The Parable of the Health Secretary

 There was once a Health Secretary whose Prime Minister thought he was, frankly, hopeless. And the Health Secretary thought to himself, "what can I do? I'm too hopeless to be Health Secretary and I'm too busy with my "assistant" to work, and he's going to fire me once I'm no use to use to take the flak he deserves."

So he called in someone who sold ball-point pens for a living. And he said to him, "take this order for face masks and I will pay you a lot of someone else's money."

And then he called in someone who made washing machines for a living. And he said to him, "take this order for badly-fitting PPE and I will pay you a lot of someone else's money."

And then he called in someone who used to be bad at selling mobile phones. And he said to her, "take this order for failing to know who has been tested and what the results were or who they met, and I will pay you an incredible amount of someone else's money."

And then the day came when the Health Secretary was found kissing his assistant. And he resigned. Or was fired. It was never very clear.

And it the days to come, even though he knew there would be a lot of child support to pay, the Health Secretary knew he would be fine as he had lots of future in consultancies in the ball-point pen, washing machine and mobile phone / grocery / health consultancy industries.

So make friends for yourself with other people's money. It's a lot less expensive than doing it with your own. As then you have to eat pea pods in a pig sty.