I find myself standing up for Microsoft, I know its weird. They have screwed the pooch more than once, but the headline in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/19/microsoft-nhs-uk-contracts-public-sector-procurement) gives us ‘Microsoft has ‘ripped off the NHS’, says MP amid call for contracts with British firms’, now lets be clear. Microsoft has done many things, but ripping people off is beneath them. If a rippable offence is in play, someone put their autograph (aka John Hancock) on that dotted line. And where is the evidence? And we are pointed to Samantha Niblett, the Labour MP for South Derbyshire, who laughs with a pretty smile and that is all she seemingly does. The evidence given “a five-year deal with the NHS to provide productivity tools reportedly worth over £700m, while the wider government spent £1.9bn on Microsoft software licences in the 2024-25 financial year alone.” Is this evidence? What the hell are you up to Katharine Viner? As editor of the Guardian, this trash should not be in your newspaper, or on the website. At least hand this setting with proper evidence. So as we are also given and that Labour Nibbler gives us “I know for a fact how Microsoft have ripped off the NHS.” But at that point we get “did not provide further evidence, but when the committee chair, Chi Onwurah, voiced surprise at the claim” and to that I say. Miss Niblett, on December 31st 2016 I reported in the story ‘This last day’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2016/12/31/this-last-day/) which was 9 years ago, and you might have been too young to be in politics. But Labour (as well) spend £11.2 billion on a NHS IT project, which amounted to nothing and I reckon it might have been a really big amount of money for nothing. So, are we seeing a second setting to all this and you want to blame Microsoft? Can we see the contracts of understanding? Microsoft does a lot, but they wrap it in contracts which in this case the labour administration under Sir Keir Rodney Starmer is confronted with.
Then we get “After describing the government’s multibillion-pound deals with Microsoft, Niblett said it “speaks to the … power of Microsoft to lock in public sector … customers and then sort of entice them with cheap deals, and then you’re locked into a contract and then you’re charged exponential amounts” So Microsoft does plenty wrong, but this pat they tend to get right and who signed for these contracts? Was it you? And these contracts also give a correct setting of the amounts. That is how business is done and it is done all over the world.
And it is then that we get the hidden gem that some were trying to hide “MPs on the select committee said the UK needed to develop greater “sovereign” technology capacity, award more contracts to smaller, local providers, and be less reliant on deals that resulted in government departments becoming locked into services with US firms. Explaining more about her understanding of Microsoft’s deals with the government, Niblett said: “I have heard that Defra [the Department of Food and Rural Affairs] recently signed a contract renewal for Windows 10, which is now out of date. And that has now resulted in them having to pay more for security checks because they’re using a very, very old version of Windows.” There is more than one issue. In the first there is “I have heard” is not evidence, evidence is the contract that Defra signed. Who signed it, was it a valid contract? And then we get “recently signed a contract renewal for Windows 10”, how recent was it signed? Some women claim to they got recently pregnant, but that accident is now 4 years old and as it is given “Windows 10 is a Microsoft operating system that is now out of support as of October 14, 2025”, so does that contract entitle these users to upgrade to Windows 11? The one part that matters is seemingly “becoming locked into services with US firms” which is a valid UK setting, but that is depending on a time set strategy and getting into the strategy AFTER the contract is signed implies you are stuck with the contract, that might not be in the best interest of the Labour administration, but that is not the priority of Microsoft, their part is the contract and adhering to what was signed. So was there any transgression by Microsoft? It is a simple question and the setting of ‘ripped off’ implies they made a booboo and as such that evidence must be given in evidence. Is there any chance that one of more contracts have your autograph as you worked in the data and technology sector before being elected to parliament in 2024, so will we find contracts, possibly with your name on it? Will it show a transgression by Microsoft, or a sloppy mistake by the labour representative who signed it? Simple questions and simple settings that Katharine Viner should see coming a mile away?
Have a great day and if you get the mug below, make sure that coffee is millennium proof, version proof and proofed for 61 degrees celsius liquids. You can test it by putting your finger in the coffee and if you go ‘ouch’ it is probably hot enough.







