Here's a story for your Friday night. I've been wanting to get the documents to back it up but I don't think they're going to come so you'll just have to take from me that it comes from an impeccable source with no reason to lie.

I totally believe it's true - every word of it - and I'm putting it in the public domain because there might be just about enough for an actual, talented journalist to bottom it out. And bottoming it out is profoundly in the public interest.

So back in the very early days of the pandemic - February or March - a company (X) was given a very large PPE contract. X could reasonably claim to be a proper PPE supplier. The contract was signed and X started shipping the PPE to the UK.

Anyway, whilst the PPE was on the high seas the contract was 'cancelled' by Government. There was no right of cancellation and X considered suing but thought - well, moment of national crisis, fog of war. Let it lie.

But X then starts getting seriously brassed off because it can see that very similar contracts to those it had cancelled are going to other people, strange people.

(So far so good.

I have seven or eight similar stories in my inbox. Some very plausible, some more sketchy, of contractors whose offers are all but accepted, then put on ice, then they're told Govt has enough, then they see 'their' contract was granted to someone else...

... and sometimes they say 'their' manufacturer was approached by the PPE Buy Cell before 'their' contract was placed elsewhere. And sometimes they say it was with someone else who charged Government a higher price...

And I've seen enough of these with reasonably detailed evidence and sufficiently similar fact patterns that I believe this stuff was happening.

Why were they being taken from a and given to b at a higher price? I dunno, but it's not good right?)

Anyway, I digress. Back to X.

So what happens with X is a bit different. X is contacted by someone claiming to act for a NewCo (let's call him Y). And Y tells X 'look, you know that contract you had cancelled, I can get it back for you if you give me 10 percent of the profits you make.'

Y doesn't want anything up front; just a share of the profits. And X is thinking 'how on earth does Y even know that I had a contract cancelled'? And X is thinking, 'well, I've tied up an awful lot of capital in this thing and it would be quite nice to have the contract...'

and so X says to Y 'well, how do I know you can get the contract back for me' and Y sends X two things. The first is what purports to be an email conversation between Y and a SpAd in a relevant department (I know which department).

And the second is what purports to be an email conversation between Y and an official at No.10.

Now, X is sensibly thinking (and you should sensibly think to yourself) 'well, it's not that difficult, I guess, to fake email conversations'.

But there is some stuff X can't shake, like, 'how does Y even know I lost a contract' and 'if it's not real why does Y only want a share of the profits?' And so X 'umms' and 'ahhs' but eventually says 'no'.

Anyway, X is now utterly convinced - and X is a serious player and my source (which isn't X) is a very good source - that the contract taken from them and given to someone else and the beneficiary was a very high profile (and weird and large) winner of a PPE contract.

So I say to my contact, 'are you sure if it's ok if I put this in the public domain' and my contact says 'yep, because there will have been other approaches to other companies too'.

And someone else - a confirmed PPE supplier - has also (entirely independently) told me that "I have heard stories of, wait for it, back handers within NHS procurement teams."

(He told me he'd try and get me a screenshot but didn't.)

Anyway. It's quite a story, right? And I believe it. I've tried to tell it to you like I understand it - warts and all - but form your own judgment.

And if it's true it's unlikely to be an isolated incident so, you know, if you know more, don't be a stranger.