There was a furore in 2022 when the Guardian revealed that the Home Office had paid a private company £2.5 million to charter boats and crew to pick up people trying to cross the Channel. That number has since ballooned…
Mahmood’s Home Office is four years later paying £30 million to the same company – usually serving the offshore wind industry – for a one year contract (extendable to three).
Contract documents show Border Force wants seven vessels total from Aeolian Offshore: five “Migrant Rescue Vessels” to rescue and transport migrants recovered from the Channel, and two “Recovery Vessels” to lift and seize the boats. They have to handle up to one hundred migrants per boat, provide basic medical facilities, separate migrant/crew toilets, and CCTV covering all deck areas…
There is also a media clause:
“The Owners shall ensure that any Subcontractor shall not communicate with representatives of the press, television, radio or other media (including Social) on any matter concerning the contract/deployment unless the Charterer has given its prior written consent. Any failure by the Owners to comply with the requirements of this Condition may result in a breach entitling the Charterers to terminate the contract for default.”
The massive explosion in contract costs casts doubt on government spin that the small boat situation is improving. Things have a long way to go after the ineffectiveness of the one-in, one-out deal with France…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”