See my previous comment about this [1]

If the private company does a good job does it matter that they are mates with a tory? Seems little short-sighted of you if I must say.

[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/britains-innovati...

To be fair there has been some shocking failures directly related to cronyism, largely the huge failure of track and trace and dire situation around PPR procurement. All of these were closed bids (no one else could submit an offer) and all were won by relatives or those close to an elected official in government (mostly the health secretary). Legal action is just been granted for this to go to court and gain transparency into the £billions of hidden contracts.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13239-court-to-look-into-uk-g...

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/record-view-cron...

The issue is not that things are being given to private companies that are mates with a Tory. The issue is that too many of these things are turning out to be given to private companies that are mates with a Tory where no basis exists for believing they can deliver, when other, qualified companies exist. Or, as in Serco's case, with no penalty clauses in place if they don't.

Again, for clarity: using the private sector isn't a problem. Corruption is. Failing to get results is.

I'm all up for chucking money at a big problem and sorting out the mess later, but this is a depressingly predictable mess, and chucking money at the problem bought us a demonstrably worse outcome than we should have had.