , such as private education, lack of social housing, and private health care.

It's still the workhouse ethic innit?

Interesting dj that the public faith in the NHS has become like a religion.
A fervour that makes newspaper headlines constantly and was exploited by the red buses of the Leave campaign.
And is used in PMQ most weeks.
I've never thought of it like that.
Woe betide any government that doesn't look after it!

One thing all business knows is that to largely rely on one supplier is idiocy and asking for trouble.

Why on earth did the government rely almost entirely on Carillion?

May's got a bit more to worry about.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-12/theresa-may-facing-winter-of-discontent-with-u-k-health-crisis

I truly thought that was just a trolling fake news post - I just cannot believe this can be possible, in the UK, in 2018.

Absolutely sickening and totally incredible- hope she gets the sack. What about the Governors and other staff ?!?

I could buy a football, a rugby ball, a slinky, two skipping ropes and a few tennis balls and, oh, mustn't speculate.

Perhaps she has grand plans for when the other parents cough up.

Schools do hold fundraising events, our DGC's schools do, but no-one has ever said that a child whose parent does not participate in the fundraising event can't enjoy whatever is bought with the proceeds. Shocking!

jalima thanks for that information. I wasn’t sure about the details of the silly woman. Sounds as if she’s fiddled the money as well, wonder what she spent the rest on?

whitewave I thought that that must be fake news it is so unbelievable.
However, Of some 450 pupils she said only 50 parents had paid the £6, which amounted to just "15 pence per week", and all that was purchased was a football a rugby ball, a slinky, two skipping ropes and some a tennis balls.

So she didn't get very much for her £300, did she, was it worth it?

She has called the police because she has had threats. Unsurprisingly.

Perhaps those that don’t pay wear an arm band so it is easy for the other children to identify and bully them.

Do families with two children in the school have to pay twice as much to allow both children in?

How do they know?
Do they wear different coloured armbands?

How pleased the Tories must be with the Birmingham head who has zoned the schools playground into different areas according to whose parents contributed towards the play equipment.

Good lessons being learned by each and every child that there is no value or gain in community.

I expect this head to be awarded in the next New Years honours.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/12/hmrc-struggling-fallout-paradise-papers-leak

Still incompetent, though. I wonder if any EU citizens work for HMRC, and if so, are they going back home, or if it's all down to Tory incompetence.