Roger Mexico

I've heard that as well, though with a standard 10% mentioned. Maybe that was 5% design and 5% implementation. Certainly it does seem to be the standard pattern over the years, irrespective of how simple the project is. It's basically an instruction to all concerned to inflate prices.

This has been discussed at some length on here (most recently four pages back in this very thread) and Rachel Glover did a calculation in her coffee break one morning in February that came up with a rough figure of £10.50 for consumables and £8.25 for staff time. The latter was probably an over-estimate as it was based on only 60 tests a day. Of course you can pile as many overheads on that as you want, but you're not going to knock down part of the lab if there are no tests to be done are you?

This has the hallmark of another of Ashford's 'stories' where he blows up an isolated incident or two into something terribly important. It also looked like a planted question because he was so well prepared for it. Interestingly he was careful to say he wasn't sure how many of the cancellations had re-booked as that wasn't possible to tell from the system. Of course in any remotely capable system you could, so I suspect he just wanted another dramatic headline and not to examine what was going on too closely. The number given of 400 looks suspiciously high when you consider how m

For posterity: Otherwise no one would believe it. £50k eh? Though I suppose you can double that with the backhanders. Of course this is the one sort of job where you would think an experienced outsider was essential if they were actually sincere about fighting corruption. The description is more telling: Join our team as an Anti-Bribery and Corruption Project Manager within the Anti-Money Laundering Policy Office! [...] Some of your responsibilities will include: Developing a national anti- bribery and corruption strategy and effective online resources for

I'm not a fan myself - he was always too much of an Oxford Union contrarian for my tastes - but like it or not Hitchens was seen as a credible person by many. But he was not the only person to make well-evidenced criticisms of her actions and those of her organisations - there's a whole Wiki page full of them.

I can only assume that he's worried that all sorts of strange and irregular things may turn up when the English police start investigating. Without a nice friendly local AG's Office that might bury/ignore anything that is too incriminating, embarrassing or just plain difficult, a gullible (at best) local politician might find himself swept up with similar types in another jurisdiction. And even if there's no criminal charges, Liz might feel a bit cautious about handing out the automatic gong.

But there are actually two separate questions being conflated here. The first is about how much should be charged for 'private' tests and indeed whether a charge should be made at all. Normally charging for tests for communicable disease, such as Covid, is seen as a very bad idea because you want to catch as many cases as possible before it spreads. That's why there don't seem to many places charging for them - at least not directly. But if you are going to charge for such tests in some circumstances, then the amount charged is always going to be arbitrary and based more on what the market

Based on previous form, he'll just claim his words just didn't mean what they clearly do mean. Admitted that anyone in Manx Government is ever wrong about anything is forbidden. Especially if it's true.

The interesting thing about this is that, as I pointed out earlier, it was an official Keys Question from Barber and they seem to have gone to some effort not to make it an official answer.

Well only in so far as all cases contracted by Steam Packet staff seem to have been classified as 'travel-related'. Certainly the index case was. Which in a sense they are, but not in the way that those words are normally used - ie returning travellers. By the same logic all cases on the Island are travel-related. Just as they are China-related or bat-related. Government communications have used the phrase as a way of avoiding responsibility. Now unless you're going to ban all travel to the Island, passenger and freight, there is always going to be some risk from and to transpor

No it's nonsense and proof that Ashford's expert medical advice is still being provided by Courtney Heading's cat or whatever. As often with Ashford you can see where it came from. A paper published in February states: A total of 103 (1.3%) patients developed acute ischemic stroke among 8163 patients with COVID-19. But this needs to be set in context of the whole paragraph: Results: A total of 103 (1.3%) patients developed acute ischemic stroke among 8163 patients with COVID-19. Among all patients with COVID-19, the proportion of patients with hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidem

Well the three hours are nearly all Rachel's words because she was giving evidence, so the whole point of the session was to hear from her. That meant the questions were also related to her experiences and knowledge and they were fairly brief, except from a bit of rambling from Robertshaw who's far too fond of the sound of his own voice. It seems both petty and pointless to try to minimise what was a very unusually long and detailed witness session, which people found both informative and convincing. And it's difficult to see what could be more of an 'official channel' than a Tynwald C

One of the many irritating things about modern politics/journalism is that people insist on using 'refute' when they actually mean 'deny'. Still I'm sure that the refutation will come along once those Stakhanovite 'officers' return to their desks. What terribly bad timing for David to have given them their first hours off at this crucial time.

It's probably made of some special alloy that will set off half the contents of Beaufort's Dyke.

That's what I don't understand. It was generally agreed that the BBC went over the top then and they just seem to have repeated themselves regardless.