that other companies didn t get the same chances. so, two campaign groups every doctor and the good law project took the government to the high court about this, about specific contracts that were given to two companies. the high court this morning decided that that vip lane was unlawful. they said that it had given earlier consideration to some companies, it was better resourced, it was able to respond to offers on the day that they arrived and that was in breach of the law and it was unlawful. so, that s not great for the government and certainly, in court, there were tales about how some of the equipment couldn t be used and we understand that still some masks haven t been able to be used in the nhs and other pieces of equipment. where it did come down in favour of the government, this ruling,
that thought you could get masks and other equipment and if you knew a minister or an other equipment and if you knew a minister oran mp ora other equipment and if you knew a minister or an mp or a civil servant, they would put you on to essentially what was a fast track lane and people said that that was unfair, that other companies didn t get the same chances. so to campaign groups and every doctor and the good low project took the government to the high court about this, about specific contracts that were given to two companies. the high court this morning decided that that vip lane was unlawful. they said that it had given earlier consideration to some companies, it was better resourced, it was able to respond to offers on the day that they arrived. and that was in breach of the law and it was unlawful. so that s not great for the government and certainly in court they were tales of how some of the equipment couldn t be used and we understand
for vip for awarding contracts for personal protection equipment at the height of the pandemic was unlawful. the campaigning group that brought the case argued that two companies were given lucrative deals because of their connections. 0ur correspondent, lucy manning, has more: well, this is all about the enormous amount of money the government spent, especially the first stage of the pandemic, on things like masks and aprons and overalls for staff in hospitals on the front line. and the bbc and others reported that some of that couldn t be used, some of it had failed safety tests, and money was being spent that didn t necessarily have to be spent. the government was taken to the high court about this vip lane. what this meant was, if you had a company that thought you could get masks and other equipment and if you knew a minister or an mp or civil servant, they would put you on to essentially what was a fast track lane. and people said that was unfair,
again, what s the takeaway here if at any point in the last 20 years i had said to you that there would be taliban fighters inspecting u.s. helicopters inside an evacuated hangar, how is it anything other than a u.s. defeat? john, i would tell you that they can inspect all they want. they can look at them, they can walk around, but they can t fly them. they can t operate them. we made sure to demilitarize to make unusable all the gear that is at the airport. all the aircraft, all the ground vehicles. the only thing we left operable are a couple of fire trucks and forklifts so that the airport itself can remain more operational going forward. so i think we re not overly concerned about these images of them walking around. but, again, we did everything we could to make sure that equipment couldn t be used by them going forward. and as for the defeat narrative, john, historians will write they ll write the chapters here. what i can tell you is that we
a look at what is wrong with florida when it comes to voting. yes, florida has been here before. in 2000 we had the hanging chads. in 2004, problem with the then new and improved touch screen system. and this year, the supposedly simple paper ballot. but each page had to be fed into a scanner and as it turns out, with multiple pages, the equipment couldn t keep up. waited in line for a very long time. even the president noted problems. by the way, we have to fix that. from south florida to the state capital, florida voters say they are embarrassed. they don t call it flori-duh for nothing. it can t be this hard.