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Hi, I'm Anouche.

I'm Alva.

And I'm Stephen.

And on this episode of The New Statement Podcast, we discuss the crony coronavirus contracts

and you ask us what's going on in the SMP?

One of the main criticisms dogging the government throughout the pandemic have been allegations

of cronyism over the contracts that they've awarded to companies to do some of the pandemic response work.

So, you know, procuring PPE is one example.

And also the appointments of certain people into positions leading on those policies.

One of the main examples being dido harding the Tory peer being in charge of test and trace.

So there's been these allegations of cronyism for a while and they have been accused of being a chumocracy.

And Labour have tried to go big on this a number of times to try and use this attack line to expose the government's weak spots

and you recently interviewed Rachel Reeves, didn't you, Alva, who's kind of heading this theme for the Labour Party?

Yeah, so she has just delivered a big speech on exactly, as you say, Anouche.

...