Labour continues to plug away at its message that the government has been awarding contracts to political mates and contacts throughout the campaign, despite it being an uphill struggle for the message to get cut-through with the press and public. A speech by Rachel Reeves this morning claims “almost £2 billion in total has been spent on “crony” contracts going to Conservative friends and donors.” Challenged on the Today Programme, Reeves had a hard enough time explaining why they’d included the £5.2 million contract given to Ocean Footprint who supplied face masks last year. Their cronyism link? One of Ocean Footprint’s four directors is the brother of a former Tory MP…

Labour’s claims get even more baseless when they turned to attacking PA Consulting’s £12 million ventilator contract, who they sensationally reveal has a former Tory councillor as a Senior Advisor. The cronyism claims fall down, however, when Guido checked and discovered the company has never donated to the Tories, however has given £31,150 to the Labour Party since 2006 including specific donations to Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey. Guido hoped Labour’s eye for mathematical detail might improve after Diane left the Shadow Cabinet…

Guido also notes Reeves’s speech calling for increased transparency has just wrapped up having taken no questions from the press…