AMAZON WINS £200M IN PUBLIC CONTRACTS
EXCLUSIVE and
TAX row internet giant Amazon has landed Government contracts worth more than £200million.
The deals – largely to store digital data – came as Chancellor Rishi Sunak pledged a tax blitz on online firms.
Since December, Amazon
Web Services has renewed deals worth £120million with the Home Office and £57million with the Department of Work and Pensions.
Tie-ups with the likes of Public Health England, the Cabinet Office and DVLA are worth another £23million.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s UK online sales soared £2billion in lockdown and the fortune of owner Jeff Bezos hit a mindblowing £136billion.
Labour’s Chi Onwurah said of the deals: “It is deeply worrying how dependent we are on the company.”
The Cabinet Office said: “Amazon Web Services is just one of the Government’s thousands of cloud service providers. Procurement decisions are always based on value and the best services.”
AWS said the deals benefit an “ecosystem” of smaller UK firms and added: “Public sector organisations use the UK branch of AWS Europe which registers its sales in the UK and pays all taxes.”
Well, the highlight of my week was Pancake Day. I don’t know what it is about flour, milk and eggs that gets my kids so excited, but as soon as I’ve flipped one pancake, they’re standing there for more. The tradition in my house, however, is savoury first and sweet later, which seemed to upset some of my social media followers.
One wrote: “Saira, I’ve never seen anyone put tuna and cheese in a pancake before!”
They were a lot more complimentary when I showed a reel of me spreading a thick layer of chocolate spread on to a pancake. One follower commented: “I was just about to unfollow you for being unkind to your kids, but now I’ve seen you’ve got the chocolate spread out, I’m liking you again.”
Wow, I never knew there was so much passion over pancakes – now I know how to keep my followers sweet!
MALE model Dennis Okwera saw things no boy – no human – should ever have to in the wartorn villages that were once his home.
The slaughtered mother of a friend. Locals blown apart by landmines.
The backdrop to his childhood was painted in blood by merciless rebels tearing northern Uganda apart during the grisly Kony conflict.
But there was a chink of light in Dennis’s life. A way out that would bring him to Britain – leaving the horror, the terror, behind him.
Today, he is at the top of his profession, modelling alongside the likes of Naomi Campbell and appearing in hit music videos with Paloma Faith.
His remarkable 20-year journey shows, as Dennis says himself, that anything is possible.
He spoke to the Sunday Mirror after we launched our search for Britain’s Most Handsome Man.
Dennis is with the Storm model agency – our competition partner.
The rewards of modelling can be great and Dennis is proud to be giving something back to his old community, with a school rebuilding project on the cards.
In his time there, just going to school
brought its perils as children were routinely snatched by rebel forces as they headed off to class.
“What has happened to me in the two parts of my life is a reminder to everyone out there that anyone on this planet can do anything,” Dennis says.
The model was born in the wartorn Kitgum district at a time when child abduction and adult killing by the murderous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) militia cult was at its highest.
“Survival was number one,” Dennis says. “We were sent to school as often as possible. We would sleep in bushes to hide because the rebels seemed to mainly attack at night.
“The atrocities I witnessed by the age of eight, no person should ever see. I don’t think I will ever unsee some of the images I have in my head.
“I have seen people ripped apart by landmines. They abducted kids on the way to school; even from the schools. Nowhere was safe.
“The children would rarely come back. The rebels would rape mothers and young girls. If you informed on them, you
would be killed or have your lips cut off as a warning to others not to snitch. It was terrifying.” Dennis recalls calling at his best pal Bosco’s house and stumbling across a scene from hell.
Rebels had been in the night and executed his friend’s mother when she tried to resist being raped. Dennis recalls: “She was slumped on her knees. There was blood. Bosco was stood
there crying. I