Day 54: Beware Turks bearing gifts

One of the things to make me smile this week is the farce that has been the ordering of PPE equipment for the NHS. You really couldn’t make it up. I’m just waiting for Rishi Sunak to announce that our economic woes are over, having received an email from a Nigerian prince promising untold wealth, all we need to do is hand over our remaining gold reserves... My daughter used to work in central government. She once received a similar request from No10 about a ‘promising communication’ and struggled to provide the requested briefing without using the words ‘blatant scam’ and ‘is this a joke?’. Luckily she’s inherited her mother’s diplomatic skills and embarrassment was averted. 

But I digress from the story that caught my attention. Following reports that we were running out of PPE equipment, a young man called Mehmet Duzen sent an email to our government asking if he could assist, as he had a fondness for the UK having lived here in the mid-2000s and wanted to help out.

Never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, and keen to make another spurious promise to beleaguered UK citizens, our government duly accepted his offer. Unfortunately, in four months of trading Mr Duzen had only made T-shirts and tracksuits, and had no experience of making high-quality medical gear. Still, it must have been quite a coup to get an international order for something you have never made before in such a short time. But as he had previously had aspirations to be a politician maybe he knew how their minds worked.

Pesky matters of bureaucracy like the lack of an export license were easily cast aside by sending in the RAF, which I’m pretty sure in ordinary times is tantamount to a declaration of war. The MoD incidentally are at great pains to distance themselves from this decision – much like Deliveroo and its drivers, they are simply the messengers and bear no responsibility for the poor choices of the customer or the sub-standard quality of the provider.

To give our politicians the benefit of the doubt though, they did send the chap documents setting out UK standards but clearly Mr Duzen hadn’t lived long enough in the UK to learn English, so he produced garments that were classed as unsatisfactory when they eventually arrived in the UK. Whether we have received the masks that he was also commissioned to make I have yet to discover but as these were made by a factory that until 2 weeks ago was manufacturing sweets then I’m not holding my breath!!

The government have also discovered that the tracking device they are trialling in the Isle of Wight appears not to work. Presumably before they make the logical choice of approaching Apple or Google cap in hand, they’re in discussions with Mr Duzen who I believe has another business selling mobile phone apps.

As I pointed out the other day, it’s clear that the politicians in this country have never done a click and collect order. I make mistakes because my eyesight is not brilliant and frankly one bottle of Worcestershire sauce looks very much like another which is why I now have in my possession a litre bottle of the stuff - but that only cost £2.80. The government now have 84 tonnes of useless PPE equipment that cost £300,000 and are ruing the day they ever wrote to Mr Duzen.  The Turkish government appear to have stepped in at some point to help meet the target but are now denying any request for a refund has been received. Presumably the RAF don’t ‘do’ returns either.  Meanwhile, amidst all the finger pointing, no-one seems to have any new ideas for getting hold of the actual equipment the NHS so badly needs.

I don’t know about you but all in all I don’t think this bodes particularly well for our ability to complete complex trade deals by the end of the year.

There is some good news on the home front though as the government has seen the light on one thing and that is that cleaners can return to work in people's homes. You’ve made one over 70 year old very happy indeed!!