Post Office scandal, Tory MPs censured by Commons, lots of other bad news getting squeezed out.
The latest developments in the Post Office Inquiry - yet more postponements because the Post Office still hasn't disclosed all the documents it has been ordered to - and the Nottingham maternity hospital scandal are far more important stories than the sex life of some BBC presenter.
But will be ignored. Sigh!
I fear the judge in the Post Office Inquiry is too weak and the Post Office are playing him as they did to all the other courts which have tried to hold them to account. Badenoch is doing fuck all and every day she does fuck all about this she demonstrates that she does not have what it takes to be a leader.
I am so angry about this because this is a scandal caused in great part by the legal profession and by internal investigators behaving very unprofessionally and disgracefully indeed. So it pains me to see my profession behaving so badly - not just in the events which caused this scandal - but now in the inquiry set up to find out the truth and hold them to account.
People have died. It is atrocious.
How on earth is this not contempt of court? Surely a strong judge would be banging people up at this point.
That's why I said that I fear the judge is weak. Or he thinks the government will not back him if he takes stronger action than simply yet more "I am very disappointed"statements.
The Post Office have behaved like this throughout. As an organisation they seem to have utter contempt for judges and the courts. The Board is appointed by the government. I can't help feeling that they're behaving like this because they know the government won't really take - or allow - any action to be taken against them.
And, as you say, without the backing of the minister, inquires are fairly powerless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiries_Act_2005 … the Act repealed the entirety of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 which had allowed Parliament to vote on a resolution establishing a tribunal that had "all such powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the High Court" and placed the power solely under the control of a Minister.
What is outrageous is that it’s reasonably likely that some Post Office lawyers will have committed criminal offences in their roles in the whole sorry mess - and are unlikely to be subject to investigation, let alone prosecution.
This will sound hyperbolic but what the state has done and is doing to these people is evil.
The state owns the Post Office. Its creature imposed a flawed accounting system which invented crimes. It prosecuted people for crimes which never happened and bullied others into paying money they didn't owe. And when this was eventually uncovered it has set up a limited inquiry which is being delayed by continuing Post Office failings. It has done nothing to control the Board. Nor has it ensured an effective and timely compensation scheme.
This has caused and is continuing to cause real suffering and distress to people who placed their trust in the state and in an organization which they thought was a worthy entity delivering services to local communities. That trust has been wholly misplaced and they are now being treated with contempt and callousness.
Were I one of those unfortunates - after everything that has happened - I would not be waiting for an inquiry report. I'd be digging up flagstones ready to hurl them at the absolute ***** responsible for this.
All details that emerge from this story are beyond depressing, it seems to have been an utter disaster from start to finish, and it seems pretty improbable anything will be learned by those responsible, given the reactions. I know someone who was caught up in it, one of the nicest people you'd ever meet, and even as someone not as badly affected as the worst were it's been a weight on them for years.
Inquiry reports might be very good, but if they arrive in an atmosphere that is unreceptive it is no good. The garden must be prepared for the plant.
There are a couple of aspects that are baffling to me. One is why the current ministers are so reticent about pursuing the issue. None of them personally will have been around when the decisions were made at ministerial level that allowed this to happen, and to persist for so long, so what do they have to lose?
The second is why this isn't a much more prominent issue that arouses public anger?
Ministers are useless and have no moral compass or political sense.
Badenoch should have seized on this to show that she could get things done, put matters right and had more to her than just uttering criticisms of daft ideas. She doesn't understand that you should be in politics to try and achieve something and putting right a miscarriage of justice is one hell of an achievement.
I think the public that do know about it do feel anger. But there is also a sense of helplessness in the face of a state which seems to have lost any sense of public service, which seems capricious, incompetent and self-serving.
And journalists - well they're more interested in w**king stories about their colleagues, apparently. Nick Wallis has had to crowd fund his pursuit of this story. Computer Weekly journalists have done more real journalism than any of the so-called big names in the MSM.
Why aren't Labour making an issue of it? Who even is the Shadow Business Secretary?
The Shadow Business Secretary is presumably good friends with whoever was the New Labour Business Secretaries at the time the Horizon computer system was introduced and most of the prosecutions were made.
This is why the relative inaction of the Conservative ministers is so problematic. Generally speaking you'd expect ministers to find it easier to clean up mistakes that were the responsibility of the other party. If they can't even manage that, then there's sod all chance of them self-correcting after their own mistakes.
It strikes me that the BBC is now the only organisation more protective of sex pests, perverts and rapists than the Catholic Church. Is it the new state religion?
No, the C of E replaced the Catholic Church as the English state religion 500 years ago
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This is why the relative inaction of the Conservative ministers is so problematic. Generally speaking you'd expect ministers to find it easier to clean up mistakes that were the responsibility of the other party. If they can't even manage that, then there's sod all chance of them self-correcting after their own mistakes.