Government selling £560bn investment for £96.79 is not corruption

Michael Gove's report has proven this

Here is a brilliant story to silence the naysayers who insist the Tories have not had any successes during their 14 years of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

If I have my details right, the public body South Tees Developments purchased a site on Teesside in 2019 for £12 million. Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer money was later ploughed into the investment. The land was then sold from under the locals’ feet to private developers for £1 an acre, a whopping total of £96.79. I’m sure you will agree this represents fantastic value to the taxpayer.

The plan was to let private developers “deliver growth” by rewarding them with low tariffs as a thank you for investing almost £100 into one of the UK’s most impoverished regions, on top of the half a billion that you, the taxpayer, invested.

As far as I can see, this fantastic deal has so far resulted in no meaningful development, which is exactly what the local people needed. Sadly, Labour MP Andy McDonald didn’t see it that way and called it “industrial-scale corruption” in parliament. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?

McDonald had demanded an investigation from the National Audit Office, but instead, Michael Gove ordered his Department of Levelling Up to get three local authority officers to investigate.

Despite Gove’s attempt to mark his own homework, the investigation criticised the project’s lack of transparency and value for money and found this had a corrosive effect on public trust. However, this is completely untrue. The developers made £128 million, despite taking no risk, which is why capitalism is brilliant - it rewards people who can’t lose.

Undoubtedly, the Teesworks project represents the best value for money since Lady Michelle Mone pocketed millions from making PPE out of Asda carrier bags. In fact, it represents even better value for money because Lady Mone actually produced a product. It was a product that was unusable, but it was still a product. What have the Teesworks investors produced? Essentially nothing and this is why it’s a matter of time until they find themselves in the House of Lords with their good friend Lord Houchen who does the best mates’ rates ever.

Lord Houchen, the guy in charge of South Tees Developments, has explained he does but does not agree with the findings of Michael Gove’s report. He clarified this perfectly logical position in an interview with Victoria Derbyshire which definitely was not a train wreck.

During the interview, Lord Houchen explained the developers had put £20-50 million into the Teesworks project, and this is completely true, apart from the actual figure is £0. In defence of Lord Houchen, he was only slightly out with his figures. If he’d said £0-50 million, this would have been an accurate estimate, so I think we can cut him some slack. Sadly, his ruthless interviewer didn’t see it that way.

Victoria Derbyshire unhelpfully quoted from the report that: “the joint venture partners have put no direct cash into the project.” However, a quick-thinking Lord Houchen countered “the report says there is £19.6 million of their money in a bank account” that they’ve not bothered investing. Checkmate, Victoria.

Unfortunately, Victoria plays chess like a pigeon that knocks over your pieces and then shits on the board. She said: “Either you didn’t understand the deal that you agreed with them and were inadvertently misleading our audience, or you completely understood the deal and were deliberately misleading our audience. Which one is it?”

Isn’t that obvious, Victoria? Lord Houchen didn’t understand the deal he agreed and did deliberately mislead the audience. I’m unclear why you think it can’t be both!

Thankfully, Victoria Derbyshire wasn’t all negative during the interview and she highlighted that Teesworks investors had received £45 million dividends, which I’m glad she agreed is “amazing work if you can get it.”

I think we can all agree the most important finding of the report is that government cronies made lots of money and there was zero evidence of illegality or corruption because none of what I’ve described counts as illegal or corrupt in this totally normal country x

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