David Cameron's speaking gig with Bain Capital

Back in 2013 David Cameron's Tory party oversaw the sale of our NHS blood plasma supply unit to a vampire capitalist group called Bain Capital (which was founded by the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney).

Fast-forward three years and Bain Capital have already handed David Cameron a lucrative speaking gig at one of their events just weeks after he quit politics after his Brexit gamble went so spectacularly wrong. Thanks to the extraordinarily lax rules covering financial rewards to former politicians it's not clear how much Cameron is going to be paid for his speaking gig, but given that that the former foreign secretary William Hague is expecting to make some £4 million per year on the speaking circuit at £50,000 - £100,000 per appearance, Cameron's speaking fees are unlikely to be less than six figures.

It's no wonder Cameron was so keen to abandon politics when there are such rich pickings to be had from the companies his government handed favours to during his time as Prime Minister.

Some other potential speaking gigs for David Cameron include:

Wonga: The revolving door between David Cameron's government and this appalling legal loan shark company has been well documented. Cameron's sack-at-will legislation (drawn up by the Wonga investor Adrian Beecroft) must have been a real boon to the company as desperate sacked workers turned to them for their rip-off 5,000%+ APR loans. Surely Beecroft and his boys at Wonga could return the favour by handing Cameron a few lucrative public speaking gigs?

Circle Health: This private operator of various NHS facilities across England was one of the major beneficiaries of Cameron's 2012 NHS privatisation by stealth bill. Circle (owned by numerous major Tory party donors) was responsible for the absolute debacle at Hinchingbrook hospital, yet they're still running other NHS facilities across the country. The least they could do for Cameron is stuff him a few hundred grand for all of the NHS services they've snapped up under his watch.

Landsdowne Partners: This hedge fund made a £36 million profit when Cameron's government sold off the Royal Mail at way below its true market value. Given their enormous profits surely they can shove a bit Cameron's way?

G4S and Serco: In 2013 these global outsourcing were caught defrauding the taxpayer out of £180 million by submitting false invoices for the electronic tagging of non-existent prisoners. Cameron's government promised to punish them by temporarily banning both companies from bidding for contracts, but secretly handed them £350 million worth of contracts when they were supposedly banned. Even worse than that, the Tories carried on paying these companies for electronic tagging services way into 2015, two years after they were caught defrauding the taxpayer. Surely these companies can find a few hundred grand apiece to stuff into Cameron's back pocket?

Caudrilla: The fortunes of Cuadrilla and other fracking companies received a massive boost when Cameron's government decided to halve the rate of corporation tax for fracking companies. The fracking boom and bust in the US is proof that fracking is only financially viable if energy prices remain high, so the champagne corks must have been popping at Cuadrilla headquarters when Cameron and Osborne signed the UK taxpayer up to an absolutely ludicrous deal with the French and Chinese states to pay them double the market rate for electricity from Hinkley Point C for an astonishing 35 year period. No doubt Cuadrilla and other fracking companies will feel a moral obligation to repay Cameron for the vast tax cut he handed them and his decision to ensure their financial viability by signing the UK taxpayer up to pay massively inflated energy prices for generations to come?

Virgin Group: Richard Branson's Virgin Group have been major beneficiaries of numerous Tory privatisation schemes. From heavily subsidised rail contracts to huge slices of NHS infrastructure Branson's business did extremely well at raking in taxpayers' cash during David Cameron's time in office. The least "beardie" could do is repay Cameron with a few six figure public speaking gigs?

Times have moved on since former Prime Ministers quietly stepped out of the limelight having achieved the pinnacle of public life. These days becoming Prime Minister or an important government minister is just a stepping stone in the process of becoming filthy rich.

After serving as Prime Minister John Major cashed in by hooking up with corporations like the Carlyle Group arms company, but Tony Blair really blazed the trail for David Cameron with his corporate consultancies with the likes of JP Morgan, his lucrative speaking gigs and his work as adviser to all kinds of brutal dictatorial regimes.

After shafting the British public with his failed Brexit gamble Cameron literally couldn't wait to get stuck into what was clearly always the endgame; making himself filthy rich gorging on corporate speaking fees and lucrative consultancy positions.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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Tories sell NHS blood supply to vampire capitalists

On July 18th 2013 another part of the NHS was flogged off to the private sector with barely a whisper from the mainstream press. The lucky recipient of Plasma Resources UK was Bain Capital, a gigantic US based private equity fund that should be familiar to anyone that paid attention to the US presidential election in 2012.

The Republican candidate Mitt Romney was repeatedly slammed for his involvement in Bain Capital, because of their appalling record of hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts (borrowing vast sums in order to buy a company, then lumbering the company itself with the debt used to fund their own buyout), asset stripping, tax-dodging and exportation of American jobs to China.

Plasma Resources UK is responsible for the vital supply of blood plasma to the NHS and Bain Capital have now inserted themselves into the "blood market" and will use these blood donations in order to turn a profit for themselves. I'm fairly sure you don't have to be as left-wing as me to be appalled at the idea of a ruthless US based financial behemoth cashing in on the supply of blood products at the taxpayers' expense.

One of the most concerning things about the sale is that several reputable medical companies and one specialist blood supplies company were overlooked in favour of handing the contract to this unaccountable private equity group with an appalling reputation. Another extremely concerning element of the privatisation is that it was sold for just £90 million upfront (that's only 80% of the PRUK annual turnover). The few press outlets that bothered to report the sale stated £200 or £230 million, however these future payments are conditional on the profitability of the business. It's hardly beyond the realms of imagination to think that a pack of vampire capitalists like Bain Capital might be able to financially engineer huge paper losses, so that they never have to stump up the rest of the cash is it?

There was absolutely nothing in the Tory party manifesto about selling off this vital component of the NHS blood supply. In fact, David Cameron was still lying in May 2011 when he said "Let me be clear – there will be no privatisation, there will be no cherry-picking from private providers" (link to video).

The worst thing about this sale is not that it has happened, nor that Cameron lied. It is known to us all that Tories flog off the national silver and Cameron is a habitual liar. The worst thing is the craven complicity of the mainstream media.

The BBC failed to mention the sale at all, instead focusing on the usual distractionary flim-flam. They didn't bother to hold Cameron or the Tories to account because they didn't even bother to mention the completion of this privatisation at all. The right-wing Telegraph ran a financial piece, which was reasonably balanced, in that it offered very little overt praise and absolutely no criticism of the deal. The only negative coverage of this scandalous privatisation appeared on the websites of the Guardian and the Independent, where David Owen (a former health minister) was quoted as saying:

"It's hard to conceive of a worse outcome for a sale of this particularly sensitive national health asset than a private equity company with none of the safeguards in terms of governance of a publicly quoted company and being answerable to shareholders ... Is there no limit to what and how this coalition government will privatise?"

The story of this reckless privatisation has been completely ignored by TV news, and barely reported in the mainstream press. In my view this media silence must be considered as complicity. The government knows that the majority of the public would have grave concerns about a vital component of the NHS being sold off to a foreign company with a famous reputation as a "job destroyer". The Tories know it's bound to be unpopular, so it is of massive convenience to them that the BBC and the right-wing press have remained so silent on the issue. As far as the Tories are concerned, the fewer people that even know about it the better.

So it's been left up to a couple of low-circulation broadsheets and a few independent bloggers like myself and Éoin Clarke, to speak out against this reckless fire sale of a key component of the NHS.

*Note this article was amended to remove the mistaken assertion that blood plasma supplies come from charitable donations. All plasma supplies come from US donors, who are paid $20 - $25 per donation. The reason that British blood is not used to create plasma products is the theoretical risk of CJD (human "mad cow disease") contamination. Boycotting the donation of blood in response to this story is not advised. Such actions would only undermine the already hard-pressed UK blood donation service, and would do nothing at all to diminish the profitability of the Bain Capital blood plasma business.

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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