Unless we are missing something in the letters we've seen he is just guilty of not pressing things further and accepting the first answer - hardly surprising when he probably had a million other things to got on with.
No, I think this might be career ending for him
“In 2017 Alan Bates led a group litigation against the Post Office
It responded by hiring lawyers from Herbert Smith Freehills to fight its corner
Ed Davey agreed to be taken on by Herbert Smith Freehills as a consultant on political issues & policy analysis, paid £833 per hour”
see TSE but Ed Davey was working in a very different part of the Herbert Smith Freehills.
I don't think it will matter. The impact of this TV show is such that anybody who was anywhere near this scandal is fucked.
I didn't watch it because I can't sit through 4 hours of schmaltzy pap about lawyers and IT wankers but Mrs DA watched it, was livid and said she's never going in a Post Office again.
Yep
Quite surprising and impressive that TV still has the power to do something like this.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Don't want to go all Brecht here, but isn't the bigger problem, what the British electorate will vote for?
We've spent decades voting to get more and pay less, filling the gap by selling stuff off (yes, I am looking at you Margaret) and borrowing unsustainably (what's that Gordon? Actually, I do mean you) and sweating assets beyond their limits (in case you were feeling left out George).
There's no way out of this that doesn't involve quite a bit less consumption, quite a bit more tax (especially on the gains people have made through asset inflation) and a redirection of spending to investment for the future.
But if an election comes down to "accept the hangover" vs. "hair of the dog", the second will always win, no matter how persuasive the leader of the first is.
SFAICS this became absolutely acute at the point where the 1992 election was lost by Labour partly on account of saying something which allowed the 'Labour' Tax Bombshell' campaign. We have never recovered. This is 32 years ago.
No party aiming at government (there are only 2) is going to risk this, so we are stuck with the ludicrous strangulation of real discussion about debt, tax, spend, borrow at election time.
I can see only two ways out, neither of which are likely. A voter revolt, or a cross party truce to agree a common formula like 'Both Tory and Labour will tax at the level which will meet our spending commitments. Taxes can go up as well as down. Taxes are high because state managed expenditure is nearly 50% of GDP. Get over it'.
There's one other way, which also has a lot wrong with it.
Say as little as possible pre-election. Then having won, say "My predecessor left things in an even worse state then we thought." Go in hard with the painful stuff, and hope that it's worked in five years.
Horribly dishonest, but possibly better than we deserve.
There's another way which is to get rid of exemptions and special cases and simply tax everyone at the same rate.
Yes that will be a steep tax rise for those currently cushy and used to paying less than others with the same earnings have to pay, but for working people it wouldn't be a tax rise at all. Apart from working people engaging in dodging taxes.
Its not unreasonable to say that everyone earning the same amount should pay the same amount of tax, but it would be transformative to our tax take if it were so.
The exemptions and special cases usually exist through necessity though. And people lose their shit when you take something away from them. Remember how the retired used to have a larger tax allowance than working people, and the coalition in their ramping up of tax free allowances for everyone aligned the tax free allowance upwards, including for the retired, but the absence of a special larger allowance (even though no worse off) was enough for George Osborne to have been accused of a "granny tax".
That's politics and not necessity and who talks about that now?
Merge National Insurance, Graduate Tax and all other income-related taxes into the same rate of taxation as Income Tax and the tax take would go up tremendously as everyone starts on the same rate of tax. Yes, those who expect others to pay more tax than them will squeal like a pig, but the budget issues will be resolved and from there taxes can be lowered evenly across the board, or spending can rise, depending upon you political preference.
Everyone's income should be treated the same by HMRC no matter how its earned.
No such thing as a graduate tax, they are paying for services they used. If they don't like it do not go to University. It is a bank loan to get them a better job supposedly , NOT a tax. Why should a plumber or brickie pay extra tax so some chinless wonder can become a trader or a barrister
I read on the previous thread that some sort of huge SNPbadness was about to break.
Well?
You are in Scotland. Nip down to the newsagent and tell us if they did "hold the front page" or if some PBer fell for a social media hoax and a photoshopped newspaper.
Buy a newspaper? Along with most of the population, I’m done with that caveman jive daddy oh.
Never underestimate the capacity of the average Yoon to whip themselves into a conspiracy fuelled frenzy.
I am getting visions of a TV crew finding 'the average Scot' - Perhaps called Glen and hailing from Dunfermline, and handing him a big cheque for £10,000 courtesy of independence.
Shockingly reductive to limit it to Scots. Just imagine the size of the cheques handed out to each English person once they no longer need to subsidise 'shithole' Scotland!
English person "Citizen of rump Britain", surely? Even "person in England" would be better.
Citizens of the Former UK will be known as FUKers.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
You ought to tell them that Barbie is 65 this year (apparently). So they can go off and buy dolls and stick pins into them and leave you alone.
Yes, I know about not getting the credit in life for taking the tough decision. Are you a parent too.
It seems to me that Vennells and associates missed their opportunity when Second Sight began to report its adverse findings about the Horizon system. They could and should have fronted up then, admitted their mistake and prevented further miscarriages of justice as a result. Instead they tried to brazen it out. Yes, I suppose it was a 'logical' response in the sense that there was a rationale behind it, but it was a poor one, as well as being immoral.
After that, it seems they believed they had little option but to keep on trying to brazen it out, hoping that if they upped the stakes high enough, the other side would fold. As a former professional gambler I can only shake my head at that. You never bet the house on anything.
Vennells was awarded the CBE in 2019, and given positions that year on the Board of the Imperial College Health Trust and in the Cabinet Office. One can only imagine that her backers thought the 'brazen-in-out' strategy was working. As the inadequacies of Horizon were widely acknowledged by then and the truth was slowly and painfully becoming apparent, you have to wonder about the people who approved these honours. Lazy? Stupid? Brass-necked? Incompetent? Shameless? You decide.
Anyway, much as I have enjoyed your duet with MsC, I am glad that a much larger chorus can now be heard singing about this subject. It deserves all the attention it is getting.
One piece of mitigation is that, around that same time, the prosecution of subpostmasters for shortfalls suddenly stopped. Totally.
We must be realistic. There’s a lot of incompetence on display here, both from the PO and Fujitsu. And, when the **** hit the fan, rather too much priority given to “how can we get out of this alive?”, with apparent disregard to the misery and injustices already inflicted. But no-one in this story, from Vennells downwards, started out by actively deciding to persecute innocent subpostmasters or manufacture a profit by taking their money. As many of Cyclefree’s posts exemplify, most scandals arise from systemic human failure, rather than from the malign scheming of a single evil individual.
I have no background information to offer on why Vennells was so preferred by government after she left the PO. Perhaps the government was still grateful for her having got rid of the counters business’s perpetual losses? Perhaps she belongs to some special club along with Michelle Mone? We can only guess. That she got to then work at senior level in the Cabinet Office suggests to me that someone or someones, in politics and or officialdom, probably knew her personally.
If I were writing for Netflix rather than ITV, I would imagine a room full of senior long serving post office managers and some of the country’s top lawyers, telling Vennells that if they bring their deep pockets and full armoury to bear, there’s a better than evens chance that they can see off Bates’s campaign. Meanwhile Vennells had already brought a stop to the ongoing prosecutions and was willing to buy off through compensation the handful of people who had complained at that time. And was heavily compromised by the - now demonstrably false - statements she had given to parliament, that she may have persuaded herself to believe (against the evidence) at the time.
So her choice was to come clean and face certain ordure, or go along with the advice of her lawyers and senior team and play the odds that she could keep the scandal from the headlines.
Of course, she made the wrong choice - both morally and, as things have turned out, practically.
I fancy myself as someone who is capable of standing out against the crowd when something is demonstrably wrong. But they’re far more of us fancying ourselves in that role, than who actually get to demonstrate it, when the moment arrives.
I read on the previous thread that some sort of huge SNPbadness was about to break.
Well?
You are in Scotland. Nip down to the newsagent and tell us if they did "hold the front page" or if some PBer fell for a social media hoax and a photoshopped newspaper.
Buy a newspaper? Along with most of the population, I’m done with that caveman jive daddy oh.
Never underestimate the capacity of the average Yoon to whip themselves into a conspiracy fuelled frenzy.
I am getting visions of a TV crew finding 'the average Scot' - Perhaps called Glen and hailing from Dunfermline, and handing him a big cheque for £10,000 courtesy of independence.
Shockingly reductive to limit it to Scots. Just imagine the size of the cheques handed out to each English person once they no longer need to subsidise 'shithole' Scotland!
English person "Citizen of rump Britain", surely? Even "person in England" would be better.
Citizens of the Former UK will be known as FUKers.
Don't be harsh on yourself. It's easy to understand why people would find Post Offices, ancient emails, unglamourous people in mundane posts and the like very boring. This explains to a large extent why this scandal was the slowest of slow burners. Do look at the show though. I don't expect it to knock your socks off, but I do think it does convey the human suffering well, even if it necessarily has to gloss over the finer details.
I look forward to reading your review. Much as I enjoy taking the piss out of you from time to time, I do appreciate your talents as a critic.
I noted yesterday that, before he took the role, Toby Jones thought the whole thing as boring as did Leon.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Unless we are missing something in the letters we've seen he is just guilty of not pressing things further and accepting the first answer - hardly surprising when he probably had a million other things to got on with.
Don't be harsh on yourself. It's easy to understand why people would find Post Offices, ancient emails, unglamourous people in mundane posts and the like very boring. This explains to a large extent why this scandal was the slowest of slow burners. Do look at the show though. I don't expect it to knock your socks off, but I do think it does convey the human suffering well, even if it necessarily has to gloss over the finer details.
I look forward to reading your review. Much as I enjoy taking the piss out of you from time to time, I do appreciate your talents as a critic.
I noted yesterday that, before he took the role, Toby Jones thought the whole thing as boring as did Leon.
Yes, I know about not getting the credit in life for taking the tough decision. Are you a parent too.
It seems to me that Vennells and associates missed their opportunity when Second Sight began to report its adverse findings about the Horizon system. They could and should have fronted up then, admitted their mistake and prevented further miscarriages of justice as a result. Instead they tried to brazen it out. Yes, I suppose it was a 'logical' response in the sense that there was a rationale behind it, but it was a poor one, as well as being immoral.
After that, it seems they believed they had little option but to keep on trying to brazen it out, hoping that if they upped the stakes high enough, the other side would fold. As a former professional gambler I can only shake my head at that. You never bet the house on anything.
Vennells was awarded the CBE in 2019, and given positions that year on the Board of the Imperial College Health Trust and in the Cabinet Office. One can only imagine that her backers thought the 'brazen-in-out' strategy was working. As the inadequacies of Horizon were widely acknowledged by then and the truth was slowly and painfully becoming apparent, you have to wonder about the people who approved these honours. Lazy? Stupid? Brass-necked? Incompetent? Shameless? You decide.
Anyway, much as I have enjoyed your duet with MsC, I am glad that a much larger chorus can now be heard singing about this subject. It deserves all the attention it is getting.
One piece of mitigation that, around that time, the prosecution of subpostmasters for shortfalls suddenly stopped. Totally.
We must be realistic. There’s a lot of incompetence on display here, both from the PO and Fujitsu. And, when the **** hit the fan, rather too much priority given to “how can we get out of this alive?”, with apparent disregard to the misery and injustices already inflicted. But no-one in this story, from Vennells downwards, stared out by actively deciding to persecute innocent subpostmasters or manufacture a profit by taking their money. As most of Cyclefree’s posts exemplify, scandals arise from systemic human failure, more often than the malign scheming of a single individual.
I have no background information to offer on why Vennells was so preferred by government after she left the PO. Perhaps the government was still grateful for her having got rid of the counters business’s perpetual losses? Perhaps she belongs to some special club along with Michelle Mone? We can only guess.
If I were writing for Netflix rather than ITV, I would imagine a room full of senior long serving post office managers and some of the country’s top lawyers, telling Vennells that if they bring their deep pockets and full armoury to bear, there’s a better than evens chance that they can see off Bates’s campaign. Meanwhile Vennells had already brought a stop to the ongoing prosecutions and was willing to buy off through compensation the handful of people who had complained at that time.
So her choice was to come clean and face certain ordure, or go along with the advice of her lawyers and senior team and play the odds that she could keep the scandal from the headlines.
Of course, she made the wrong choice - both morally and, as things have turned out, practically.
I fancy myself as someone who is capable of standing out against the crowd when something is demonstrably wrong. But they’re far more of us fancying ourselves in that role, than who actually get to demonstrate it, when the moment arrives.
Having been somebody who really did stand out against the crowd to blow the whistle on a safeguarding breach (a very serious one) by a very powerful individual, it certainly isn't fun and I now have a better understanding why none of my colleagues were willing to do it.
The ones who attempted to exploit it for their own advancement are still scumbags, mind. That said, in classic karma's a bitch territory, the knowledge of what happened is now widespread enough that they can't find work elsewhere anyway.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet the prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
One of the absurdities of the post office prosecutions were that people were sent to jail for minor fraud and theft. There is a real thirst for vengeance amongst the English which we are seeing again with the desire for 'jail time' for those in the Post Office that initiated the prosecutions. Other than keeping the most dangerous offenders away from the rest of society jail is an enormous waste of money, punishment and rehabilitation is better done outside of custody. If the rest of Europe can accept this why can't the English?
Yes, although if someone actually did steal £36,000 in cash from their employer, that is pretty serious stuff.
One thought that occurred while out with my pooch is to wonder if Horizon make other errors, in the Sub-posties favour?
We know that mysterious surpluses turned up centrally and were booked as profit.
If mysterious erroneous credits did occur at SPO level, what happened? Did the PO claim them, thereby acknowledging that Horizon did make errors? Or were all the errors only in one direction?
All errors that resulted in prosecutions were in one direction.
Indeed. And who was the DPP during the scandal?
Not relevant. PO did its own prosecutions in E&W, remember.
The DPP has the power of taking over private prosecutions. So they can shut them down*. The idea was to prevent vexatious litigants harassing people - there were cases that were stalking. One chap privately prosecuted someone a ridiculous number of times.
Was added under Blair, IIRC.
Would be interesting to see if anyone being prosecuted by the Post Office made an appeal for this to happen? Does the prosecutorial power of the Pist Office come under this?
*IIRC, they have a duty to first review the evidence. And a duty to continue the prosecution if there is a case to prosecute. This was added to the original law at the insistence of those who thought the power to arbitrarily shut down private prosecutions could be abused for corrupt purposes.
I read on the previous thread that some sort of huge SNPbadness was about to break.
Well?
You are in Scotland. Nip down to the newsagent and tell us if they did "hold the front page" or if some PBer fell for a social media hoax and a photoshopped newspaper.
Buy a newspaper? Along with most of the population, I’m done with that caveman jive daddy oh.
Never underestimate the capacity of the average Yoon to whip themselves into a conspiracy fuelled frenzy.
I am getting visions of a TV crew finding 'the average Scot' - Perhaps called Glen and hailing from Dunfermline, and handing him a big cheque for £10,000 courtesy of independence.
Shockingly reductive to limit it to Scots. Just imagine the size of the cheques handed out to each English person once they no longer need to subsidise 'shithole' Scotland!
English person "Citizen of rump Britain", surely? Even "person in England" would be better.
Citizens of the Former UK will be known as FUKers.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
You ought to tell them that Barbie is 65 this year (apparently). So they can go off and buy dolls and stick pins into them and leave you alone.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
One of the absurdities of the post office prosecutions were that people were sent to jail for minor fraud and theft. There is a real thirst for vengeance amongst the English which we are seeing again with the desire for 'jail time' for those in the Post Office that initiated the prosecutions. Other than keeping the most dangerous offenders away from the rest of society jail is an enormous waste of money, punishment and rehabilitation is better done outside of custody. If the rest of Europe can accept this why can't the English?
Yes, although if someone actually did steal £36,000 in cash from their employer, that is pretty serious stuff.
One thought that occurred while out with my pooch is to wonder if Horizon make other errors, in the Sub-posties favour?
We know that mysterious surpluses turned up centrally and were booked as profit.
If mysterious erroneous credits did occur at SPO level, what happened? Did the PO claim them, thereby acknowledging that Horizon did make errors? Or were all the errors only in one direction?
All errors that resulted in prosecutions were in one direction.
Indeed. And who was the DPP during the scandal?
Not relevant. PO did its own prosecutions in E&W, remember.
The DPP has the power of taking over private prosecutions. So they can shut them down*. The idea was to prevent vexatious litigants harassing people - there were cases that were stalking. One chap privately prosecuted someone a ridiculous number of times.
Was added under Blair, IIRC.
Would be interesting to see if anyone being prosecuted by the Post Office made an appeal for this to happen? Does the prosecutorial power of the Pist Office come under this?
*IIRC, they have a duty to first review the evidence. And a duty to continue the prosecution if there is a case to prosecute. This was added to the original law at the insistence of those who thought the power to arbitrarily shut down private prosecutions could be abused for corrupt purposes.
Mm.
I see the CPS isn't automatically told of PPs. So it's up to the defendant and defendant's solicitor.
And the criterion is evidential sufficiency. Yet, as Cyclyefree pointed out, the presumption is that the Computer is Always Right. So ...?
Don't be harsh on yourself. It's easy to understand why people would find Post Offices, ancient emails, unglamourous people in mundane posts and the like very boring. This explains to a large extent why this scandal was the slowest of slow burners. Do look at the show though. I don't expect it to knock your socks off, but I do think it does convey the human suffering well, even if it necessarily has to gloss over the finer details.
I look forward to reading your review. Much as I enjoy taking the piss out of you from time to time, I do appreciate your talents as a critic.
I noted yesterday that, before he took the role, Toby Jones thought the whole thing as boring as did Leon.
Another aspect, less commented on, is how can it be right that any shortfall in the postmaster's till must be, as a matter of their contract*, made up from their own money.
Just when Lib Dems thought it was safe to forget The Coalition ...
Who would have thought that a 20-month stint as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs could come back to destroy your career a decade later?
Who would have thought that an agreed referendum on the AV voting system would have led to Nick Clegg being accused by Tory campaigners of wanting babies to die in NHS hospitals?
Never underestimate how low the Tories will sink, when they’re in a corner. It’s why Rawnsley is probably right in today predicting that the coming GE campaign will be truly grim.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet the prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Personally, Stocky, I think the biggest issue of all concerns the relationship between the Government and the businesses it owns. It cannot simply appoint a few execs and say 'Off you go, and let us know how you get on'.
I think Ms C would drink to that, but she can speak for herself.
One of the absurdities of the post office prosecutions were that people were sent to jail for minor fraud and theft. There is a real thirst for vengeance amongst the English which we are seeing again with the desire for 'jail time' for those in the Post Office that initiated the prosecutions. Other than keeping the most dangerous offenders away from the rest of society jail is an enormous waste of money, punishment and rehabilitation is better done outside of custody. If the rest of Europe can accept this why can't the English?
Yes, although if someone actually did steal £36,000 in cash from their employer, that is pretty serious stuff.
One thought that occurred while out with my pooch is to wonder if Horizon make other errors, in the Sub-posties favour?
We know that mysterious surpluses turned up centrally and were booked as profit.
If mysterious erroneous credits did occur at SPO level, what happened? Did the PO claim them, thereby acknowledging that Horizon did make errors? Or were all the errors only in one direction?
All errors that resulted in prosecutions were in one direction.
Indeed. And who was the DPP during the scandal?
Not relevant. PO did its own prosecutions in E&W, remember.
The DPP has the power of taking over private prosecutions. So they can shut them down*. The idea was to prevent vexatious litigants harassing people - there were cases that were stalking. One chap privately prosecuted someone a ridiculous number of times.
Was added under Blair, IIRC.
Would be interesting to see if anyone being prosecuted by the Post Office made an appeal for this to happen? Does the prosecutorial power of the Pist Office come under this?
*IIRC, they have a duty to first review the evidence. And a duty to continue the prosecution if there is a case to prosecute. This was added to the original law at the insistence of those who thought the power to arbitrarily shut down private prosecutions could be abused for corrupt purposes.
Mm.
I see the CPS isn't automatically told of PPs. So it's up to the defendant and defendant's solicitor.
And the criterion is evidential sufficiency. Yet, as Cyclyefree pointed out, the presumption is that the Computer is Always Right. So ...?
Yup. I would bet, in all the prosecutions, one lawyer (at least) must have tried such an appeal. At the end when the evidence of the Horizon system’s shittiness was becoming apparent.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
He seems to be saying that he's so outraged that Fox has been branded a racist that he will consider "lending him his support".
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
One of the absurdities of the post office prosecutions were that people were sent to jail for minor fraud and theft. There is a real thirst for vengeance amongst the English which we are seeing again with the desire for 'jail time' for those in the Post Office that initiated the prosecutions. Other than keeping the most dangerous offenders away from the rest of society jail is an enormous waste of money, punishment and rehabilitation is better done outside of custody. If the rest of Europe can accept this why can't the English?
Yes, although if someone actually did steal £36,000 in cash from their employer, that is pretty serious stuff.
One thought that occurred while out with my pooch is to wonder if Horizon make other errors, in the Sub-posties favour?
We know that mysterious surpluses turned up centrally and were booked as profit.
If mysterious erroneous credits did occur at SPO level, what happened? Did the PO claim them, thereby acknowledging that Horizon did make errors? Or were all the errors only in one direction?
All errors that resulted in prosecutions were in one direction.
Well yes, but that was not my question.
Did Horizon errors occur creating surpluses? If so the PO knew the system was faulty.
@OldKingCole makes a good point about the crown and company Sub Post Office's too.
Yes, I bleive it did, Foxy, but the SPMs didn't get to keep the 'overs', because in real terms they didn't actually exist. They were just book entries (wrong ones, of course.)
As far as I am aware, the PO has never returned any of the money it trousered from the innocent SPMs. I think this is the starting point for the Met's fraud inquiries.
Actually, they did, if they just kept the cash aside and waited for the correction that never came. But mostly they honestly phoned up to report the apparent discrepancy and I expect the PO devoted rather more resources to proving those errors false than they did the shortfalls.
One of the absurdities of the post office prosecutions were that people were sent to jail for minor fraud and theft. There is a real thirst for vengeance amongst the English which we are seeing again with the desire for 'jail time' for those in the Post Office that initiated the prosecutions. Other than keeping the most dangerous offenders away from the rest of society jail is an enormous waste of money, punishment and rehabilitation is better done outside of custody. If the rest of Europe can accept this why can't the English?
Yes, although if someone actually did steal £36,000 in cash from their employer, that is pretty serious stuff.
One thought that occurred while out with my pooch is to wonder if Horizon make other errors, in the Sub-posties favour?
We know that mysterious surpluses turned up centrally and were booked as profit.
If mysterious erroneous credits did occur at SPO level, what happened? Did the PO claim them, thereby acknowledging that Horizon did make errors? Or were all the errors only in one direction?
All errors that resulted in prosecutions were in one direction.
That occurred to me, too. There are also three types of Post Offices. Crown Offices, owned and run by the Post Office itself, sub Post Offices run by companies, (eg WHSmith) and the Alan Bates etc type. I’ve asked before and few seem to know; did they all use the same system?
Yes, and there are some instances of counter clerks in Crown Offices being sacked because the cash they had at the end of the day didn’t balance with what the system said they should have.
But these are rarer than the SPM cases, and my guess - digging myself deeper into my power outage/connectivity hypothesis - is because the crown officers were purpose designed commercial premises with more reliable power supply and connectivity, compared to some amateur running a PO from his or her front room in Llandudno.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
It was shit and they delivered it.
You may be right, Malmes, but in practice can you see this happening?
I'm thinking of the size and power of the company, which I understand has been a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
The major Birmingham University global survey on attitude to religion throws up some interesting stuff.
Of the countries surveyed (UK, USA, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Spain), Germany had the fewest identifying as religious or spiritual, and also the fewest saying that their "religious, spiritual or non-religious position" is "important to who you are and how you view the world". The latter score being highest in the US and Argentina, but even in the US, only 59%.
In the UK, Canada, Australia and (interestingly) Spain, the breakdown of responses to this question were pretty similar, with "important" percentages of 32-36% and "not important" of 42-46%.
For the converse question, how important is "science" to the same, Spain comes out highest at 71%. Who knew the Spanish were so scientific? Equally surprising, the UK came in second lowest (after the Germans) at 52%, behind even the US where 24% claim to be creationists (12% in UK, 7% in Germany, 6% Spain).
The responses to the latter question correlate strongly with level of education.
Asked whether religion has more negative consequences for society than positive, in all countries except the US, more people said negative, with negative achieving a majority (50%) in the UK, Germany & Canada (51%), Spain (54%) and Australia (56%). Argentina was lower at 37% but with "positive" coming in lower still at 31%.
For the same question about science, in all countries there are significant majorities for seeing science as positve with again Spain leading the way at 74% (negative 10%), and again the US (53%, negative 26%) and Argentina (46%, negative 20%) at the other end. The proportions agreeing are higher for those identifying as non-religious/spiritual, but the pluralities remain among the religious respondents. Again, a positive view of science correlates strongly with level of education.
The responses to how reliable people find a range of scientific and spiritual 'experts' broadly reflects the above, with medical practitioners leading the way in all countries as being seen as most reliable. An interesting counter-finding is that Argentinians, despite being more religious on most survey quesions, nevertheless had a lower (23%) proportion who see religious leaders as reliable sources of information.
Generally, younger people found experts more reliable across all countries and types of expert (both scientific and religious) than older people.
A rather restricted survey given it only surveyed a few increasingly secular western nations and a comfortable majority of the global population by contrast remains religious.
Of course science has produced the nuclear bomb which it only takes a meltdown from the likes of Putin or Trump to destroy us all, plus bombs and guns which kill regularly and who knows what AI could lead to if it replaces lots of jobs and we can't control it (as well as the great positives of improved technology and medicine science has produced).
Much of our greatest architecture and art comes from religion, many of our schools and hospitals have religious origins too and foodbanks and homeless shelters etc are also often provided by religious bodies
Surely if you're religious the only thing that matters is whether it's true?
You surely don't believe the existence of God is determined by the results of YouGov surveys, in the same way as the future existence of the Tory party?
Oddly, no. Lots of religious people don't think or act that way. Indeed often therefore they don't describe their world view as religious. Terms like spirituality, mindfulness, cosmic consciousness are used instead, detailed doctrines kept out of sight and to a minimum. Religious people can be relativists or hold a coherence rather than correspondence view of the nature of truth. Religious people can believe in the apophatic tradition - that no language is capable of expressing religious truth, so silence is best.
When it comes to life's ultimate questions we are as a matter of fact all agnostics, including the dogmatic religious person and the dogmatic atheist - they are not knowable items.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
The HRT pensioner elite who receive DB pensions plus the state pension and triple lock increases still get to keep 60% of the TL increases.
I think we are in the round taxed too highly but there must be a case for a higher higher rate of tax for pensioners surely?
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
He seems to be saying that he's so outraged that Fox has been branded a racist that he will consider "lending him his support".
Another aspect, less commented on, is how can it be right that any shortfall in the postmaster's till must be, as a matter of their contract*, made up from their own money.
*as I understand it
You are right, and of course such a contract condition is onerous to the extent it is unenforceable. One of the heroes of the story is the lawyer who spotted this, contacted Bates, and offered his services.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
BJO, what are your thoughts on the "nonentity" that as DPP oversaw the wilful.prosecution of hundreds of innocent sub-Postmaters?
Just when you all thought that Tory stock was in terminal decline we discover a historic miscarriage of justice on Starmer's watch and Ed Davey is implicated!
I've not watched the Post Office programme though it seems to have been well made and not for the first time Toby Jones appears to be getting deserved plaudits.
I'm troubled - what are we trying to achieve? Justice? Vengeance? Retribution? Yes, we must do what we can to compensate and clear the names of those falsely convicted by the scandal (I fully take on @Big_G_NorthWales's point this morning compensating for the mental anguish isn't going to be easy).
As for those involved in covering up or failing to act, I don't know. The obvious aspect is to ensure such a travesty cannot happen again, ensuring there are adequate checks and balances, that scrutiny is rigorous and robust. There's plenty of blame to go round but anyone and everyone is entitled to have their say and as we've seen with Covid, what does a public enquiry achieve? Yes, the truth may come out (or it may not) but whose truth?
Sometimes uncovering what went wrong, why it went wrong and putting in mitigation to ensure it can't happen again is all you can do.
I've not watched the Post Office programme though it seems to have been well made and not for the first time Toby Jones appears to be getting deserved plaudits.
I'm troubled - what are we trying to achieve? Justice? Vengeance? Retribution? Yes, we must do what we can to compensate and clear the names of those falsely convicted by the scandal (I fully take on @Big_G_NorthWales's point this morning compensating for the mental anguish isn't going to be easy).
As for those involved in covering up or failing to act, I don't know. The obvious aspect is to ensure such a travesty cannot happen again, ensuring there are adequate checks and balances, that scrutiny is rigorous and robust. There's plenty of blame to go round but anyone and everyone is entitled to have their say and as we've seen with Covid, what does a public enquiry achieve? Yes, the truth may come out (or it may not) but whose truth?
Sometimes uncovering what went wrong, why it went wrong and putting in mitigation to ensure it can't happen again is all you can do.
A current political scalp/scapegoat would be nice though. Davey or Starmer? Take your pick.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
BJO, what are your thoughts on the "nonentity" that as DPP oversaw the wilful.prosecution of hundreds of innocent sub-Postmaters?
Just when you all thought that Tory stock was in terminal decline we discover a historic miscarriage of justice on Starmer's watch and Ed Davey is implicated!
Your problem there is that the DPP had nothing to do with Post Office Prosecution because they had their own authority to Prosecute people.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
It was shit and they delivered it.
You may be right, Malmes, but in practice can you see this happening?
I'm thinking of the size and power of the company, which I understand has been a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
From what I understand the design of this software was unspeakably awful - something a GCSE student might come up with for his first project but then quickly reject. The amazing thing was how it was even persisted with in its original state, let alone signed off.
'Got to say I think we already know everything that's going to come out of this.'
Not sure about that. The Inquiry has just taken possession of 80 tapes of covertly recorded conversations. God knows what's on them, but I suspect they are not going to be helpful to the PO.
As for your point three, I guess the venue you have in mind would be a very high building, with many windows?
The other way of looking at it is, we already know enough to be pretty sure the Post Office (and several persons therein, although individual blame is yet to be assigned) is guilty of fraud, false accounting, extortion, perverting the course of justice and perjury.
Unless we find that they actually broke into Post Offices to nick cash in the dead of night, or tried to poison Mr Bates and his associates, or threatened to beat up postmasters refusing to pay the funds they didn't owe, the likely criminal charge is not going to change much now. we may find out we've done more of these things of course but that won't change the conclusion or, should charges ever be brought, the punishment.
Some those are easier to prove beyond reasonable doubt than are others. We know enough to be pretty sure isn't quite the same thing as we can prove in court to a criminal standard. More evidence is likely to make that task easier, especially as our justice system is such a mess.
Incidentally, it's pretty astounding that the PO is still allowed a role in the appeals.
True.
But do understand that many of the subpostmasters were actually guilty of false accounting, and many pleaded guilty to such. Because they used the system to confirm that they were holding larger amounts of cash in their branch than they actually had. They got found out when the Post Office sent a Cashco van to collect the surplus cash because they didn’t need to hold it for their pattern of business. And of course that cash wasn’t there.
They did so under stressful and distressing circumstances that we can all understand, and they fully deserve to be exonerated. The reason that Alan Bates emerged as their campaign leader is because he was, from the start, almost unique in having the knowledge and independence of mind and strength of character to refuse to sign off his purported shortfalls, who didn’t incriminate himself by hoping the absurd predicament that the PO has placed him in would simply go away, and who understood that he was never going to be prosecuted for theft without any evidence that he had stolen the money.
I've not watched the Post Office programme though it seems to have been well made and not for the first time Toby Jones appears to be getting deserved plaudits.
I'm troubled - what are we trying to achieve? Justice? Vengeance? Retribution? Yes, we must do what we can to compensate and clear the names of those falsely convicted by the scandal (I fully take on @Big_G_NorthWales's point this morning compensating for the mental anguish isn't going to be easy).
As for those involved in covering up or failing to act, I don't know. The obvious aspect is to ensure such a travesty cannot happen again, ensuring there are adequate checks and balances, that scrutiny is rigorous and robust. There's plenty of blame to go round but anyone and everyone is entitled to have their say and as we've seen with Covid, what does a public enquiry achieve? Yes, the truth may come out (or it may not) but whose truth?
Sometimes uncovering what went wrong, why it went wrong and putting in mitigation to ensure it can't happen again is all you can do.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
It's affordable until some point in the future when it won't be.
Being blunt I actually think the triple lock is still a great idea because a lot of OAPs don't claim what they are entitled to because they don't know it exists. And I would much rather avoid people having to claim money when better means exist.
Unless we are missing something in the letters we've seen he is just guilty of not pressing things further and accepting the first answer - hardly surprising when he probably had a million other things to got on with.
No, I think this might be career ending for him
“In 2017 Alan Bates led a group litigation against the Post Office
It responded by hiring lawyers from Herbert Smith Freehills to fight its corner
Ed Davey agreed to be taken on by Herbert Smith Freehills as a consultant on political issues & policy analysis, paid £833 per hour”
I've not watched the Post Office programme though it seems to have been well made and not for the first time Toby Jones appears to be getting deserved plaudits.
I'm troubled - what are we trying to achieve? Justice? Vengeance? Retribution? Yes, we must do what we can to compensate and clear the names of those falsely convicted by the scandal (I fully take on @Big_G_NorthWales's point this morning compensating for the mental anguish isn't going to be easy).
As for those involved in covering up or failing to act, I don't know. The obvious aspect is to ensure such a travesty cannot happen again, ensuring there are adequate checks and balances, that scrutiny is rigorous and robust. There's plenty of blame to go round but anyone and everyone is entitled to have their say and as we've seen with Covid, what does a public enquiry achieve? Yes, the truth may come out (or it may not) but whose truth?
Sometimes uncovering what went wrong, why it went wrong and putting in mitigation to ensure it can't happen again is all you can do.
A current political scalp/scapegoat would be nice though. Davey or Starmer? Take your pick.
A far better scalp would be that of the person at the headof government at the time..... a certain Mr Cameron.
The major Birmingham University global survey on attitude to religion throws up some interesting stuff.
Of the countries surveyed (UK, USA, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Spain), Germany had the fewest identifying as religious or spiritual, and also the fewest saying that their "religious, spiritual or non-religious position" is "important to who you are and how you view the world". The latter score being highest in the US and Argentina, but even in the US, only 59%.
In the UK, Canada, Australia and (interestingly) Spain, the breakdown of responses to this question were pretty similar, with "important" percentages of 32-36% and "not important" of 42-46%.
For the converse question, how important is "science" to the same, Spain comes out highest at 71%. Who knew the Spanish were so scientific? Equally surprising, the UK came in second lowest (after the Germans) at 52%, behind even the US where 24% claim to be creationists (12% in UK, 7% in Germany, 6% Spain).
The responses to the latter question correlate strongly with level of education.
Asked whether religion has more negative consequences for society than positive, in all countries except the US, more people said negative, with negative achieving a majority (50%) in the UK, Germany & Canada (51%), Spain (54%) and Australia (56%). Argentina was lower at 37% but with "positive" coming in lower still at 31%.
For the same question about science, in all countries there are significant majorities for seeing science as positve with again Spain leading the way at 74% (negative 10%), and again the US (53%, negative 26%) and Argentina (46%, negative 20%) at the other end. The proportions agreeing are higher for those identifying as non-religious/spiritual, but the pluralities remain among the religious respondents. Again, a positive view of science correlates strongly with level of education.
The responses to how reliable people find a range of scientific and spiritual 'experts' broadly reflects the above, with medical practitioners leading the way in all countries as being seen as most reliable. An interesting counter-finding is that Argentinians, despite being more religious on most survey quesions, nevertheless had a lower (23%) proportion who see religious leaders as reliable sources of information.
Generally, younger people found experts more reliable across all countries and types of expert (both scientific and religious) than older people.
A rather restricted survey given it only surveyed a few increasingly secular western nations and a comfortable majority of the global population by contrast remains religious.
Of course science has produced the nuclear bomb which it only takes a meltdown from the likes of Putin or Trump to destroy us all, plus bombs and guns which kill regularly and who knows what AI could lead to if it replaces lots of jobs and we can't control it (as well as the great positives of improved technology and medicine science has produced).
Much of our greatest architecture and art comes from religion, many of our schools and hospitals have religious origins too and foodbanks and homeless shelters etc are also often provided by religious bodies
Surely if you're religious the only thing that matters is whether it's true?
You surely don't believe the existence of God is determined by the results of YouGov surveys, in the same way as the future existence of the Tory party?
Well yes, in the sense if God exists even if you are the only believer who follows the Bible fervently left on earth you are also the only one left certain to go to heaven
That sounds like fun. Eternity, on your own.
I would rather spend eternity on my own than with avowed secular atheists
Just think though - an eternity of nudging them sany saying "I was right, though, wasn't I?"
St Peter’s going to be very frustrated; every time he challenges our HY, he’s going to get an answer to a question he never asked.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
BJO, what are your thoughts on the "nonentity" that as DPP oversaw the wilful.prosecution of hundreds of innocent sub-Postmaters?
Just when you all thought that Tory stock was in terminal decline we discover a historic miscarriage of justice on Starmer's watch and Ed Davey is implicated!
Ed Davey more than SKS in this instance,
Although I am sure the Tory press will have many GE headlines about SKS's mistakes as DPP cant see this one making an impact
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
It was shit and they delivered it.
You may be right, Malmes, but in practice can you see this happening?
I'm thinking of the size and power of the company, which I understand has been a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
Not only a significant donor to the Conservatives, but also the UK CEO was awarded a CBE and a public health appointment by this government.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
With Fox there's a fair amount of inanity in the mix. If you strip out the 'fruity' things he says for attention that's mainly what's left - a lot of inanity.
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
Another aspect, less commented on, is how can it be right that any shortfall in the postmaster's till must be, as a matter of their contract*, made up from their own money.
*as I understand it
You are right, and of course such a contract condition is onerous to the extent it is unenforceable. One of the heroes of the story is the lawyer who spotted this, contacted Bates, and offered his services.
AIUI the postmasters were told by the PO that if they admitted to false accounting (due to having used their own money to plug "shortfalls") they would likely avoid jail time because the theft charge would be dropped.
Yet the contract said they HAD to make up any shortfall.
My first job was in a bank where I was on a till for a few years, which was balanced at the end of each day. I recall police were brought in to investigate a shortfall on a couple of occasions (not on my till) and all staff were interviewed.
If a staff member had covered up a shortfall with their own cash this itself would lead to disciplinary action and probably dismissal.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
It was shit and they delivered it.
You may be right, Malmes, but in practice can you see this happening?
I'm thinking of the size and power of the company, which I understand has been a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
And one of whose senior staff is married to a cabinet minister...
Another aspect, less commented on, is how can it be right that any shortfall in the postmaster's till must be, as a matter of their contract*, made up from their own money.
*as I understand it
Which is essentially how Bates and others eventually won in court.
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
BJO, what are your thoughts on the "nonentity" that as DPP oversaw the wilful.prosecution of hundreds of innocent sub-Postmaters?
Just when you all thought that Tory stock was in terminal decline we discover a historic miscarriage of justice on Starmer's watch and Ed Davey is implicated!
Do keep up. The CPS and DPP weren’t involved, as the PO has a very longstanding right to go it alone.
I read on the previous thread that some sort of huge SNPbadness was about to break.
Well?
You are in Scotland. Nip down to the newsagent and tell us if they did "hold the front page" or if some PBer fell for a social media hoax and a photoshopped newspaper.
Buy a newspaper? Along with most of the population, I’m done with that caveman jive daddy oh.
Never underestimate the capacity of the average Yoon to whip themselves into a conspiracy fuelled frenzy.
I am getting visions of a TV crew finding 'the average Scot' - Perhaps called Glen and hailing from Dunfermline, and handing him a big cheque for £10,000 courtesy of independence.
Shockingly reductive to limit it to Scots. Just imagine the size of the cheques handed out to each English person once they no longer need to subsidise 'shithole' Scotland!
English person "Citizen of rump Britain", surely? Even "person in England" would be better.
Citizens of the Former UK will be known as FUKers.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
With Fox there's a fair amount of inanity in the mix. If you strip out the 'fruity' things he says for attention that's mainly what's left - a lot of inanity.
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
WTF are you doing there?
I went to Playa la Americas a few times as a young thruster 20-30 years ago - rivalled Magaluf at the time.
Hope it's changed - Lineker's Bar still there? Hope you are enjoying your Full English.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
I don't think that people should be categorised as a 'racist', 'misogynist' or whatever and then they cancelled, their life ruined etc based on one thing that they said at a particular point in time, particularly in the heat of the moment on the internet. This is a particularly irritating and annoying feature of the current puritanical age and Fox is an antidote to that, as Johnson was. He raises some serious points that no one else will touch, like whether the Equalities Act is a good idea - in the same way as Bridgen raises valid issues about vaccinations. Bridgen incedentally has parted ways with Laurence Fox and Reclaim.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
I don't think that people should be categorised as a 'racist', 'misogynist' or whatever and then they cancelled, their life ruined etc based on one thing that they said at a particular point in time, particularly in the heat of the moment on the internet. This is a particularly irritating and annoying feature of the current puritanical age and Fox is an antidote to that, as Johnson was. He raises some serious points that no one else will touch, like whether the Equalities Act is a good idea - in the same way as Bridgen raises valid issues about vaccinations. Bridgen incedentally has parted ways with Laurence Fox and Reclaim.
Yes but TBF Bridgen's valid issues about vaccinations are outnumbered by the invalid.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
I don't think that people should be categorised as a 'racist', 'misogynist' or whatever and then they cancelled, their life ruined etc based on one thing that they said at a particular point in time, particularly in the heat of the moment on the internet. This is a particularly irritating and annoying feature of the current puritanical age and Fox is an antidote to that, as Johnson was. He raises some serious points that no one else will touch, like whether the Equalities Act is a good idea - in the same way as Bridgen raises valid issues about vaccinations. Bridgen incedentally has parted ways with Laurence Fox and Reclaim.
Yes but TBF Bridgen's valid issues about vaccinations are outnumbered by the invalid.
I've not actually followed what he has said but the questions about vaccinating children was one that was quite topical at my son's school, even if not part of any mainstream discourse.
Did Ed Davey and the Post Office employees believe:
1) that the money was missing and that theft was more plausible than the IT failure that they were assured by Fujitsu was foolproof
or
2) the postmasters were innocent but should be persecuted and prosecuted anyway
The first, surely?
I think we are in danger of another witchhunt here, instead of addressing - you know - little things like how the PO can mount a prosecution separate from the usual checks and balances, is the money actually missing and did someone at Fujitsu steal it, and how are we the taxpayers going to get our money back from Fujitsu to compensate for their supply of a faulty product?
Instead we want to get Vennells to give her gong back.
A witchhunt is certainly to be avoided, Stocky. And no, V's gong doesn't matter a toss (although the person who authorised it should be sacked.)
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
Yes of course. Goes without saying.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet they prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Fujitsu delivered software that was so deficient that it is legally liable. That’s my opinion, based on decades in IT.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
It was shit and they delivered it.
You may be right, Malmes, but in practice can you see this happening?
I'm thinking of the size and power of the company, which I understand has been a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
Government contractors are rarely held to account. To many friends in the system, in general. This goes across all parties of government in the U.K., and the permanent apparatus.
When Thatcher banned Anderson from government contracts there was palpable anger in the system of Government. Probably from the people who’d wanted to build relationships with them, and then get a job there.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
With Fox there's a fair amount of inanity in the mix. If you strip out the 'fruity' things he says for attention that's mainly what's left - a lot of inanity.
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
A few years back, I did a holiday in the islands in Thailand with the family. Small resort, nice and quiet.
I got into the habit of getting up for 7am, straight in the pool for some laps in the quiet. No one else about at that hour.
About half way through the stay, I got the evil eye from a lady who arrived at 7:30 and was visibly upset that I had left my towel on the sun lounger she wanted. Her towel had the German flag on it. I don’t think I’d ever seen that before.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
With Fox there's a fair amount of inanity in the mix. If you strip out the 'fruity' things he says for attention that's mainly what's left - a lot of inanity.
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
A few years back, I did a holiday in the islands in Thailand with the family. Small resort, nice and quiet.
I got into the habit of getting up for 7am, straight in the pool for some laps in the quiet. No one else about at that hour.
About half way through the stay, I got the evil eye from a lady who arrived at 7:30 and was visibly upset that I had left my towel on the sun lounger she wanted. Her towel had the German flag on it. I don’t think I’d ever seen that before.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
With Fox there's a fair amount of inanity in the mix. If you strip out the 'fruity' things he says for attention that's mainly what's left - a lot of inanity.
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
Germans of my acquaintance think it is only fair. My view is that it's generational trauma. When I lived in Germany, I learned that the parents make their kids get up early to claim the sunbeds, and when the kids grow up and have children of their own they make their children do it. And so you go down the years perpetuating this kind of behaviour. Their parents did it to them, they do it to their children.
Unless we are missing something in the letters we've seen he is just guilty of not pressing things further and accepting the first answer - hardly surprising when he probably had a million other things to got on with.
No, I think this might be career ending for him
“In 2017 Alan Bates led a group litigation against the Post Office
It responded by hiring lawyers from Herbert Smith Freehills to fight its corner
Ed Davey agreed to be taken on by Herbert Smith Freehills as a consultant on political issues & policy analysis, paid £833 per hour”
No, he wasn't involved in any work on the Post Office case. He was specifically advising on energy and climate change. Its in the register of MPs interests.
Doesn’t look good tho; does it?
It doesn't look good to the despicable Tories who are busy trying to smear everbody else they possibly can.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Are you contending that Fox isn’t a racist or that he should be listened to despite being a racist?
I don't think that people should be categorised as a 'racist', 'misogynist' or whatever and then they cancelled, their life ruined etc based on one thing that they said at a particular point in time, particularly in the heat of the moment on the internet. This is a particularly irritating and annoying feature of the current puritanical age and Fox is an antidote to that, as Johnson was. He raises some serious points that no one else will touch, like whether the Equalities Act is a good idea - in the same way as Bridgen raises valid issues about vaccinations. Bridgen incedentally has parted ways with Laurence Fox and Reclaim.
Fox was hardly 'cancelled' in the sense that can be destructive for someone who makes a mistake or, say a university professor who espouses a position that's entirely legitimate but prompts a vicious response from colleagues and students.
He was a middling actor whose career and fame was on the wane because his big role had ended, as had his marriage to someone more famous (personally sad, I'm sure but with a professional effect too). Who then hit upon the grift that you could get publicity and plaudits from certain people if you were deliberately obnoxious on TV.
It's an important distinction, because while there is a censoriousness that needs ditching around people who have honest opinions, there are also a lot of grifters who use 'anti-wokeness' as a cover to say things we'd have rightly said were awful 20 or 30 years ago, because they know there's an audience for people saying you have a licence to be foul and people objecting to that is their fault not yours.
Here, I think, is a useful test for thinking about "classification" in the US. Would you have voted for Washington state's Initiative 200?
'Initiative 200 was a Washington state initiative to the Legislature promoted by California affirmative-action opponent Ward Connerly, and filed by Scott Smith and Tim Eyman.[1] It sought to prohibit racial and gender preferences by state and local government. It was on the Washington ballot in November 1998 and passed with 58.22% of the vote. It added to Washington's law (but not its constitution) the following language:
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.'
(Unlike most US civil rights laws, it did not include religion.)
The Wikipedia article goes on to say: "Initiative 200 effectively curtailed any form of affirmative action in the state." Which is dubious, to say the least.
If you would have voted against it, which groups do you think deserve "preferential treatment", and how much?
(Reminder: Big city machines routinely grant preferential treatment to groups, based on race and ethnicity.)
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
The problem is that some of what Bridgen says IS batshit and Fox approaches this too - which gives reason for some to brand everything they say as batshit which is absurd in itself.
With Fox there's a fair amount of inanity in the mix. If you strip out the 'fruity' things he says for attention that's mainly what's left - a lot of inanity.
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
A few years back, I did a holiday in the islands in Thailand with the family. Small resort, nice and quiet.
I got into the habit of getting up for 7am, straight in the pool for some laps in the quiet. No one else about at that hour.
About half way through the stay, I got the evil eye from a lady who arrived at 7:30 and was visibly upset that I had left my towel on the sun lounger she wanted. Her towel had the German flag on it. I don’t think I’d ever seen that before.
"They don't like it..." etc.
I wasn’t even claim in the sun lounger for the day.
I was struck by the German flag. Never seen that before.
Sunak was poor on Kunnessberg on BBC this morning then on Sky Starmer was uninspiring
For the first time in my near 80 years I am politically homeless and am certain I am not alone
I will not join any political party again and frankly have no confidence we have any prospect of addressing our country's deep seated problems with the current politicians on offer
Have you considered Laurence Fox and the 'reclaim' party? I would in all seriousness vote for them because I think their arguments should form part of the mainstream political discourse and not ridiculed/cancelled as they are at present. The more people attack the 'far right' the more I am minded to vote for them as an alternative to the failing model of business as usual.
The ones who accepted Andrew Bridgen, the vaccine conspiracy theorist? Even if business as usual isn’t working, I’m pretty confident that believing a pack of lies about COVID vaccines being like the Holocaust is not the way forward.
My objection is that Laurence Fox is branded a 'racist' and Andrew Bridgen a 'conspiracy theorist' and their views are discarded by the 'right thinking' mainstream as being part of a mad fringe. But actually they are both raising important issues that we should be discussing not sidelining, if we want to avoid a Trump situation a few years down the line. So I will definetely consider lending them my support.
Bridgen is branded a conspiracy theorist because he believes there is a massive conspiracy to cover up side-effects of COVID-19 vaccines, and also that COVID-19 was created in a US research lab. What is the point of words if you can’t call Bridgen a conspiracy theorist? What important issues is he raising but repeatedly saying things that aren’t true?
So when Rishi Rich says that he is going to cut welfare payments, I'll stick my neck out and guess that this does not include the triple l9cked state pension.
The triple lock is a good thing. Our state pension is not generous. Where money can be saved is on higher rate tax relief on pension contributions which benefits the well-paid, such as politicians and columnists who call instead for an end to the triple lock.
But it locks in an inexorable rise in cost for an item in the accounts that is already both sizeable and inexorably growing due to the ageing population.
It would be more sensible to target funding at those poorer pensioners genuinely in need, rather than helicoptering it onto the entire cohort of the retired, when their disposable income is now - remarkably - already greater on average than those in work.
Pensions are already taxed as income. And none of the triple lock critics say it should be abolished but kept for the poor. Yes, if we project forward ad infinitum, pensions will become unaffordable but that day is far off.
missing the point that unearned income (including capital gains) is taxed less than income from employment.
Pensioners do not pay national insurance, and pension income is taxed as income, so it is the same.
THE IDIOTS ON HERE THINK PENSIONERS DON'T PAY TAX
The real idiots defend the completely unaffordable Triple Lock (of which i am now a beneficiary)
Comments
We must be realistic. There’s a lot of incompetence on display here, both from the PO and Fujitsu. And, when the **** hit the fan, rather too much priority given to “how can we get out of this alive?”, with apparent disregard to the misery and injustices already inflicted. But no-one in this story, from Vennells downwards, started out by actively deciding to persecute innocent subpostmasters or manufacture a profit by taking their money. As many of Cyclefree’s posts exemplify, most scandals arise from systemic human failure, rather than from the malign scheming of a single evil individual.
I have no background information to offer on why Vennells was so preferred by government after she left the PO. Perhaps the government was still grateful for her having got rid of the counters business’s perpetual losses? Perhaps she belongs to some special club along with Michelle Mone? We can only guess. That she got to then work at senior level in the Cabinet Office suggests to me that someone or someones, in politics and or officialdom, probably knew her personally.
If I were writing for Netflix rather than ITV, I would imagine a room full of senior long serving post office managers and some of the country’s top lawyers, telling Vennells that if they bring their deep pockets and full armoury to bear, there’s a better than evens chance that they can see off Bates’s campaign. Meanwhile Vennells had already brought a stop to the ongoing prosecutions and was willing to buy off through compensation the handful of people who had complained at that time. And was heavily compromised by the - now demonstrably false - statements she had given to parliament, that she may have persuaded herself to believe (against the evidence) at the time.
So her choice was to come clean and face certain ordure, or go along with the advice of her lawyers and senior team and play the odds that she could keep the scandal from the headlines.
Of course, she made the wrong choice - both morally and, as things have turned out, practically.
I fancy myself as someone who is capable of standing out against the crowd when something is demonstrably wrong. But they’re far more of us fancying ourselves in that role, than who actually get to demonstrate it, when the moment arrives.
As for the 'shortfalls' paid over by the SPMs, it is with the PO, not Fujitsu. It should be paid back immediately, with interest.
The ones who attempted to exploit it for their own advancement are still scumbags, mind. That said, in classic karma's a bitch territory, the knowledge of what happened is now widespread enough that they can't find work elsewhere anyway.
Then the PO (+ government pressure) goes after Fujitsu.
And the gov urgently fixes the biggest issue of all - that PO were able to mount an independent prosecution. Let it be remembered that there was no evidence of theft, yet the prosecutions happened and the juries bought it.
Was added under Blair, IIRC.
Would be interesting to see if anyone being prosecuted by the Post Office made an appeal for this to happen? Does the prosecutorial power of the Pist Office come under this?
*IIRC, they have a duty to first review the evidence. And a duty to continue the prosecution if there is a case to prosecute. This was added to the original law at the insistence of those who thought the power to arbitrarily shut down private prosecutions could be abused for corrupt purposes.
I see the CPS isn't automatically told of PPs. So it's up to the defendant and defendant's solicitor.
And the criterion is evidential sufficiency. Yet, as Cyclyefree pointed out, the presumption is that the Computer is Always Right. So ...?
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions
Will be interesting to see more about this ...
*as I understand it
Never underestimate how low the Tories will sink, when they’re in a corner. It’s why Rawnsley is probably right in today predicting that the coming GE campaign will be truly grim.
And no amount of “but they changed the spec, and the dog ate my integration tests” can change that.
It was shit and they delivered it.
I think Ms C would drink to that, but she can speak for herself.
"It couldn't happen here" ????!!!?
But these are rarer than the SPM cases, and my guess - digging myself deeper into my power outage/connectivity hypothesis - is because the crown officers were purpose designed commercial premises with more reliable power supply and connectivity, compared to some amateur running a PO from his or her front room in Llandudno.
I'm thinking of the size and power of the company, which I understand has been a significant donor to the Conservative Party.
When it comes to life's ultimate questions we are as a matter of fact all agnostics, including the dogmatic religious person and the dogmatic atheist - they are not knowable items.
I think we are in the round taxed too highly but there must be a case for a higher higher rate of tax for pensioners surely?
Just when you all thought that Tory stock was in terminal decline we discover a historic miscarriage of justice on Starmer's watch and Ed Davey is implicated!
I've not watched the Post Office programme though it seems to have been well made and not for the first time Toby Jones appears to be getting deserved plaudits.
I'm troubled - what are we trying to achieve? Justice? Vengeance? Retribution? Yes, we must do what we can to compensate and clear the names of those falsely convicted by the scandal (I fully take on @Big_G_NorthWales's point this morning compensating for the mental anguish isn't going to be easy).
As for those involved in covering up or failing to act, I don't know. The obvious aspect is to ensure such a travesty cannot happen again, ensuring there are adequate checks and balances, that scrutiny is rigorous and robust. There's plenty of blame to go round but anyone and everyone is entitled to have their say and as we've seen with Covid, what does a public enquiry achieve? Yes, the truth may come out (or it may not) but whose truth?
Sometimes uncovering what went wrong, why it went wrong and putting in mitigation to ensure it can't happen again is all you can do.
But do understand that many of the subpostmasters were actually guilty of false accounting, and many pleaded guilty to such. Because they used the system to confirm that they were holding larger amounts of cash in their branch than they actually had. They got found out when the Post Office sent a Cashco van to collect the surplus cash because they didn’t need to hold it for their pattern of business. And of course that cash wasn’t there.
They did so under stressful and distressing circumstances that we can all understand, and they fully deserve to be exonerated. The reason that Alan Bates emerged as their campaign leader is because he was, from the start, almost unique in having the knowledge and independence of mind and strength of character to refuse to sign off his purported shortfalls, who didn’t incriminate himself by hoping the absurd predicament that the PO has placed him in would simply go away, and who understood that he was never going to be prosecuted for theft without any evidence that he had stolen the money.
Being blunt I actually think the triple lock is still a great idea because a lot of OAPs don't claim what they are entitled to because they don't know it exists. And I would much rather avoid people having to claim money when better means exist.
NEW THREAD
Although I am sure the Tory press will have many GE headlines about SKS's mistakes as DPP cant see this one making an impact
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/06/labour-question-tories-cronyism-row-donors-public-health-jobs-nhs
(the Germans really do act early and bag the best pool loungers, I'm finding here in Tenerife)
Yet the contract said they HAD to make up any shortfall.
My first job was in a bank where I was on a till for a few years, which was balanced at the end of each day. I recall police were brought in to investigate a shortfall on a couple of occasions (not on my till) and all staff were interviewed.
If a staff member had covered up a shortfall with their own cash this itself would lead to disciplinary action and probably dismissal.
I went to Playa la Americas a few times as a young thruster 20-30 years ago - rivalled Magaluf at the time.
Hope it's changed - Lineker's Bar still there? Hope you are enjoying your Full English.
When Thatcher banned Anderson from government contracts there was palpable anger in the system of Government. Probably from the people who’d wanted to build relationships with them, and then get a job there.
I got into the habit of getting up for 7am, straight in the pool for some laps in the quiet. No one else about at that hour.
About half way through the stay, I got the evil eye from a lady who arrived at 7:30 and was visibly upset that I had left my towel on the sun lounger she wanted. Her towel had the German flag on it. I don’t think I’d ever seen that before.
But that is the usual Tory strategy.
He was a middling actor whose career and fame was on the wane because his big role had ended, as had his marriage to someone more famous (personally sad, I'm sure but with a professional effect too). Who then hit upon the grift that you could get publicity and plaudits from certain people if you were deliberately obnoxious on TV.
It's an important distinction, because while there is a censoriousness that needs ditching around people who have honest opinions, there are also a lot of grifters who use 'anti-wokeness' as a cover to say things we'd have rightly said were awful 20 or 30 years ago, because they know there's an audience for people saying you have a licence to be foul and people objecting to that is their fault not yours.
'Initiative 200 was a Washington state initiative to the Legislature promoted by California affirmative-action opponent Ward Connerly, and filed by Scott Smith and Tim Eyman.[1] It sought to prohibit racial and gender preferences by state and local government. It was on the Washington ballot in November 1998 and passed with 58.22% of the vote. It added to Washington's law (but not its constitution) the following language:
The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.'
(Unlike most US civil rights laws, it did not include religion.)
The Wikipedia article goes on to say: "Initiative 200 effectively curtailed any form of affirmative action in the state." Which is dubious, to say the least.
If you would have voted against it, which groups do you think deserve "preferential treatment", and how much?
(Reminder: Big city machines routinely grant preferential treatment to groups, based on race and ethnicity.)
I was struck by the German flag. Never seen that before.