“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
The whole thing is on ITVX, along with the documentary
It is a painful watch because we empathise with the SPMs but know there is no happy ending.
The drama does its best to end on an uplift, and of course they do win their case in court and go on to be cleared and exonerated - at least those in the drama. The eventual ending we still await - the inquiry won't report until 2025.
Only 93 convictions have been overturned.
Re the Bates litigation, yes they did win. But note that because they were funded externally, of the amount they got - through settlement because they were at the end of their funding- £55 million, ca. £46 million was taken up in legal costs. Those costs were enormous because the Post Office fought every single point endlessly and was severely criticised by the court for its behaviour.
What that meant was that the compensation amounts individual SPMs got was way way less than their losses.
It was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. What it did achieve was that it crowbarred open the case and showed that the Post Office had lied about Horizon. It opened the way for the Inquiry. But even now those SPMs have not been compensated and many still have criminal convictions. And 63 of the SPMs have died without seeing any sort of justice or apology.
I see that Ed Davey is now trying to justify his inaction. A bit bloody late, frankly.
There has been a whole series of postal affairs ministers, none staying very long, from all three parties, as was said above. All of them were given the Post Office party line to defend, not entirely honest, and while it’s true that none of them did much to champion the SPMs themselves, whether they should have gone interfering given what they were being told is arguable. During Swinson’s relatively short time, there was the independent Second Sight review and then the launch of the mediation scheme - as you can see from the drama, at the time the PO seemed genuine about these, and both the campaign group and their MP backers were initially happy to participate. Later, of course, the PO pulled out of both - probably because internal investigation was discovering the depth of the iceberg (although this hasn’t yet come out in any detail from the evidence to the Inquiry phases so far).
The two worst things about the whole scandal, imo, were the crude strategy of using the threat of a theft charge in individual cases to obtain a guilty plea to false accounting and ‘recovery’ of the (non) missing money, at the beginning, and the strategy of obstruction and cost escalation that the business ended up using to try and kill off the legal case, which clearly they knew that they would otherwise lose. The latter is appalling given the seniority at which the decision must have been taken; I predict we’re going to see a lot of amnesia when those now retired senior people pitch up at the Inquiry. There have already been a few examples from those who appeared in Phase Two.
All these jokes about Luke Littler looking old for his age… if he were a black 16 yr old and the same jokes were being made, I get the feeling a lot of those making the jokes would be saying “That’s a racist trope, you wouldn’t say it if he was white”
Early contender for the most bizarre post of 2024?
It’s bizarre that it’s true - if a black 16 yr old prodigy looked a lot older than his age, people wouldn’t dare say so, and those who did would be called out as racist for focussing on appearance rather than ability. I think the same logic works if it were a female prodigy
I dunno. My son plays football in an U15 team and the parents frequently comment on the likelihood of various 6ft opponents with a full beard being actually 25, black or white, it makes no difference. And we are mostly fully signed up members of the tofu eating wokerati.
Memories of the Saudi team at the 1989 U-16 World Cup
Yes I'm sure I've seen a couple of these lads playing for Orpington.
My teenage daughter was on at me for ages to use a false name in Starbucks - preferably ridiculous. We eventually came to agreement on Giles, inspired by the character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is mildly amusing, and we have carried it on - but the main information i have gained from this is that there is a generation of Starbucks staff who were not born when BtVS was first on TV, who love the show to death - the almost is invariable comment is, 'Ooh, like the Buffy character - I love him!'
How about replying “no… after the Daily Express cartoonist”
Watching Newsnight for the first time in yonks. I do like Victoria Derbyshire as an interviewer. She just plows over rhetoric and tries to get answers to her questions.
I couldn't bear her on 5 Live and couldn't understand why the BBC kept persevering despite numerous failures. My heart sank when I heard she had the Newsnight gig. However she has grown into that role, and she has been a revelation covering for Johnson apologist Kuenssberg on Sundays.
I was wrong, she takes no s**t from political bulls**tters.
Watching Newsnight for the first time in yonks. I do like Victoria Derbyshire as an interviewer. She just plows over rhetoric and tries to get answers to her questions.
I couldn't bear her on 5 Live and couldn't understand why the BBC kept persevering despite numerous failures. My heart sank when I heard she had the Newsnight gig. However she has grown into that role, and she has been a revelation covering for Johnson apologist Kuenssberg on Sundays.
I was wrong, she takes no s**t from political bulls**tters.
She went out with my mate at school. Was in the year below me. Somewhat unremarkable then.
Watching Newsnight for the first time in yonks. I do like Victoria Derbyshire as an interviewer. She just plows over rhetoric and tries to get answers to her questions.
I couldn't bear her on 5 Live and couldn't understand why the BBC kept persevering despite numerous failures. My heart sank when I heard she had the Newsnight gig. However she has grown into that role, and she has been a revelation covering for Johnson apologist Kuenssberg on Sundays.
I was wrong, she takes no s**t from political bulls**tters.
I agree. She's becoming increasingly good on Newsnight.
Watching Newsnight for the first time in yonks. I do like Victoria Derbyshire as an interviewer. She just plows over rhetoric and tries to get answers to her questions.
I couldn't bear her on 5 Live and couldn't understand why the BBC kept persevering despite numerous failures. My heart sank when I heard she had the Newsnight gig. However she has grown into that role, and she has been a revelation covering for Johnson apologist Kuenssberg on Sundays.
I was wrong, she takes no s**t from political bulls**tters.
I agree. She's becoming increasingly good on Newsnight.
Shame Newsnight is being downgraded to a late night version of the One Show.
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
The whole thing is on ITVX, along with the documentary
It is a painful watch because we empathise with the SPMs but know there is no happy ending.
The drama does its best to end on an uplift, and of course they do win their case in court and go on to be cleared and exonerated - at least those in the drama. The eventual ending we still await - the inquiry won't report until 2025.
Only 93 convictions have been overturned.
Re the Bates litigation, yes they did win. But note that because they were funded externally, of the amount they got - through settlement because they were at the end of their funding- £55 million, ca. £46 million was taken up in legal costs. Those costs were enormous because the Post Office fought every single point endlessly and was severely criticised by the court for its behaviour.
What that meant was that the compensation amounts individual SPMs got was way way less than their losses.
It was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. What it did achieve was that it crowbarred open the case and showed that the Post Office had lied about Horizon. It opened the way for the Inquiry. But even now those SPMs have not been compensated and many still have criminal convictions. And 63 of the SPMs have died without seeing any sort of justice or apology.
I see that Ed Davey is now trying to justify his inaction. A bit bloody late, frankly.
There has been a whole series of postal affairs ministers, none staying very long, from all three parties, as was said above. All of them were given the Post Office party line to defend, not entirely honest, and while it’s true that none of them did much to champion the SPMs themselves, whether they should have gone interfering given what they were being told is arguable. During Swinson’s relatively short time, there was the independent Second Sight review and then the launch of the mediation scheme - as you can see from the drama, at the time the PO seemed genuine about these, and both the campaign group and their MP backers were initially happy to participate. Later, of course, the PO pulled out of both - probably because internal investigation was discovering the depth of the iceberg (although this hasn’t yet come out in any detail from the evidence to the Inquiry phases so far).
The two worst things about the whole scandal, imo, were the crude strategy of using the threat of a theft charge in individual cases to obtain a guilty plea to false accounting and ‘recovery’ of the (non) missing money, at the beginning, and the strategy of obstruction and cost escalation that the business ended up using to try and kill off the legal case, which clearly they knew that they would otherwise lose. The latter is appalling given the seniority at which the decision must have been taken; I predict we’re going to see a lot of amnesia when those now retired senior people pitch up at the Inquiry. There have already been a few examples from those who appeared in Phase Two.
Selective amnesia has been a regular occurrence in Phase 2 so far.
The worst thing about the scandal to me is the way the Government(s) shirked their responsibilities as owners of the Post Office. The PO was expending vast sums of our money in prosecuting the SPMs, and then defending themselves against all inquiries. The Government(s) should have been asking questions and seeking independent advice. Instead it followed a lame 'hands-off' policy. In truth, this reflected nothing more than indifference, inertia and a lack of reasonable curiosity.
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
I'm not saying the LDs were any worse than the others, but they are certainly not in the clear.
To be fair to Vennells, she did turn around the Post Office from losing £100 m a year when she became CEO to making a profit when she left. She deserves to be castigated for Horizon but so do her predecessors, she was not solely responsible
He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
It goes further back than that - it was under the Tories that the system was originally commissioned, as an early PFI project in the mid 1990s. The PO had done a deal with that government that benefit claimants would have a ‘benefits card’, replacing the then familiar giro, effectively forcing benefit claimants to continue visiting the post office. The PO was terrified that if claimants got their benefits straight into a bank account, much of their weekly footfall would disappear. Of course, back then bank account penetration amongst the poor was often low, giving them a strong card to play.
When New Labour came to power, the project was already over budget, hugely delayed, and not working well. And more people were getting bank accounts. So the BA was getting a cold feet, and after six months of seeing if the original plan would fly, the government decided that the benefit card was a blind alley and pulled out. There were crisis meetings because the Post Office risked losing its automation programme altogether; in the event they patched up a deal enabling the PO and Fujitsu to limp on without the DWP. But it left the PO with an over-engineered system designed around a facility they would no longer be using, and so the IT was more complicated than it should have been given the people who would be using it. The first seed in what turned into a long and tragic series of events.
Vennells would have been a Board appointment, not a government one. Whether the government would have had any other involvement, other than via its rep on the board, I don’t know. We can’t really blame Cable for Vennells, especially as she was by then an internal promotee.
Aside from that though - the PFI aspect worked out ok? Shareholders have been paid dividends? Blair was knighted? Along with various appointments to the Lords? I'm failing to see the problem for the people who matter here?
Daisy Cooper being pressed on Ed Davey's ministerial (in)actions over the PO scandal on Newsnight. For those of you who follow such matters.
In fact the Post Office continues to obstruct and delay the Inquiry, so if Sir Ed wants to show he is sincere he could raise a few relevant questions in the House now. The relevant Minister is Kemi Badenoch, in case he doesn't know.
Bill Ackman should run for president. I'd vote for him.
F*** no. I can’t write what I’d like to write because he is litigious.
But that would not be good for anyone but Bill Ackman
He’s been asked. He’s said he’s not political and not interested. He’s been doing fine with Pershing Square. His victory is also pyrrhic. Gay will stay at Harvard on her 900k salary in a lower role.
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
The whole thing is on ITVX, along with the documentary
It is a painful watch because we empathise with the SPMs but know there is no happy ending.
The drama does its best to end on an uplift, and of course they do win their case in court and go on to be cleared and exonerated - at least those in the drama. The eventual ending we still await - the inquiry won't report until 2025.
Only 93 convictions have been overturned.
Re the Bates litigation, yes they did win. But note that because they were funded externally, of the amount they got - through settlement because they were at the end of their funding- £55 million, ca. £46 million was taken up in legal costs. Those costs were enormous because the Post Office fought every single point endlessly and was severely criticised by the court for its behaviour.
What that meant was that the compensation amounts individual SPMs got was way way less than their losses.
It was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. What it did achieve was that it crowbarred open the case and showed that the Post Office had lied about Horizon. It opened the way for the Inquiry. But even now those SPMs have not been compensated and many still have criminal convictions. And 63 of the SPMs have died without seeing any sort of justice or apology.
I see that Ed Davey is now trying to justify his inaction. A bit bloody late, frankly.
There has been a whole series of postal affairs ministers, none staying very long, from all three parties, as was said above. All of them were given the Post Office party line to defend, not entirely honest, and while it’s true that none of them did much to champion the SPMs themselves, whether they should have gone interfering given what they were being told is arguable. During Swinson’s relatively short time, there was the independent Second Sight review and then the launch of the mediation scheme - as you can see from the drama, at the time the PO seemed genuine about these, and both the campaign group and their MP backers were initially happy to participate. Later, of course, the PO pulled out of both - probably because internal investigation was discovering the depth of the iceberg (although this hasn’t yet come out in any detail from the evidence to the Inquiry phases so far).
The two worst things about the whole scandal, imo, were the crude strategy of using the threat of a theft charge in individual cases to obtain a guilty plea to false accounting and ‘recovery’ of the (non) missing money, at the beginning, and the strategy of obstruction and cost escalation that the business ended up using to try and kill off the legal case, which clearly they knew that they would otherwise lose. The latter is appalling given the seniority at which the decision must have been taken; I predict we’re going to see a lot of amnesia when those now retired senior people pitch up at the Inquiry. There have already been a few examples from those who appeared in Phase Two.
They were the Ministers who were ultimately responsible. This is not "interference".
There is a fundamental problem with the party line that the Post Office was being run at arm's length. And so Ministers could not interfere. It was not a private company with shareholders and some market discipline to hold it to some sort of account. It had only one shareholder - the state. It was the state which funded it. It was the state through the Minister which had ultimate supervisory control. That supervision needed to mean something real - not refusing to get involved. Because what that meant in reality was an organisation which was unchallengeable and out of control.
There is a further point. What the SPMs were doing was whistleblowing. They should have been listened to and their allegations properly and independently investigated. It wasn't a matter of taking their side but of ensuring that what they were saying was taken seriously. They weren't and when Second Sight got close they were shut down. That is absolutely the wrong thing to do when investigating concerns. It was a massive red flag which a Minister who knew what he or she was doing or asked anyone with any real knowledge of whistleblowing would have spotted and insisted on action.
If they were stymied by civil servants this tells me that civil servants do not understand what whistleblowing is and how to deal with it. Not that this surprises me. But it is indicative of Ministers and a civil service which are not really fit for purpose.
Sexism, misogyny, domestic violence, attacks on whistleblowers, firemen found guilty of misconduct and allowed to retire in full pensions with no adverse consequences.
The Chief has resigned - yes - on a full pension with the usual pro forma apology.
Need I go on?
No - it's the same old story with the same outcome. Everyone gets away with it. And somewhere in a remote office some new procedure gets written so that it can be ignored by the next generation of staff.
Repeat ad nauseam.
If PB or something like it exists in a century, Cyclefree - the 3rd generation will probably be writing the same bloody posts with even greater levels of cynicism and despair than I am.
'Sexism, misogyny, domestic violence' plenty of that still in South Wales towns and villages, the Fire Service should have stamped it out but tackling the problem in the wider culture is also a challenge
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
I'm not saying the LDs were any worse than the others, but they are certainly not in the clear.
To be fair to Vennells, she did turn around the Post Office from losing £100 m a year when she became CEO to making a profit when she left. She deserves to be castigated for Horizon but so do her predecessors, she was not solely responsible
When I worked for 100% not Parcelfarce, they didn't 100% "save" millions of pounds by repainting their vans with a Crown on them after realising their previous millions of pounds repainting meant they couldn't just park their vans at random on public highways and it was costing them millions. "Them" at the time being "taxpayers".
Knighthoods all round,
Thank goodness now it's all privatised it's the shareholders on the hook for this!
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
The whole thing is on ITVX, along with the documentary
It is a painful watch because we empathise with the SPMs but know there is no happy ending.
The drama does its best to end on an uplift, and of course they do win their case in court and go on to be cleared and exonerated - at least those in the drama. The eventual ending we still await - the inquiry won't report until 2025.
Only 93 convictions have been overturned.
Re the Bates litigation, yes they did win. But note that because they were funded externally, of the amount they got - through settlement because they were at the end of their funding- £55 million, ca. £46 million was taken up in legal costs. Those costs were enormous because the Post Office fought every single point endlessly and was severely criticised by the court for its behaviour.
What that meant was that the compensation amounts individual SPMs got was way way less than their losses.
It was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. What it did achieve was that it crowbarred open the case and showed that the Post Office had lied about Horizon. It opened the way for the Inquiry. But even now those SPMs have not been compensated and many still have criminal convictions. And 63 of the SPMs have died without seeing any sort of justice or apology.
I see that Ed Davey is now trying to justify his inaction. A bit bloody late, frankly.
There has been a whole series of postal affairs ministers, none staying very long, from all three parties, as was said above. All of them were given the Post Office party line to defend, not entirely honest, and while it’s true that none of them did much to champion the SPMs themselves, whether they should have gone interfering given what they were being told is arguable. During Swinson’s relatively short time, there was the independent Second Sight review and then the launch of the mediation scheme - as you can see from the drama, at the time the PO seemed genuine about these, and both the campaign group and their MP backers were initially happy to participate. Later, of course, the PO pulled out of both - probably because internal investigation was discovering the depth of the iceberg (although this hasn’t yet come out in any detail from the evidence to the Inquiry phases so far).
The two worst things about the whole scandal, imo, were the crude strategy of using the threat of a theft charge in individual cases to obtain a guilty plea to false accounting and ‘recovery’ of the (non) missing money, at the beginning, and the strategy of obstruction and cost escalation that the business ended up using to try and kill off the legal case, which clearly they knew that they would otherwise lose. The latter is appalling given the seniority at which the decision must have been taken; I predict we’re going to see a lot of amnesia when those now retired senior people pitch up at the Inquiry. There have already been a few examples from those who appeared in Phase Two.
They were the Ministers who were ultimately responsible. This is not "interference".
There is a fundamental problem with the party line that the Post Office was being run at arm's length. And so Ministers could not interfere. It was not a private company with shareholders and some market discipline to hold it to some sort of account. It had only one shareholder - the state. It was the state which funded it. It was the state through the Minister which had ultimate supervisory control. That supervision needed to mean something real - not refusing to get involved. Because what that meant in reality was an organisation which was unchallengeable and out of control.
There is a further point. What the SPMs were doing was whistleblowing. They should have been listened to and their allegations properly and independently investigated. It wasn't a matter of taking their side but of ensuring that what they were saying was taken seriously. They weren't and when Second Sight got close they were shut down. That is absolutely the wrong thing to do when investigating concerns. It was a massive red flag which a Minister who knew what he or she was doing or asked anyone with any real knowledge of whistleblowing would have spotted and insisted on action.
If they were stymied by civil servants this tells me that civil servants do not understand what whistleblowing is and how to deal with it. Not that this surprises me. But it is indicative of Ministers and a civil service which are not really fit for purpose.
Aye, but the Government were acting like too many shareholders. Looking for their dividends and not caring how they were earned.
Everything we hear about the Government and Civil Service adds to the evidence that they are not fit for purpose.
Watching Newsnight for the first time in yonks. I do like Victoria Derbyshire as an interviewer. She just plows over rhetoric and tries to get answers to her questions.
I couldn't bear her on 5 Live and couldn't understand why the BBC kept persevering despite numerous failures. My heart sank when I heard she had the Newsnight gig. However she has grown into that role, and she has been a revelation covering for Johnson apologist Kuenssberg on Sundays.
I was wrong, she takes no s**t from political bulls**tters.
I agree. She's becoming increasingly good on Newsnight.
Shame Newsnight is being downgraded to a late night version of the One Show.
Don't diss The One Show like that. Newsnight will be so much worse. But cheap! Probably save enough money for a middle-manager BBC mini-break to the Cotswolds as a team-building excersise.
Excellent news. So our data will be handled in a way our sovereign Parliament decrees and in accordance with British laws.
So it should be.
And if you don't like those laws, you are free to vote for a new Government at the next election.
Sovereignty works. Democracy works.
Er...
"Google is planning to move its British users' accounts out of the control of European Union privacy regulators, placing them under U.S. jurisdiction instead"
Er...
An employee familiar with the planned move said that British privacy rules, which at least for now track GDPR, would continue to apply to that government's requests for data from Google's U.S. headquarters.
Right, so it's under US jurisdiction (over which we have no influence), but if for the time being Google will kindly continue to apply British privacy rules (which track GDPR, over which we have no influence anymore). Got it.
AIUI they are just moving the accounts to servers that are not based in the EU.
This is because EU rules apply all all data in the EU regardless of whether EU or not.
So now they are ex EU servers therefore “under the jurisdiction of their USHQ” but “British privacy rules” apply
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
The whole thing is on ITVX, along with the documentary
It is a painful watch because we empathise with the SPMs but know there is no happy ending.
The drama does its best to end on an uplift, and of course they do win their case in court and go on to be cleared and exonerated - at least those in the drama. The eventual ending we still await - the inquiry won't report until 2025.
Only 93 convictions have been overturned.
Re the Bates litigation, yes they did win. But note that because they were funded externally, of the amount they got - through settlement because they were at the end of their funding- £55 million, ca. £46 million was taken up in legal costs. Those costs were enormous because the Post Office fought every single point endlessly and was severely criticised by the court for its behaviour.
What that meant was that the compensation amounts individual SPMs got was way way less than their losses.
It was a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. What it did achieve was that it crowbarred open the case and showed that the Post Office had lied about Horizon. It opened the way for the Inquiry. But even now those SPMs have not been compensated and many still have criminal convictions. And 63 of the SPMs have died without seeing any sort of justice or apology.
I see that Ed Davey is now trying to justify his inaction. A bit bloody late, frankly.
There has been a whole series of postal affairs ministers, none staying very long, from all three parties, as was said above. All of them were given the Post Office party line to defend, not entirely honest, and while it’s true that none of them did much to champion the SPMs themselves, whether they should have gone interfering given what they were being told is arguable. During Swinson’s relatively short time, there was the independent Second Sight review and then the launch of the mediation scheme - as you can see from the drama, at the time the PO seemed genuine about these, and both the campaign group and their MP backers were initially happy to participate. Later, of course, the PO pulled out of both - probably because internal investigation was discovering the depth of the iceberg (although this hasn’t yet come out in any detail from the evidence to the Inquiry phases so far).
The two worst things about the whole scandal, imo, were the crude strategy of using the threat of a theft charge in individual cases to obtain a guilty plea to false accounting and ‘recovery’ of the (non) missing money, at the beginning, and the strategy of obstruction and cost escalation that the business ended up using to try and kill off the legal case, which clearly they knew that they would otherwise lose. The latter is appalling given the seniority at which the decision must have been taken; I predict we’re going to see a lot of amnesia when those now retired senior people pitch up at the Inquiry. There have already been a few examples from those who appeared in Phase Two.
Selective amnesia has been a regular occurrence in Phase 2 so far.
The worst thing about the scandal to me is the way the Government(s) shirked their responsibilities as owners of the Post Office. The PO was expending vast sums of our money in prosecuting the SPMs, and then defending themselves against all inquiries. The Government(s) should have been asking questions and seeking independent advice. Instead it followed a lame 'hands-off' policy. In truth, this reflected nothing more than indifference, inertia and a lack of reasonable curiosity.
For much of that period, Postcomm was supposed to be doing it, as the statutory regulator. Postcomm was of course a joke, and eventually disappeared, and now it is as if it never was.
He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
It goes further back than that - it was under the Tories that the system was originally commissioned, as an early PFI project in the mid 1990s. The PO had done a deal with that government that benefit claimants would have a ‘benefits card’, replacing the then familiar giro, effectively forcing benefit claimants to continue visiting the post office. The PO was terrified that if claimants got their benefits straight into a bank account, much of their weekly footfall would disappear. Of course, back then bank account penetration amongst the poor was often low, giving them a strong card to play.
When New Labour came to power, the project was already over budget, hugely delayed, and not working well. And more people were getting bank accounts. So the BA was getting a cold feet, and after six months of seeing if the original plan would fly, the government decided that the benefit card was a blind alley and pulled out. There were crisis meetings because the Post Office risked losing its automation programme altogether; in the event they patched up a deal enabling the PO and Fujitsu to limp on without the DWP. But it left the PO with an over-engineered system designed around a facility they would no longer be using, and so the IT was more complicated than it should have been given the people who would be using it. The first seed in what turned into a long and tragic series of events.
Vennells would have been a Board appointment, not a government one. Whether the government would have had any other involvement, other than via its rep on the board, I don’t know. We can’t really blame Cable for Vennells, especially as she was by then an internal promotee.
I was going to say - it goes all the way back to Peter Lilley and 1995 and the shiny PFI project meant to cut benefit fraud by making everything electronic. Labour came close to scrapping the whole thing but bottled it as that would have led to a mess there and then.
It's perhaps a reason why over the years all the main parties have hoped it would go away rather than jump on it as evidence of the other lot's mismanagement. Each arguably compounded previous cock-ups by not pulling the plug or trying to get to the bottom of it.
A lesson for ministers present and future perhaps that if there's a problem - especially related to something you're outsourcing to others who fully understand it - to get to the bottom of it, no matter how small it seems, as soon as possible.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Could the Post Office scandal be a black swan that stymies the Lib Dems chances at the GE?
He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
It goes further back than that - it was under the Tories that the system was originally commissioned, as an early PFI project in the mid 1990s. The PO had done a deal with that government that benefit claimants would have a ‘benefits card’, replacing the then familiar giro, effectively forcing benefit claimants to continue visiting the post office. The PO was terrified that if claimants got their benefits straight into a bank account, much of their weekly footfall would disappear. Of course, back then bank account penetration amongst the poor was often low, giving them a strong card to play.
When New Labour came to power, the project was already over budget, hugely delayed, and not working well. And more people were getting bank accounts. So the BA was getting a cold feet, and after six months of seeing if the original plan would fly, the government decided that the benefit card was a blind alley and pulled out. There were crisis meetings because the Post Office risked losing its automation programme altogether; in the event they patched up a deal enabling the PO and Fujitsu to limp on without the DWP. But it left the PO with an over-engineered system designed around a facility they would no longer be using, and so the IT was more complicated than it should have been given the people who would be using it. The first seed in what turned into a long and tragic series of events.
Vennells would have been a Board appointment, not a government one. Whether the government would have had any other involvement, other than via its rep on the board, I don’t know. We can’t really blame Cable for Vennells, especially as she was by then an internal promotee.
I was going to say - it goes all the way back to Peter Lilley and 1995 and the shiny PFI project meant to cut benefit fraud by making everything electronic. Labour came close to scrapping the whole thing but bottled it as that would have led to a mess there and then.
It's perhaps a reason why over the years all the main parties have hoped it would go away rather than jump on it as evidence of the other lot's mismanagement. Each arguably compounded previous cock-ups by not pulling the plug or trying to get to the bottom of it.
A lesson for ministers present and future perhaps that if there's a problem - especially related to something you're outsourcing to others who fully understand it - to get to the bottom of it, no matter how small it seems, as soon as possible.
Yes, you put your finger on a major issue with this and other related Government-owned projects. It is maybe the biggest and most important of all the issues involved.
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
I'm not saying the LDs were any worse than the others, but they are certainly not in the clear.
To be fair to Vennells, she did turn around the Post Office from losing £100 m a year when she became CEO to making a profit when she left. She deserves to be castigated for Horizon but so do her predecessors, she was not solely responsible
She’s taking the flak, because the egregious decision to try and kill off the campaign and its legal case, rather than come clean, was taken on her watch. And rightly so (the flak), as she was in charge. I’m sure that in practice those closer to it - the internal lawyers and relevant board members - came up with the strategy and talked her into it (the pitch presumably being that to lose would sink both the business and their reputations, as indeed it has).
He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
It goes further back than that - it was under the Tories that the system was originally commissioned, as an early PFI project in the mid 1990s. The PO had done a deal with that government that benefit claimants would have a ‘benefits card’, replacing the then familiar giro, effectively forcing benefit claimants to continue visiting the post office. The PO was terrified that if claimants got their benefits straight into a bank account, much of their weekly footfall would disappear. Of course, back then bank account penetration amongst the poor was often low, giving them a strong card to play.
When New Labour came to power, the project was already over budget, hugely delayed, and not working well. And more people were getting bank accounts. So the BA was getting a cold feet, and after six months of seeing if the original plan would fly, the government decided that the benefit card was a blind alley and pulled out. There were crisis meetings because the Post Office risked losing its automation programme altogether; in the event they patched up a deal enabling the PO and Fujitsu to limp on without the DWP. But it left the PO with an over-engineered system designed around a facility they would no longer be using, and so the IT was more complicated than it should have been given the people who would be using it. The first seed in what turned into a long and tragic series of events.
Vennells would have been a Board appointment, not a government one. Whether the government would have had any other involvement, other than via its rep on the board, I don’t know. We can’t really blame Cable for Vennells, especially as she was by then an internal promotee.
I was going to say - it goes all the way back to Peter Lilley and 1995 and the shiny PFI project meant to cut benefit fraud by making everything electronic. Labour came close to scrapping the whole thing but bottled it as that would have led to a mess there and then.
It's perhaps a reason why over the years all the main parties have hoped it would go away rather than jump on it as evidence of the other lot's mismanagement. Each arguably compounded previous cock-ups by not pulling the plug or trying to get to the bottom of it.
A lesson for ministers present and future perhaps that if there's a problem - especially related to something you're outsourcing to others who fully understand it - to get to the bottom of it, no matter how small it seems, as soon as possible.
And the fact that tackling the then high amount of benefit fraud was central to the original conception may indeed be another factor in the mix that got the thing being seen as a fraud detection and prevention tool. I think Darling and/or Byers mention this aspect of the original plan in their evidence to the Inquiry.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Could the Post Office scandal be a black swan that stymies the Lib Dems chances at the GE?
You mean that having spent years banging on about the ‘thirteen years’ of Conservative government, as if the coalition never happened, the Tories have finally found something they’d like the LibDems alone to be responsible for?
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
“Meanwhile, campaigning in Surrey where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to win a number of Conservative-held seats at the next general election, party leader Sir Ed Davey said he regretted not asking "tougher questions" of Post Office managers when he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. Asked why he refused to meet Alan Bates, the postmaster who led the campaign to expose the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, he said: "It is a national scandal... dreadful and it's been going on for so long. The Conservative government really needs to sort out the compensation. "I regret not having asked the Post Office managers even tougher questions than I did." Asked why he accepted the Post Office's assertions at face value, Sir Ed replied: "I asked really tough questions of Post Office managers and indeed the officials. I wish I'd gone further." He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
I'm not saying the LDs were any worse than the others, but they are certainly not in the clear.
To be fair to Vennells, she did turn around the Post Office from losing £100 m a year when she became CEO to making a profit when she left. She deserves to be castigated for Horizon but so do her predecessors, she was not solely responsible
Not sure what I think being fair to Vennells would actually involve, but a long spell of chokey would definitely be included.
The money she saved the PO included large amounts that were improperly prised out of the hands of innocent SPMs. To the best of my knowledge it has not been returned.
The cost of the scandal will run into billions before it reaches its conclusion. This is your idea of success?
She was the CEO. The buck stops with her. Sure, she wasn't the only culprit, but definitely one of the most significnt.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
All achieved at one hell of a cost.
Just think where the PO would be now if even normal managerial, accounting and IT standards had been applied during her tenure.
In the unlikely event that Ed Davey resigns, that improves the LibDem's election prospects, I would have thought. If they can elect a leader with vigour and charisma and cut-through. Even if not, the contest alone should raise their profile in an election year.
He congratulated Mr Bates for his campaign, he added.”
Ed Davey regrets his part in the Post Office scandal. That's all right then. He regrets it. He's not losing sleep over it, or money, or his job. Do the decent thing, Ed, or STFU.
He was responsible for 19 months of the two decades. Who are the other ministers responsible, before or after?
It starts with Blair/Harman and runs right the way through to Johnson, who at least had the decency to authorise a public Inquiry.
One of the reasons why the story has not gathered more traction is that none of the main political Parties stand to benefit from it. They are all implicated. The LDs had a surprisingly large involvement. In addition to Davy's role, Vince Cable appointed Paula Vennells, and Jo Swinson was effectively Minister for the Post Office for a significant period.
It goes further back than that - it was under the Tories that the system was originally commissioned, as an early PFI project in the mid 1990s. The PO had done a deal with that government that benefit claimants would have a ‘benefits card’, replacing the then familiar giro, effectively forcing benefit claimants to continue visiting the post office. The PO was terrified that if claimants got their benefits straight into a bank account, much of their weekly footfall would disappear. Of course, back then bank account penetration amongst the poor was often low, giving them a strong card to play.
When New Labour came to power, the project was already over budget, hugely delayed, and not working well. And more people were getting bank accounts. So the BA was getting a cold feet, and after six months of seeing if the original plan would fly, the government decided that the benefit card was a blind alley and pulled out. There were crisis meetings because the Post Office risked losing its automation programme altogether; in the event they patched up a deal enabling the PO and Fujitsu to limp on without the DWP. But it left the PO with an over-engineered system designed around a facility they would no longer be using, and so the IT was more complicated than it should have been given the people who would be using it. The first seed in what turned into a long and tragic series of events.
Vennells would have been a Board appointment, not a government one. Whether the government would have had any other involvement, other than via its rep on the board, I don’t know. We can’t really blame Cable for Vennells, especially as she was by then an internal promotee.
I was going to say - it goes all the way back to Peter Lilley and 1995 and the shiny PFI project meant to cut benefit fraud by making everything electronic. Labour came close to scrapping the whole thing but bottled it as that would have led to a mess there and then.
It's perhaps a reason why over the years all the main parties have hoped it would go away rather than jump on it as evidence of the other lot's mismanagement. Each arguably compounded previous cock-ups by not pulling the plug or trying to get to the bottom of it.
A lesson for ministers present and future perhaps that if there's a problem - especially related to something you're outsourcing to others who fully understand it - to get to the bottom of it, no matter how small it seems, as soon as possible.
And the fact that tackling the then high amount of benefit fraud was central to the original conception may indeed be another factor in the mix that got the thing being seen as a fraud detection and prevention tool. I think Darling and/or Byers mention this aspect of the original plan in their evidence to the Inquiry.
My main thought on the benefit angle is that the fundamental software flaws would probably have had vast numbers of benefit claimants up for "stealing money" that didn't exist.
Once again - they fucked up on transactionality and audit and traceability.
The entire system wasn't fit to manage anything. Let alone money.
Reviewing the way in which the PO pulled out of the independent investigation and wound up the mediation scheme, you’d think there would have been a big political outcry at that time? With a handful of honourable exceptions, I don’t remember it that way? Indeed most people seem to have come across the story only very recently.
No wonder Zahawi was so keen to play himself (not very well, if you watch the original BIS SC recording) in the drama! Yes, he gave Vennells a hard time at the committee meeting. But what’s he done since, during his rise to cabinet and eventually (and briefly) number two in government?
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Could the Post Office scandal be a black swan that stymies the Lib Dems chances at the GE?
You mean that having spent years banging on about the ‘thirteen years’ of Conservative government, as if the coalition never happened, the Tories have finally found something they’d like the LibDems alone to be responsible for?
Exactly! “Yes, we were in government from 2010, but Labour started it, and when we took over, we thought the Lib Dems would deal with it. Sadly, this shows what happens when we let them look after things.” (Obviously this wouldn’t work if the Tories manage to cling on to power relying on support from the Lib Dems.)
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Could the Post Office scandal be a black swan that stymies the Lib Dems chances at the GE?
No, because it is equally awkward for Labour and the Conservatives. It just means the LDs can't profit from it.
Explain The Post Office Scandal in football terms.
The Post Office tried to nobble the ref, and got found out, and now their entire team has been sent off.
No.
They claimed that the opposing team(s) had made 43,534 fouls. It turned out this was based on the evidence of a drunk, blind, schizophrenic. And the fouls were proven not to have happened.
When the opposing team(s) tried to get the goals disallowed, they were told that the evidence was infallible. While the managers lied to everyone about the fact they knew there were no fouls.
All the while, the managers of the team got promotions and pay rises for the goals from the penalties.
Sexism, misogyny, domestic violence, attacks on whistleblowers, firemen found guilty of misconduct and allowed to retire in full pensions with no adverse consequences.
The Chief has resigned - yes - on a full pension with the usual pro forma apology.
Need I go on?
No - it's the same old story with the same outcome. Everyone gets away with it. And somewhere in a remote office some new procedure gets written so that it can be ignored by the next generation of staff.
Repeat ad nauseam.
If PB or something like it exists in a century, Cyclefree - the 3rd generation will probably be writing the same bloody posts with even greater levels of cynicism and despair than I am.
'Sexism, misogyny, domestic violence' plenty of that still in South Wales towns and villages, the Fire Service should have stamped it out but tackling the problem in the wider culture is also a challenge
Don’t really know anything about the PO scandal. Can’t really get into it.
Assume it’s yet another casualty of a botched privatisation?
Selling off the family silver.
Water, rail, energy, stamps… the list goes on.
When will we ever fucking learn?
Nothing to do with privatisation - the exact same kind of moral, organisational and technical failures have been seen across a range of public, semi-public and private organisations.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
Would it be bad of me to think that "playing with a Spitting Image puppet of himself" is an euphemism and he was in fact playing with [That's enough - Ed]
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
I can make anything profitable (even Twitter), if you give me a legal department prepared to go on a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies.
Don’t really know anything about the PO scandal. Can’t really get into it.
Assume it’s yet another casualty of a botched privatisation?
Selling off the family silver.
Water, rail, energy, stamps… the list goes on.
When will we ever fucking learn?
Mistakes were made with the development of the computer system from the start in about 1997, but it suited everyone to pretend it was 100% fine for the next 20 years because it was too inconvenient to admit the truth. That basically sums it up.
Don’t really know anything about the PO scandal. Can’t really get into it.
Assume it’s yet another casualty of a botched privatisation?
Selling off the family silver.
Water, rail, energy, stamps… the list goes on.
When will we ever fucking learn?
Nothing to do with privatisation. Started in the late 1990's with a botched IT accounting system built by Fujitsu for the Post Office, which never worked properly. Prosecutions were brought against subpostmasters for crimes which didn't happen from 2000 - 2016 on the basis of nonsense spewed out by the IT system. 900 people convicted. Many made bankrupt, lost homes, savings, everything. Some committed suicide. 63 have died while waiting for justice.
Evidence shows that the PO knew there were problems with its system but abused the civil and criminal justice system to prosecute subpostmasters and lied to them, MPs, Parliament and the courts to get its way. Perverting the course of justice and perjury are likely charges.
A public inquiry is underway to report this year. The evidence coming out of it is appalling. The PO and the government are dragging their feet over compensation, estimated to be in the region of a billion quid. It is the largest miscarriage of justice in English legal history and as I have argued in numerous articles on here one of the worst governance failures by the state because this is and always has been a state owned body.
Sexism, misogyny, domestic violence, attacks on whistleblowers, firemen found guilty of misconduct and allowed to retire in full pensions with no adverse consequences.
The Chief has resigned - yes - on a full pension with the usual pro forma apology.
Need I go on?
No - it's the same old story with the same outcome. Everyone gets away with it. And somewhere in a remote office some new procedure gets written so that it can be ignored by the next generation of staff.
Repeat ad nauseam.
If PB or something like it exists in a century, Cyclefree - the 3rd generation will probably be writing the same bloody posts with even greater levels of cynicism and despair than I am.
'Sexism, misogyny, domestic violence' plenty of that still in South Wales towns and villages, the Fire Service should have stamped it out but tackling the problem in the wider culture is also a challenge
Don’t really know anything about the PO scandal. Can’t really get into it.
Assume it’s yet another casualty of a botched privatisation?
Selling off the family silver.
Water, rail, energy, stamps… the list goes on.
When will we ever fucking learn?
Nothing to do with privatisation. Started in the late 1990's with a botched IT accounting system built by Fujitsu for the Post Office, which never worked properly. Prosecutions were brought against subpostmasters for crimes which didn't happen from 2000 - 2016 on the basis of nonsense spewed out by the IT system. 900 people convicted. Many made bankrupt, lost homes, savings, everything. Some committed suicide. 63 have died while waiting for justice.
Evidence shows that the PO knew there were problems with its system but abused the civil and criminal justice system to prosecute subpostmasters and lied to them, MPs, Parliament and the courts to get its way. Perverting the course of justice and perjury are likely charges.
A public inquiry is underway to report this year. The evidence coming out of it is appalling. The PO and the government are dragging their feet over compensation, estimated to be in the region of a billion quid. It is the largest miscarriage of justice in English legal history and as I have argued in numerous articles on here one of the worst governance failures by the state because this is and always has been a state owned body.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
I can make anything profitable (even Twitter), if you give me a legal department prepared to go on a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
I can make anything profitable (even Twitter), if you give me a legal department prepared to go on a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
I can make anything profitable (even Twitter), if you give me a legal department prepared to go on a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies.
Wales is, in a way, Labour’s biggest achilles heel. Place has been a shit-show since forever, and there appears no desire amongst the Welsh ruling class (nor the Welsh at large, tbh) to address it.
The tweeter is possibly not the most objective assessor of Labour, tbh...
I live in Wales and it is not as bad as the Tory client media would have us believe. Betsi Cadwallader and the botched rollout and certainly botched media rollout of the otherwise reasonable idea of the 20mph urban speed limit notwithstanding.
From my side of Offa's Dyke, the Welsh Government are a 4/10 exam pass. On the bright side the current Welsh government may be very vin ordinaire, but just imagine the sour grapes of a ruddy faced First Minister A.R.T. Davies. The Welsh answer to Liz Truss.
It’s actually worse.
There’s barely any Welsh economy to speak of, save social funds directly or indirectly (via the benefits system) redistributed from the rest of the country.
PISA scores are an abomination. Wales sends barely anyone to Oxbridge nowadays. The health system, as we know, is in a state of crisis.
Welsh democracy is tightly gripped by an incestuous Labour mafia, and what dissent there exists is hopelessly quixotic or irredeemably moronic.
You are right, there is no remaining manufacturing so to speak of. That ship was sailing before devolution, which you are correct is a one party state, with the alternative being even more abject.
I don't dispute the PISA figures, although I can't fault my own children's state school experience, and Oxbridge entry is in my view a pretty meaningless metric.
My mother was summarily executed by the Welsh NHS at the Princess of Wales Hospital during their scandal. With the exception of Betsi Cadwallader the NHS oversight now seems less poor.
Perhaps here in the Vale of Glamorgan I am insulated from the widespread poverty North of the M4 so I am not best placed to comment, unlike someone who lives in upstate New York.
I’m not sure why you think it necessary to snark at the end. Besides which, I live in Manhattan, not upstate.
My point is not intended to be anti-Wales or anti-Welsh. Merely to point out that Wales is an absolute backwater from a Western perspective, and that Welsh Labour appear to have done nothing about that despite 25 years now of devolution.
Wales is, in a way, Labour’s biggest achilles heel. Place has been a shit-show since forever, and there appears no desire amongst the Welsh ruling class (nor the Welsh at large, tbh) to address it.
The tweeter is possibly not the most objective assessor of Labour, tbh...
I live in Wales and it is not as bad as the Tory client media would have us believe. Betsi Cadwallader and the botched rollout and certainly botched media rollout of the otherwise reasonable idea of the 20mph urban speed limit notwithstanding.
From my side of Offa's Dyke, the Welsh Government are a 4/10 exam pass. On the bright side the current Welsh government may be very vin ordinaire, but just imagine the sour grapes of a ruddy faced First Minister A.R.T. Davies. The Welsh answer to Liz Truss.
It’s actually worse.
There’s barely any Welsh economy to speak of, save social funds directly or indirectly (via the benefits system) redistributed from the rest of the country.
PISA scores are an abomination. Wales sends barely anyone to Oxbridge nowadays. The health system, as we know, is in a state of crisis.
Welsh democracy is tightly gripped by an incestuous Labour mafia, and what dissent there exists is hopelessly quixotic or irredeemably moronic.
You are right, there is no remaining manufacturing so to speak of. That ship was sailing before devolution, which you are correct is a one party state, with the alternative being even more abject.
I don't dispute the PISA figures, although I can't fault my own children's state school experience, and Oxbridge entry is in my view a pretty meaningless metric.
My mother was summarily executed by the Welsh NHS at the Princess of Wales Hospital during their scandal. With the exception of Betsi Cadwallader the NHS oversight now seems less poor.
Perhaps here in the Vale of Glamorgan I am insulated from the widespread poverty North of the M4 so I am not best placed to comment, unlike someone who lives in upstate New York.
I’m not sure why you think it necessary to snark at the end. Besides which, I live in Manhattan, not upstate.
My point is not intended to be anti-Wales or anti-Welsh. Merely to point out that Wales is an absolute backwater from a Western perspective, and that Welsh Labour appear to have done nothing about that despite 25 years now of devolution.
I am Welsh - born, bred and raised - but dont currently live there. Apart from loss of coal and huge reduction in steel, there has also been a steady decline in manufacturing over the years (Ford and Sony were the biggest local employers when I was younger). There are still plenty of new jobs - especially finance and high tech - but generally not where most people live (apart from Cardiff).
I am not a supporter of Welsh Labour but there isnt much they could do under the various devolution settlements. What they have done is pad out non-productive public sector and third sector jobs. Plaid would have done the same - but Welsh Tories would be a disaster. Scrap everything - sell it off to their mates over the Bridge - while shouting a lot.
Wales is, in a way, Labour’s biggest achilles heel. Place has been a shit-show since forever, and there appears no desire amongst the Welsh ruling class (nor the Welsh at large, tbh) to address it.
The tweeter is possibly not the most objective assessor of Labour, tbh...
I live in Wales and it is not as bad as the Tory client media would have us believe. Betsi Cadwallader and the botched rollout and certainly botched media rollout of the otherwise reasonable idea of the 20mph urban speed limit notwithstanding.
From my side of Offa's Dyke, the Welsh Government are a 4/10 exam pass. On the bright side the current Welsh government may be very vin ordinaire, but just imagine the sour grapes of a ruddy faced First Minister A.R.T. Davies. The Welsh answer to Liz Truss.
It’s actually worse.
There’s barely any Welsh economy to speak of, save social funds directly or indirectly (via the benefits system) redistributed from the rest of the country.
PISA scores are an abomination. Wales sends barely anyone to Oxbridge nowadays. The health system, as we know, is in a state of crisis.
Welsh democracy is tightly gripped by an incestuous Labour mafia, and what dissent there exists is hopelessly quixotic or irredeemably moronic.
You are right, there is no remaining manufacturing so to speak of. That ship was sailing before devolution, which you are correct is a one party state, with the alternative being even more abject.
I don't dispute the PISA figures, although I can't fault my own children's state school experience, and Oxbridge entry is in my view a pretty meaningless metric.
My mother was summarily executed by the Welsh NHS at the Princess of Wales Hospital during their scandal. With the exception of Betsi Cadwallader the NHS oversight now seems less poor.
Perhaps here in the Vale of Glamorgan I am insulated from the widespread poverty North of the M4 so I am not best placed to comment, unlike someone who lives in upstate New York.
I’m not sure why you think it necessary to snark at the end. Besides which, I live in Manhattan, not upstate.
My point is not intended to be anti-Wales or anti-Welsh. Merely to point out that Wales is an absolute backwater from a Western perspective, and that Welsh Labour appear to have done nothing about that despite 25 years now of devolution.
There's something ineffably strange about somebody living in Manhattan describing Wales as an absolute backwater. Well yes, but it's so de haut en bas. Matthew Parris once dismissed somewhere (Skegness? Clacton?) as something irretrievable that should be abandoned, and there is always this urge to turn ones back on the sad bits. But he was wrong and the urge should be resisted. You have to take the country as it is and do your best for it, even the bits you don't like.
Wales is, in a way, Labour’s biggest achilles heel. Place has been a shit-show since forever, and there appears no desire amongst the Welsh ruling class (nor the Welsh at large, tbh) to address it.
The tweeter is possibly not the most objective assessor of Labour, tbh...
I live in Wales and it is not as bad as the Tory client media would have us believe. Betsi Cadwallader and the botched rollout and certainly botched media rollout of the otherwise reasonable idea of the 20mph urban speed limit notwithstanding.
From my side of Offa's Dyke, the Welsh Government are a 4/10 exam pass. On the bright side the current Welsh government may be very vin ordinaire, but just imagine the sour grapes of a ruddy faced First Minister A.R.T. Davies. The Welsh answer to Liz Truss.
It’s actually worse.
There’s barely any Welsh economy to speak of, save social funds directly or indirectly (via the benefits system) redistributed from the rest of the country.
PISA scores are an abomination. Wales sends barely anyone to Oxbridge nowadays. The health system, as we know, is in a state of crisis.
Welsh democracy is tightly gripped by an incestuous Labour mafia, and what dissent there exists is hopelessly quixotic or irredeemably moronic.
You are right, there is no remaining manufacturing so to speak of. That ship was sailing before devolution, which you are correct is a one party state, with the alternative being even more abject.
I don't dispute the PISA figures, although I can't fault my own children's state school experience, and Oxbridge entry is in my view a pretty meaningless metric.
My mother was summarily executed by the Welsh NHS at the Princess of Wales Hospital during their scandal. With the exception of Betsi Cadwallader the NHS oversight now seems less poor.
Perhaps here in the Vale of Glamorgan I am insulated from the widespread poverty North of the M4 so I am not best placed to comment, unlike someone who lives in upstate New York.
I’m not sure why you think it necessary to snark at the end. Besides which, I live in Manhattan, not upstate.
My point is not intended to be anti-Wales or anti-Welsh. Merely to point out that Wales is an absolute backwater from a Western perspective, and that Welsh Labour appear to have done nothing about that despite 25 years now of devolution.
There's something ineffably strange about somebody living in Manhattan describing Wales as an absolute backwater. Well yes, but it's so de haut en bas. Matthew Parris once dismissed somewhere (Skegness? Clacton?) as something irretrievable that should be abandoned, and there is always this urge to turn ones back on the sad bits. But he was wrong and the urge should be resisted. You have to take the country as it is and do your best for it, even the bits you don't like.
I am not suggesting “abandoning” Wales, rather the reverse. And the fact I currently live in Manhattan is neither here nor there.
My surname is actually Welsh and my father was evacuated to Swansea during the war, if that helps.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
I can make anything profitable (even Twitter), if you give me a legal department prepared to go on a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies.
🚨 BREAKING: The @WelshAmbulance service has declared a business continuity incident this afternoon due to system wide pressure on hospitals across Wales, meaning ambulances are stuck at hospital A&E depts risking delays to 999 calls
I have been saying this for some time and in my present circumstances my son is on standby to take me into hospital if needed before my pacemaker operation on the 5th February
Hopefully NOT by lifeboat?
To be fair, in some parts of the country, a lifeboat might be a good way of getting around currently.
So I hear. Hope zero PBers get flooded in, or out. Esp. later. Can be brutal, that's for sure.
Flooding in Nortgern France too. We were driving towards Calais this evening when my phone suddenly let out a piercing shriek and a big warning flashed up on the screen.
“Alert Crue! Crue exceptionelle pouvait dépasser les niveaux historiques sur le basin de l’Aa”
(the Aa is the most weirdly named valley in France. It’s like it wanted to be the first river in the pages jaunes.)
We got that too while driving to Calais! We must have been close. Frightened the life out of us.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
Well, her sole objective was to stop the PO being a loss-making drain on the public finances, and that she did, by a mixture of cost cutting (including to SPMR’s pay, removing the salaried element of their fee altogether) and launching new banking stuff. Hence the CBE. She got the CBE from the Tories in 2019 - that at least you can’t blame the LibDems for (revealing of course that until very recently, all the politicians were equally clueless)
How the fuck was this approved? The Bates litigation was well on its way. The 3rd judgment which basically said the PO were clueless numpties who'd miss the floor if they fell out of bed and their witnesses were all liars was released in March 2019.
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
I can make anything profitable (even Twitter), if you give me a legal department prepared to go on a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies.
I've always avoided the Dredd film, and that short clip has made me very, very thankful for that.
You are referring to the first Dredd film with Stallone, which is awesome You may prefer the second Dredd film with Karl Urban, which is awesome in a different way
Comments
The two worst things about the whole scandal, imo, were the crude strategy of using the threat of a theft charge in individual cases to obtain a guilty plea to false accounting and ‘recovery’ of the (non) missing money, at the beginning, and the strategy of obstruction and cost escalation that the business ended up using to try and kill off the legal case, which clearly they knew that they would otherwise lose. The latter is appalling given the seniority at which the decision must have been taken; I predict we’re going to see a lot of amnesia when those now retired senior people pitch up at the Inquiry. There have already been a few examples from those who appeared in Phase Two.
Sort the sheep from the goats
I was wrong, she takes no s**t from political bulls**tters.
Was in the year below me.
Somewhat unremarkable then.
But that would not be good for anyone but Bill Ackman
The worst thing about the scandal to me is the way the Government(s) shirked their responsibilities as owners of the Post Office. The PO was expending vast sums of our money in prosecuting the SPMs, and then defending themselves against all inquiries. The Government(s) should have been asking questions and seeking independent advice. Instead it followed a lame 'hands-off' policy. In truth, this reflected nothing more than indifference, inertia and a lack of reasonable curiosity.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/post-office-boss-paula-vennells-31798375
https://x.com/billackman/status/1742576651601358893?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
There is a fundamental problem with the party line that the Post Office was being run at arm's length. And so Ministers could not interfere. It was not a private company with shareholders and some market discipline to hold it to some sort of account. It had only one shareholder - the state. It was the state which funded it. It was the state through the Minister which had ultimate supervisory control. That supervision needed to mean something real - not refusing to get involved. Because what that meant in reality was an organisation which was unchallengeable and out of control.
There is a further point. What the SPMs were doing was whistleblowing. They should have been listened to and their allegations properly and independently investigated. It wasn't a matter of taking their side but of ensuring that what they were saying was taken seriously. They weren't and when Second Sight got close they were shut down. That is absolutely the wrong thing to do when investigating concerns. It was a massive red flag which a Minister who knew what he or she was doing or asked anyone with any real knowledge of whistleblowing would have spotted and insisted on action.
If they were stymied by civil servants this tells me that civil servants do not understand what whistleblowing is and how to deal with it. Not that this surprises me. But it is indicative of Ministers and a civil service which are not really fit for purpose.
Knighthoods all round,
Thank goodness now it's all privatised it's the shareholders on the hook for this!
..
Oh.
...
Knighthoods all round!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67873197
Everything we hear about the Government and Civil Service adds to the evidence that they are not fit for purpose.
This is because EU rules apply all all data in the EU regardless of whether EU or not.
So now they are ex EU servers therefore “under the jurisdiction of their USHQ” but “British privacy rules” apply
It's perhaps a reason why over the years all the main parties have hoped it would go away rather than jump on it as evidence of the other lot's mismanagement. Each arguably compounded previous cock-ups by not pulling the plug or trying to get to the bottom of it.
A lesson for ministers present and future perhaps that if there's a problem - especially related to something you're outsourcing to others who fully understand it - to get to the bottom of it, no matter how small it seems, as soon as possible.
Thanks Ian for your characteristically informed comments. May I just add though that I think Cable would have had to approve the Vennels appointment, even if it was just a rubber-stamp job.
The money she saved the PO included large amounts that were improperly prised out of the hands of innocent SPMs. To the best of my knowledge it has not been returned.
The cost of the scandal will run into billions before it reaches its conclusion. This is your idea of success?
She was the CEO. The buck stops with her. Sure, she wasn't the only culprit, but definitely one of the most significnt.
Just think where the PO would be now if even normal managerial, accounting and IT standards had been applied during her tenure.
Once again - they fucked up on transactionality and audit and traceability.
The entire system wasn't fit to manage anything. Let alone money.
No wonder Zahawi was so keen to play himself (not very well, if you watch the original BIS SC recording) in the drama! Yes, he gave Vennells a hard time at the committee meeting. But what’s he done since, during his rise to cabinet and eventually (and briefly) number two in government?
They claimed that the opposing team(s) had made 43,534 fouls. It turned out this was based on the evidence of a drunk, blind, schizophrenic. And the fouls were proven not to have happened.
When the opposing team(s) tried to get the goals disallowed, they were told that the evidence was infallible. While the managers lied to everyone about the fact they knew there were no fouls.
All the while, the managers of the team got promotions and pay rises for the goals from the penalties.
Assume it’s yet another casualty of a botched privatisation?
Selling off the family silver.
Water, rail, energy, stamps… the list goes on.
When will we ever fucking learn?
The reason is interesting, I think.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67865190
Prince Andrew !!
What sort of due diligence was done?
As for the claim that Vennells made it profitable, don't make me laugh. How much of those profits came from money extorted from SPMs? Her mismanagement means that the PO is now bust. It survives only because we are bankrolling it. Was it ever truly profitable? Why the hell should anyone trust its audited accounts? Or indeed anything it said? Or says now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ydqjqZ_3oc
Evidence shows that the PO knew there were problems with its system but abused the civil and criminal justice system to prosecute subpostmasters and lied to them, MPs, Parliament and the courts to get its way. Perverting the course of justice and perjury are likely charges.
A public inquiry is underway to report this year. The evidence coming out of it is appalling. The PO and the government are dragging their feet over compensation, estimated to be in the region of a billion quid. It is the largest miscarriage of justice in English legal history and as I have argued in numerous articles on here one of the worst governance failures by the state because this is and always has been a state owned body.
See - and you really should know about this (it is much more important than your cash obsession) - here: https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/category/woman-with-opinions/investigations/.
You're welcome.
Apparent statistical proof that shooting Byng worked....
They were - and are - racketeers.
PS I am going to borrow (ok, steal) your line - "a rampage of extortion with menaces, based on lies." Just brilliant.
Edit: I hope you don't mind. I will buy you a drink if we ever meet and entertain you with some of my juicier - unrepeatable on here - stories. 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1bpo1mwn8
My point is not intended to be anti-Wales or anti-Welsh.
Merely to point out that Wales is an absolute backwater from a Western perspective, and that Welsh Labour appear to have done nothing about that despite 25 years now of devolution.
I am not a supporter of Welsh Labour but there isnt much they could do under the various devolution settlements. What they have done is pad out non-productive public sector and third sector jobs. Plaid would have done the same - but Welsh Tories would be a disaster. Scrap everything - sell it off to their mates over the Bridge - while shouting a lot.
My surname is actually Welsh and my father was evacuated to Swansea during the war, if that helps.
The only private entity was Fujitsu (ex ICL). Who are still getting off too lightly.
You may prefer the second Dredd film with Karl Urban, which is awesome in a different way
Here is the music to the ending of the second film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGj0gq75VwQ&t=140s
(rocks out intemperately)