This is a difficult one because they BOTH deserve to have their fucking heads banged together (or, at least, nail-gunned to a passport).
Home Office: “Hey, we’re leaving the EU in 2019. What can we do to show our newfound independence and assert our national identity? I know! Let’s get the French to print our passports!”.
Fucking idiots.
The culture secretary, Matt Hancock, said that EU regulations were to blame.
Really?!
German passports are printed by Bundesdruckerei (German, state owned), Spanish passports are printed by Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre (The Spanish Royal Mint for fuck’s sake!), Italian passports are printed by Instituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (Italy’s NATIONAL printing office – can you see a pattern developing?). French passports are printed by Groupe Imprimerie Nationale (French, state owned – quelle surprise). The French government even made the decision not to put the job out to tender AND THIS IS ACTUALLY ALLOWED UNDER EU RULES! Matt Hancock, take note.
De La Rue were apparently £120m more expensive over 5 years than the company who have [to press] been awarded the contract. Their chief executive, Martin Sutherland, apparently acknowledged that his company had been beaten on price in an “open competition” but he said that was “unfair”. He immediately took to the BBC to moan about it and said Theresa May or Amber Rudd, should “come to my factory and explain to my dedicated workforce why they think this is a sensible decision”. Well, it was a decision taken by a Government Department – just where the fuck do you think common sense came into it? Why don’t YOU go to your factory and explain that YOUR company was 120 million pounds more expensive than your competitors?
Surely The Home Office and De La Rue should have sat down for an “off the record” chat and prevented this nationally humiliating debarcle. Give me 10 minutes in a room with Amber Rudd, Martin Sutherland, a baseball bat and immunity from prosecution and I think we could come to an amicable agreement to keep the remaining 80% of our passport printing in good old Blighty.
Nominated by Thirkleby Spunktrumpet