I don't see:
(a) any disagreement between FT and Murray on basic facts
(b) any overtly conspiratorial thinking from Murray
(c) any clear reason to give deference to FT, or
(d) any justification for labeling Murray's article as "absolute nonsense primary "research"".
(e) a few concrete criticisms of Murray's article, and
(f) a few concrete criticisms of FT's article.
> However, the process has been criticised for awarding large sums of taxpayer money to several companies that appear to have no record in supplying PPE and have small balance sheets or poor recent financial performance. It has prompted concern over the extent of due diligence that was conducted before the contract awards. […]
> So far the government has published about 80 of the PPE contracts. The largest was a £252.5m contract awarded to Ayanda Capital, a family investment firm that specialises in “currency trading, offshore property, private equity and trade financing”, according to its website. […]
> When contacted by the FT, Ayanda said it was a UK limited company that paid UK taxes and was “happy to confirm that the contract has been successfully fulfilled”.
Possible criticisms of Murray's article:
1. Loginwalled and dead links.
2. Speculation about the pricing of intangible assets under Ayanda Capital's management.
3. Over-narrow emphasis on the one Ayanda contract.
4. Opaque, charged title
This is not terribly worthy of criticism if that's the best source for this story. I have not read the Wealth Manager article.
Dead links: he also links directly to objects in an s3 bucket with expired access tokens.
Those are from the UK govt's Companies House. Not too hard to get fresh links.[2][3]
Speculation: Addressing the small balance sheet is of direct relevance. Bundling conjecture is a bit much.
But only a bit. He qualifies this passage well enough.
Narrow focus: This contract is the largest one. Murray claims it is symptomatic of a failing of the UK govt.
So focusing on the one contract doesn't stick out as particularly conspiratorial.
Title: The former criticism (opaque title) is an ok one but the latter (charged title) isn't.
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[1]: https://www.ft.com/content/c0d439c8-18ac-499b-8115-da2bc0f18...
[2a]: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11014884/filing-h... > Total exemption full accounts made up to 31 December 2019 > View PDF
[2b]: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11014884/filing-h... > Total exemption full accounts made up to 31 December 2018 > View PDF