THE ‘VIP LANE ‘ SCANDAL
*Twelve (out of the 47) ‘VIP lane’ suppliers (together receiving £1.3 billion in PPE deals), also claimed some £1 milion in furlough cash.
*Many of the 47 firms had no history of supplying PPE.
*Of the PPE ordered through the ‘VIP lane’, some 59% wasn’t used, compared with only 17% via  non – ‘VIP’.
*The ‘VIP’ process was ruled unlawful by the High Court.
The Guardian

LABOUR MUST NOT MEEKLY ACCEPT PRIVATISATION AS BEING IRREVERSIBLE
‘Must we have to continue experiencing the failings in the probation and prison services, the chaos of the privatised gas industry, the unacceptable mess in electricity services, the railway muddle, to mention but a few? When will we realise that privatisation is an avoidable evil?’
Professor Roger Iredale
The Guardian

INSIGHT INTO WHAT VOTERS THINK
In January, Johnson was less popular with voters than Jeremy Corbyn was during the 2019 election campaign
The Observer
‘Voters remain lukewarm about Sir Keir and despite all Johnson’s troubles, he still often fights the Labour leader to draw on a question of who would make the best prime minister’.
Robert Ford, professor of political science, The Observer
Sir Keir is viewed as ‘charismatic’ by 9% of the public, and strong by 13%.
The Sunday Times

THE IRRATIONAL POWER OF SELF-DECEPTION
Psychologist, Leon Festinger, studied a group of Americans who believed the world would end on 21 December 1954. When it did not end  the group inferred, not that they had been somewhat daft, but rather that their divine ruler had had a last minute change of mind!
Investor’s Chronicle