Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
Whereas, your 2024 on PB has been shocking so far MexPet, you can’t put a foot right you admit?
Not your finest moment on PB, you pushing this Starmer head of CPS has questions to answer on the PO scandal - it comes across much like Big G pushing Starmer’s illegal beers and curry, after even the Daily Mail itself had long given up* - the difference being Big G actually had a bit of a point, but here Starmer had 0% responsibility in his public role for what Post Office doing privately. It really was the government overseers of PO and preventers of injustice in this country, the Alan Bates’s needed to turn to.
Do you have anything to add in your defence? Can you actually put your hands in the air and admit you got this wrong right up front, before digging yourself deeper into the same hole the Post Office did! 😈
*the Mail and Big G incessantly pushing Sir Beers Korma’s DID actually work though, looking back, they closed the Opinion poll gap right up to just a handful of points by the end of that month, and you recall had Labour whining “it’s so unfair” 🤣
Boris Tories got a much better set of local elections, for making the campaign all about Starmer denying he had messed up and broke the law, so these sort of things really do work.
Ed seems to get no coverage at all, which is OK for Starmer who wants to win by default and seems to operate on a basis that no coverage is better than any risky coverage, but for the Lib Dems they need to do something to get the oxygen of publicity.
Its not just that the Post Office scandal is bad for Ed, its that its the only thing most people will now associate with him as there's been a complete vacuum of coverage for anything else.
Replacing him with Daisy Cooper is a good idea. I don't know much about what if anything she stands for, but she's a fresh face and telegenic and doesn't look like an invisible sidekick to Starmer.
What have the Lib Dems got to lose?
As a LD supporter, I've sometimes wondered if Davey's association with the Conservatives via the Coalition could also weigh him down come GE day. It's a ready made goal for Labour. "Everyone hates the Tories" (again) and look, he was part of them for five years...........
I wonder what has happened to Layla Moran though. She was the bright young thing about three years ago, but I've heard nothing from her since.
(Then again, the LDs have been very starved of any publicity lately, excepting their by-election gains)
Davey shunted Layla Moran off to become spokesperson for Foreign Affairs. Shadow Foreign is a non-job even for the Official Opposition; for the LibDems it's invisible. It's a real shame because she was good, and very visible, as Education spokesperson. But clearly this was deliberate.
Ed seems to get no coverage at all, which is OK for Starmer who wants to win by default and seems to operate on a basis that no coverage is better than any risky coverage, but for the Lib Dems they need to do something to get the oxygen of publicity.
Its not just that the Post Office scandal is bad for Ed, its that its the only thing most people will now associate with him as there's been a complete vacuum of coverage for anything else.
Replacing him with Daisy Cooper is a good idea. I don't know much about what if anything she stands for, but she's a fresh face and telegenic and doesn't look like an invisible sidekick to Starmer.
What have the Lib Dems got to lose?
As a LD supporter, I've sometimes wondered if Davey's association with the Conservatives via the Coalition could also weigh him down come GE day. It's a ready made goal for Labour. "Everyone hates the Tories" (again) and look, he was part of them for five years...........
I wonder what has happened to Layla Moran though. She was the bright young thing about three years ago, but I've heard nothing from her since.
(Then again, the LDs have been very starved of any publicity lately, excepting their by-election gains)
Davey shunted Layla Moran off to become spokesperson for Foreign Affairs. Shadow Foreign is a non-job even for the Official Opposition; for the LibDems it's invisible. It's a real shame because she was good, and very visible, as Education spokesperson. But clearly this was deliberate.
Given that her mother was a Christian Arab she has been quite visible on the Israel - Gaza issue.
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
Yes, comrade, whatever you say.
For the record, I don't think I've said Putin's a 'fucking psychopath'. I have said he's an evil dictator running an imperialistic, fascistic government, but that's a rather different thing.
Do you disagree?
Putin has ordered the murder of numerous people he knew and worked with. Sometimes their entire families - the fake murder/suicides.
Some of the deaths have been *planned* to be especially cruel and painful.
I’d say that kind of behaviour would suggest a somewhat unusual personality type.
"Where the CPS receives a specific request to intervene in a private prosecution, the CPS should contact the private prosecutor and invite them to supply a complete set of the papers that they intend to use to support their prosecution. The CPS should request any information which undermines the prosecution or assists the defence with their case."
Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
Whereas, your 2024 on PB has been shocking so far MexPet, you can’t put a foot right you admit?
Not your finest moment on PB, you pushing this Starmer head of CPS has questions to answer on the PO scandal - it comes across much like Big G pushing Starmer’s illegal beers and curry, after even the Daily Mail itself had long given up* - the difference being Big G actually had a bit of a point, but here Starmer had 0% responsibility in his public role for what Post Office doing privately. It really was the government overseers of PO and preventers of injustice in this country, the Alan Bates’s needed to turn to.
Do you have anything to add in your defence? Can you actually put your hands in the air and admit you got this wrong right up front, before digging yourself deeper into the same hole the Post Office did! 😈
*the Mail and Big G incessantly pushing Sir Beers Korma’s DID actually work though, looking back, they closed the Opinion poll gap right up to just a handful of points by the end of that month, and you recall had Labour whining “it’s so unfair” 🤣
Boris Tories got a much better set of local elections, for making the campaign all about Starmer denying he had messed up and broke the law, so these sort of things really do work.
If Nige is pushing the narrative Starmer is toast. It doesn't have to be accurate it just has to gain traction. Hence Davey is under the cosh and no Tory is.
Rishi has come out swinging. He has taken the Post Office fight to Labour and the LDs.
Who you attach more blame to, the PO staff and management (aka overpromoted public sector bods) or the lawyers that advised them?
Which of these classes did the show demonise?
I agree with you (and Cyclefree) that the 'scumbag lawyers' deserve far more scrutiny than they have so far experienced. As officers of the court, they have an absolute ethical duty to tell the truth in legal proceedings. It seems inconceivable to me that several did not knowingly commit perjury at some stage of the whole mess.
There are probably many individuals responsible, but the lawyers must have been better aware than most what they were doing, when trying to cover this up.
Must be something to do with today being the equivalent of Boxing Day in Russia.
Gotta ask, given the Julian calendar is slowly drifting from the Gregorian one, 10,000 years from now will Orthodox Christains celebrate Christmas in the middle of March (or whenever it will be then)?
Australia already has Christmas in the middle of summer.
Now that's what I call good old traditional trolling, as encouraged in the 1996 Troller's FAQ.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
Too many posters on this board on the happy pills like cookie to have good discussions methinks.
I know it's not relevant, and too late now, but I am curious about what he means here? My principal contribution this morning has been a photograph of a massive decapitated Father Christmas. I don't see how this equates to 'on the happy pills'.
Though, as it happens, I am reasonably happy. While all good things (like two weeks of relaxation) come to an end, life is still pretty good compared to 98% of people in the world and 99.9% of people in history.
EDIT: also, you can't 'have a good discussion' if everyone is furious. It just doesn't work. I know I'm arguing with the empty space left after someone has been ushered off the premises, but I was having my lunch while this episode happened and I don't want to miss my chance to chip in, however pointlessly.
I thought the picture was good cookie. It did scream “January” at us.
I’m off to spend more time with my sheep. They are more normal and less weird than PBers. 🐑
Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
Whereas, your 2024 on PB has been shocking so far MexPet, you can’t put a foot right you admit?
Not your finest moment on PB, you pushing this Starmer head of CPS has questions to answer on the PO scandal - it comes across much like Big G pushing Starmer’s illegal beers and curry, after even the Daily Mail itself had long given up* - the difference being Big G actually had a bit of a point, but here Starmer had 0% responsibility in his public role for what Post Office doing privately. It really was the government overseers of PO and preventers of injustice in this country, the Alan Bates’s needed to turn to.
Do you have anything to add in your defence? Can you actually put your hands in the air and admit you got this wrong right up front, before digging yourself deeper into the same hole the Post Office did! 😈
*the Mail and Big G incessantly pushing Sir Beers Korma’s DID actually work though, looking back, they closed the Opinion poll gap right up to just a handful of points by the end of that month, and you recall had Labour whining “it’s so unfair” 🤣
Boris Tories got a much better set of local elections, for making the campaign all about Starmer denying he had messed up and broke the law, so these sort of things really do work.
If Nige is pushing the narrative Starmer is toast. It doesn't have to be accurate it just has to gain traction. Hence Davey is under the cosh and no Tory is.
Rishi has come out swinging. He has taken the Post Office fight to Labour and the LDs.
"Where the CPS receives a specific request to intervene in a private prosecution, the CPS should contact the private prosecutor and invite them to supply a complete set of the papers that they intend to use to support their prosecution. The CPS should request any information which undermines the prosecution or assists the defence with their case."
You say that but there seems to be zero evidence that any lawyer actually did that.
And because the computer is always correct - I suspect most lawyers couldn’t see the point as it wouldn’t really help their clients.
So unless I see evidence - all I see is someone trying to pin blame when in reality until last week Rishi thought £5,000 was more than enough compensation for losing your liberty, your reputation, your house, your marriage and your mental health because of a false allegation
Don’t believe me see the post office offer I posted earlier which was the Governments offer (and still is until they get round to changing it).
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
No, he's a psychopath who makes, within the context of an authoritarian empire, fairly rational decisions.
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
That raises a very important question which has not really been discussed. What is the point of an internal investigations team? What is it there to do? What is its remit?
I don't think the PO gave any real thought to this - not in the way it should have done.
It is something I have given a lot - and I mean a LOT - of thought to over the years. FWIW I do not think an internal investigations team should be investigating criminal offences. If something is a potential criminal offence where the investigating party is also a victim, then the matter should be handed over to the proper authorities. It is not just a question of competence etc. it is also because - as was blindingly obvious here (save to the Post Office, obviously) - there is an obvious conflict of interest.
The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies, breached the rights of the potential defendants, failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process to recover non-existent civil debts. There is no case now for them to have investigation and prosecution powers as if they were the police and CPS combined.
What they do need is a proper internal investigations team once they've cleared out the old team, most of the legal department, the Board and there is anything left standing after compensation has been paid.
I have seen the RSPB misuse their powers too in the past. There have been issues with the RSPCA too.
Another excellent post, but questions which are there for you to shoot down:
"The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies" - because they honestly believed money was stolen by the subpostmasters and/or their staff. Occam's Razor.
"breached the rights of the potential defendants" - who they believed were guilty
"failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process" - do these apply the same with a private prosecution by lawyers concerned with (and paid for) protecting their client?
"recover non-existent civil debts" - hindsight here - they didn't think they were non-existent
Believing someone guilty is absolutely no justification for breaching a defendant's rights. Still less for committing perjury.
Lawyers acting as prosecutors of course have the same disclosure obligations towards defendants. https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions ..If the CPS takes over a private prosecution, the reviewing lawyer will have the usual prosecutor's duty to disclose unused material to the defence. Where the CPS has not taken over a private prosecution, the private prosecutor is under that duty; see the Disclosure Manual...
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
The noise to signal ratio here is immense though. On past number 99% must be innocent.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
I can see it from the PO point of view - they have had people falsely accounting, they introduce a new system that should show up false accounting, and suddenly lots shows up. I can believe that at the start many genuinely thought they were catching crooks. Now clearly that became untenable later, but it would not have been unreasonable at the start.
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
Galloway won Bradford West over a decade ago, and then promptly lost it again three years later. It was a protest vote against both main parties at a by-election, combined with shameless pandering to a religious / ethnic base ('pandering' might be being unfair: Galloway has held the prejudices he was playing up in the by-election for decades. All the same, his victory was a circumstance of time and place and wasn't repeatable even in the same place - though he didn't exactly help his own cause by misinterpreting what his victory meant; people still expected him to do the day job).
Galloway has allied himself to the reactionary right of Unionism in Scotland (and proved to be an utter electoral failure), hasn't he burnt his boats with the radical left? I'm sure he'd shamelessly try to reappropriate the clothes of a socialist firebrand but hasn't everyone heard it all before?
Populists of whatever stripe share enough common features that they can move easily enough from one to another. Ultimately, it all comes down to it being 'their' fault.
So you are defending The Birdie Song but dissing Barbie.
You are a strange one Miss Rabbit.
The Birdie Song doesn’t have huge plot holes to skip around. It doesn’t over promise. Its survived the test of time which Barbie definitely won’t. Babies born tomorrow will do the birdie dance at some point in their lives, whilst never even hearing about that Barbie Movie.
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
The noise to signal ratio here is immense though. On past number 99% must be innocent.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
No, he's a psychopath who makes, within the context of an authoritarian empire, fairly rational decisions.
I think that he and some of the other Russian leadership got high on their own supply - they started believing that they just needed to “kick in the rotten door” and Ukraine would fall and the locals joyfully flock back to Mother Russia.
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
The noise to signal ratio here is immense though. On past number 99% must be innocent.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
The PO has, at best, completely reversed that principle.
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
Oh indeed.
The root of the Horizon problem, is that the PO management believed that there was a lot of fraud going on at the SPM level, but they didn’t have the technology to detect it.
So they put in the technology, and bingo, loads of fraud. Management bonuses all round!
(Just ignore all of the tech people both in the PO and at the supplier, who said that the software wasn’t fit for purpose as it was being rolled out, and continued to say this even as the prosecutions were ongoing).
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
Cooper has had three and a quarter years as deputy. How much longer does she need to build experience and profile?
So you are defending The Birdie Song but dissing Barbie.
You are a strange one Miss Rabbit.
The Birdie Song doesn’t have huge plot holes to skip around. It doesn’t over promise. Its survived the test of time which Barbie definitely won’t. Babies born tomorrow will do the birdie dance at some point in their lives, whilst never even hearing about that Barbie Movie.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
This is precisely the kind of Lib Dem nonsense I was meaning earlier.
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
Cooper has had three and a quarter years as deputy. How much longer does she need to build experience and profile?
Deputy for the invisible doesn't create much visibility. I suspect we would have better politicians if we let them build up experience over a couple of decades than a couple of years.
Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
Whereas, your 2024 on PB has been shocking so far MexPet, you can’t put a foot right you admit?
Not your finest moment on PB, you pushing this Starmer head of CPS has questions to answer on the PO scandal - it comes across much like Big G pushing Starmer’s illegal beers and curry, after even the Daily Mail itself had long given up* - the difference being Big G actually had a bit of a point, but here Starmer had 0% responsibility in his public role for what Post Office doing privately. It really was the government overseers of PO and preventers of injustice in this country, the Alan Bates’s needed to turn to.
Do you have anything to add in your defence? Can you actually put your hands in the air and admit you got this wrong right up front, before digging yourself deeper into the same hole the Post Office did! 😈
*the Mail and Big G incessantly pushing Sir Beers Korma’s DID actually work though, looking back, they closed the Opinion poll gap right up to just a handful of points by the end of that month, and you recall had Labour whining “it’s so unfair” 🤣
Boris Tories got a much better set of local elections, for making the campaign all about Starmer denying he had messed up and broke the law, so these sort of things really do work.
If Nige is pushing the narrative Starmer is toast. It doesn't have to be accurate it just has to gain traction. Hence Davey is under the cosh and no Tory is.
Rishi has come out swinging. He has taken the Post Office fight to Labour and the LDs.
Well, he has a bloody cheek. It was very obvious by 2015 that something had gone seriously wrong at the Post Office and that convictions were unsafe. In 2019 Bates won his case after the PO finally caved in. We are now in 2024. Why are there convictions still to be reviewed? Why have those affected not had full and proper compensation? What has been done to hold those responsible to account for this debacle?
The PO is a privately owned company with 1 shareholder: HMG. Why was the Board not sacked and replaced at least 5 years ago?
This started on someone else's watch but being in government is supposed to mean being in charge and responsible for cleaning up the mess, no matter who was responsible. The government, Rishi's government and its predecessors have been asleep at the wheel for far too long.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
I suppose no one is suggesting that convictions should be quashed that are nothing to do with Horizon.
And I would really hope that no one is suggesting upholding convictions that _are_ dependent on Horizon, just because other sub-postmasters have been guilty of fraud in the past!
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
This is precisely the kind of Lib Dem nonsense I was meaning earlier.
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
Aren't you asking what is the point of a smaller party? A centrist party might be one of the larger parties. It is in Ireland and France, for example.
One point being missed is that over the years sub-postmasters HAVE been genuinely guilty of false accounting. Not often, but it did happen, well before Horizon was a gleam in anyone’s eye.
The noise to signal ratio here is immense though. On past number 99% must be innocent.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
The PO has, at best, completely reversed that principle.
I would say they have demonstrated the truth in that principle, in depth and in detail.
R4 WATO going in hard on Davey, Swindon and Cable. Cable on now
So ultimately Clegg is to blame for this one?
Clegg has enough to worry about in the day job at the moment. He’ll have to earn his seven figures this year, with 4bn people voting in elections and his company being by far the biggest source of political untruth.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Um, no! That would allow the state to ration prosecutions, which will invariably devolve to prevent agents of the state from being prosecuted, with obviously bad results.
I will never get over the fact that British people generally, and PB in particular, thinks that people should only do things if the state allows them to. This didn't used to be the case.
Totally agree. It’s for people with such responsibility to be more responsible.
The first time I heard of it, my first reaction was, did they really believe so many of their staff were stealing? The sheer scale of it just looks suspicious, does it not.
So the explanation given is that they naturally presumed the computer couldn’t be wrong. No. I don’t believe that. They could simply have double checked some other way here and there if money totals were indeed different pointing to theft, and got to bottom of what was really wrong, rather than show trust to person or machine.
I’m sure what happened is just like in Michael Clayton - there’s only one moment to admit you’ve made the wrong call, to fess up, and once you passed that moment you know the actual truth, but you are trapped inside cover up and head in sand mode, and your culpability spirals out of control from there.
No - these people weren’t so stupid or vindictive that they trusted the computer, they had already passed that only point they felt they had, to be able to fess up. Not prejudice, but pride. For what other reason would governments always take so long to pay out compensation for injustices? Can’t admit mistakes can they? Boris and Rishi Sunak at the other enquiry, covid, proves this.
Partly, it really is that back then there was a lot more faith in technology. Whereas today, one form of technology replaces another and we compare and contrast. Back then, stuff was done on paper - at my sorting office we employed a team of seven people just to keep records of when each postman/woman went sick, by writing the dates on little pieces of card - and the ‘accounting’ system the SPMs were using prior was one of the most complicated forms I have ever seen.
Partly, it’s that a key object of the system from the outset was to detect or eliminate fraud - benefit fraud in the case of the DWP - and the idea that computer accounting and real time control was detecting stuff that had previously gone undetected wasn’t totally incredible.
Finally, with banks closing branches, a lot more small businesses were bringing their daily takings into SPSOs and hence the cash the PO had on hand was increasing significantly.
The level of prosecutions rose by about something between treble and quadruple, compared to the old paper-based world. It’s odd that this didn’t raise concerns, for sure.
But the most surprising thing isn’t that there suddenly appeared to be more fraud. What is surprising is why people would think of stealing from their PO till in the first place when the contract required them to make it good? That really only makes sense in cases where someone has some kind of addiction and ‘borrows’ the money imagining they will pay it back later, when their horse wins or whatever, and things spiral out of control. Which does, of course, happen. But not as often as all that.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
Cooper has had three and a quarter years as deputy. How much longer does she need to build experience and profile?
Deputy for the invisible doesn't create much visibility. I suspect we would have better politicians if we let them build up experience over a couple of decades than a couple of years.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
This is precisely the kind of Lib Dem nonsense I was meaning earlier.
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
I didn't think you were quite so stupid that you could go from "centrist parties have to be willing to do deals" to "any criticism of the Cameron-Clegg coalition is nonsense" in one thoughtless leap.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Whilst I agree with you about the Tories it is worth pointing out that neither they nor a single member of their party were named in Isam's comment to which you were referring. It was Farage he was quoting and both Farage and Starmer he was potentially criticising.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
Cooper has had three and a quarter years as deputy. How much longer does she need to build experience and profile?
Deputy for the invisible doesn't create much visibility. I suspect we would have better politicians if we let them build up experience over a couple of decades than a couple of years.
"You'll be ready for the job about 2050, luv..."
I'll let you tell her!
She has been an MP for <5 years and is 42. I see no issue at all in telling her or anyone else that I suspect she would make a better leader with 20 years experience at 57. Weird that this is now considered a weird or even offensive viewpoint.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Too many posters on this board on the happy pills like cookie to have good discussions methinks.
I know it's not relevant, and too late now, but I am curious about what he means here? My principal contribution this morning has been a photograph of a massive decapitated Father Christmas. I don't see how this equates to 'on the happy pills'.
Though, as it happens, I am reasonably happy. While all good things (like two weeks of relaxation) come to an end, life is still pretty good compared to 98% of people in the world and 99.9% of people in history.
EDIT: also, you can't 'have a good discussion' if everyone is furious. It just doesn't work. I know I'm arguing with the empty space left after someone has been ushered off the premises, but I was having my lunch while this episode happened and I don't want to miss my chance to chip in, however pointlessly.
I thought the picture was good cookie. It did scream “January” at us.
I’m off to spend more time with my sheep. They are more normal and less weird than PBers. 🐑
Make sure they are nice and warm. It’s snowing steadily now, even down here by the sea.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Nah thats just slopey shoulders. Even if it was only one man, why did no one at all think to actually just check and see what was going on for the 12 years from 1997 to 2009? Why did successive ministers refuse to even meet Bates to find out what he was talking about?
There are, of course, degrees of blame but when hundreds of SPMs were being prosecuted and some voices, however lonely, were saying something was wrong in this, then for the ministers with direct responsibility to simply ignore it for 12 years looks to be a considerable dereliction of duty. And of course the same apllies, even more so, to those ministers following 2009.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Nah thats just slopey shoulders. Even if it was only one man, why did no one at all think to actually just check and see what was going on for the 12 years from 1997 to 2009? Why did successive ministers refuse to even meet Bates to find out what he was talking about?
There are, of course, degrees of blame but when hundreds of SPMs were being prosecuted and some voices, however lonely, were saying something was wrong in this, then for the ministers with direct responsibility to simply ignore it for 12 years looks to be a considerable dereliction of duty. And of course the same apllies, even more so, to those ministers following 2009.
Davey did meet Bates. He went to the Post Office with Bates' concerns. The Post Office said they'd looked into everything and it was all fine.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
They didn’t have any shame when they weren’t so desperate.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
Probably just repeating what has been said on here ad-infinitum, but the ITV post office drama has really stole the next political cycle. And I can see why.
I have followed the scandal in Private Eye for years (as well as the articles and comments on here), and I watched the panorama episode years ago. I have even watched - or had half an eye on - some of the inquiry sessions. But, my partner isn’t interested in that sort of stuff. And you can see why it is a scandal built on reconciliation errors.
I series linked the ITV series with a view to watching it at some point - I am well down the pecking order on TV rights in my household. There was nothing on Saturday night that we fancied watching so the partner suggested watching Mr Bates v PO - her view was that Toby Jones isn’t in too many bad things. Well we watched it and my partner couldn’t stop watching it. She binged through all four episodes (we saved the documentary for Sunday night). In turns we were both angry, upset, incredulous. So Bravo ITV and all involved.
I appreciate they laid it on thick. But, why not? It just goes to show the power of great storytelling (obviously it helps if you have a good story to begin with - but as we know this a dense and complicated issue, boiling it down to something so immediate and impactful is an excellent achievement).
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
While some on here seem to want to agonise over the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats, how about this damning indictment of the last nearly 14 years of Conservative Government from that well-known leftwinger Danny Kruger:
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
Interesting how everyone piled in to defend Barbie and not Oppenheimer.
They were both underwhelming.
I've not seen Barbie, my wife and daughters liked it. But Oppenheimer was superb, especially the last hour. Absolutely gripping.
Oppenheimer was good from an educational point of view but got bogged down with post-1945 politics. Sometimes you have to play fast and loose with history to tell a gripping story [local author W. Shakespeare nods in agreement]. But the bomb story is too well-known for that.
While some on here seem to want to agonise over the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats, how about this damning indictment of the last nearly 14 years of Conservative Government from that well-known leftwinger Danny Kruger:
He added: “Some things have been done right and well. The free school movement that Michael Gove oversaw, and universal credit – and Brexit, even though it was in the teeth of the Tory party hierarchy itself, and mismanaged – nevertheless Brexit will be the great standing achievement of our time in office.
“These things are significant, but, overall I’m afraid, if we leave office next year, we would have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it.”'
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Nah thats just slopey shoulders. Even if it was only one man, why did no one at all think to actually just check and see what was going on for the 12 years from 1997 to 2009? Why did successive ministers refuse to even meet Bates to find out what he was talking about?
There are, of course, degrees of blame but when hundreds of SPMs were being prosecuted and some voices, however lonely, were saying something was wrong in this, then for the ministers with direct responsibility to simply ignore it for 12 years looks to be a considerable dereliction of duty. And of course the same apllies, even more so, to those ministers following 2009.
And, separate from the actual scandal, it is worth asking why a court case won in 2019 has had to wait until 2024 before everyone is running around demanding that something should be done?
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
No.
Not EVER.
He's been fun-washed. The Red Wall love him.
So says people who've never been to or lived in the Red Wall.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Nah thats just slopey shoulders. Even if it was only one man, why did no one at all think to actually just check and see what was going on for the 12 years from 1997 to 2009? Why did successive ministers refuse to even meet Bates to find out what he was talking about?
There are, of course, degrees of blame but when hundreds of SPMs were being prosecuted and some voices, however lonely, were saying something was wrong in this, then for the ministers with direct responsibility to simply ignore it for 12 years looks to be a considerable dereliction of duty. And of course the same apllies, even more so, to those ministers following 2009.
Davey did meet Bates. He went to the Post Office with Bates' concerns. The Post Office said they'd looked into everything and it was all fine.
Indeed. Whereas every other junior minister before and after took Sir Humphrey’s advice, and didn’t get involved at all.
Today, the cynical wisdom behind Sir Humphrey’s advice is perhaps more clear.
Ed seems to get no coverage at all, which is OK for Starmer who wants to win by default and seems to operate on a basis that no coverage is better than any risky coverage, but for the Lib Dems they need to do something to get the oxygen of publicity.
Its not just that the Post Office scandal is bad for Ed, its that its the only thing most people will now associate with him as there's been a complete vacuum of coverage for anything else.
Replacing him with Daisy Cooper is a good idea. I don't know much about what if anything she stands for, but she's a fresh face and telegenic and doesn't look like an invisible sidekick to Starmer.
What have the Lib Dems got to lose?
As a LD supporter, I've sometimes wondered if Davey's association with the Conservatives via the Coalition could also weigh him down come GE day. It's a ready made goal for Labour. "Everyone hates the Tories" (again) and look, he was part of them for five years...........
I wonder what has happened to Layla Moran though. She was the bright young thing about three years ago, but I've heard nothing from her since.
(Then again, the LDs have been very starved of any publicity lately, excepting their by-election gains)
Davey shunted Layla Moran off to become spokesperson for Foreign Affairs. Shadow Foreign is a non-job even for the Official Opposition; for the LibDems it's invisible. It's a real shame because she was good, and very visible, as Education spokesperson. But clearly this was deliberate.
Ed seems to get no coverage at all, which is OK for Starmer who wants to win by default and seems to operate on a basis that no coverage is better than any risky coverage, but for the Lib Dems they need to do something to get the oxygen of publicity.
Its not just that the Post Office scandal is bad for Ed, its that its the only thing most people will now associate with him as there's been a complete vacuum of coverage for anything else.
Replacing him with Daisy Cooper is a good idea. I don't know much about what if anything she stands for, but she's a fresh face and telegenic and doesn't look like an invisible sidekick to Starmer.
What have the Lib Dems got to lose?
As a LD supporter, I've sometimes wondered if Davey's association with the Conservatives via the Coalition could also weigh him down come GE day. It's a ready made goal for Labour. "Everyone hates the Tories" (again) and look, he was part of them for five years...........
I wonder what has happened to Layla Moran though. She was the bright young thing about three years ago, but I've heard nothing from her since.
(Then again, the LDs have been very starved of any publicity lately, excepting their by-election gains)
Davey shunted Layla Moran off to become spokesperson for Foreign Affairs. Shadow Foreign is a non-job even for the Official Opposition; for the LibDems it's invisible. It's a real shame because she was good, and very visible, as Education spokesperson. But clearly this was deliberate.
Given that her mother was a Christian Arab she has been quite visible on the Israel - Gaza issue.
It's also given her a bit more gravitas compared to her previous slightly ditzy image.
So you are defending The Birdie Song but dissing Barbie.
You are a strange one Miss Rabbit.
The Birdie Song doesn’t have huge plot holes to skip around. It doesn’t over promise. Its survived the test of time which Barbie definitely won’t. Babies born tomorrow will do the birdie dance at some point in their lives, whilst never even hearing about that Barbie Movie.
""Barbie" is a chunky diarrhea stain on humanity." Lol
Thank you. It’s nice to know I am not alone, outside the PB herd that is. “Here is a perfect example of why Alfred Hitchcock called actors, "cattle." 😈 “And, yes that's right, the creator of Barbie based this popular landfill ingredient on a sex doll.” 🫢 “I will say that anyone calling themself a "film critic" has no business giving "Barbie" a passing grade; if they do, they should turn in their credentials and quit because they haven't the first clue about Cinema, film, or movies — to pretend otherwise is just wrong.” 😈
“Co-screenwriters Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig stumble over themselves with face-plants of dialogue and monologues that wallow in stupifaction.”
They are actually married to each other.
They teamed up brilliantly on White Noise. It’s easy to guess they did White Noise out of love for their craft, took the Barbie gig for the money. It’s actually the same film, that pause for a moment when you contemplate death - only White Noise doesn’t have huge plot holes to skip around, is a visual treat, and a genuine comedy. It’s easy to guess as Barbie had the bums on seats and gongs, whilst White Noise doesn’t, Noah and Greta know this as a real world tragedy - that same real world tragedy I have been trying to explain.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
ETA: Wikipedia lists seven: Swindon; Hemel Hempstead; High Wycombe; Denham; Colchester; Tamworth; Hatton Cross Roundabout in London
The Swindon Magic Roundabout was the original, I believe (well, the original was the kids' TV programme, but you know what I mean). They are apparently much safer, partly because they are somewhat disorientating and that forces drivers to pay attention. They don't feel safe, though.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Is that the Sunak who thought the Rwanda scheme was a crock of s**t or the Sunak who has been hoodwinked into trying to implement it?
It argues Fujitsu knew about bugs as early as 1999/2000. Multiple postmasters were saying Horizon was the problem by 2003. The Computer Weekly story was 2009. The Post Office was internally reporting bugs in Horizon from at least 2010.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
Ed seems to get no coverage at all, which is OK for Starmer who wants to win by default and seems to operate on a basis that no coverage is better than any risky coverage, but for the Lib Dems they need to do something to get the oxygen of publicity.
Its not just that the Post Office scandal is bad for Ed, its that its the only thing most people will now associate with him as there's been a complete vacuum of coverage for anything else.
Replacing him with Daisy Cooper is a good idea. I don't know much about what if anything she stands for, but she's a fresh face and telegenic and doesn't look like an invisible sidekick to Starmer.
What have the Lib Dems got to lose?
As a LD supporter, I've sometimes wondered if Davey's association with the Conservatives via the Coalition could also weigh him down come GE day. It's a ready made goal for Labour. "Everyone hates the Tories" (again) and look, he was part of them for five years...........
I wonder what has happened to Layla Moran though. She was the bright young thing about three years ago, but I've heard nothing from her since.
(Then again, the LDs have been very starved of any publicity lately, excepting their by-election gains)
Davey shunted Layla Moran off to become spokesperson for Foreign Affairs. Shadow Foreign is a non-job even for the Official Opposition; for the LibDems it's invisible. It's a real shame because she was good, and very visible, as Education spokesperson. But clearly this was deliberate.
Ed seems to get no coverage at all, which is OK for Starmer who wants to win by default and seems to operate on a basis that no coverage is better than any risky coverage, but for the Lib Dems they need to do something to get the oxygen of publicity.
Its not just that the Post Office scandal is bad for Ed, its that its the only thing most people will now associate with him as there's been a complete vacuum of coverage for anything else.
Replacing him with Daisy Cooper is a good idea. I don't know much about what if anything she stands for, but she's a fresh face and telegenic and doesn't look like an invisible sidekick to Starmer.
What have the Lib Dems got to lose?
As a LD supporter, I've sometimes wondered if Davey's association with the Conservatives via the Coalition could also weigh him down come GE day. It's a ready made goal for Labour. "Everyone hates the Tories" (again) and look, he was part of them for five years...........
I wonder what has happened to Layla Moran though. She was the bright young thing about three years ago, but I've heard nothing from her since.
(Then again, the LDs have been very starved of any publicity lately, excepting their by-election gains)
Davey shunted Layla Moran off to become spokesperson for Foreign Affairs. Shadow Foreign is a non-job even for the Official Opposition; for the LibDems it's invisible. It's a real shame because she was good, and very visible, as Education spokesperson. But clearly this was deliberate.
Given that her mother was a Christian Arab she has been quite visible on the Israel - Gaza issue.
It's also given her a bit more gravitas compared to her previous slightly ditzy image.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
While some on here seem to want to agonise over the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats, how about this damning indictment of the last nearly 14 years of Conservative Government from that well-known leftwinger Danny Kruger:
He added: “Some things have been done right and well. The free school movement that Michael Gove oversaw, and universal credit – and Brexit, even though it was in the teeth of the Tory party hierarchy itself, and mismanaged – nevertheless Brexit will be the great standing achievement of our time in office.
“These things are significant, but, overall I’m afraid, if we leave office next year, we would have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it.”'
That standing achievement being a key reason why the country is left less united.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
Didn't we have a header in the last 3 days that demonstrated that attempts to characterise the political spectrum into just three categories are bunk?
Comments
When did the Director of Public Prosecution have responsibility for Private Prosecutions?
There is a clue in both the type of prosecutions the Post Office uses and SKS’s old job title
Not your finest moment on PB, you pushing this Starmer head of CPS has questions to answer on the PO scandal - it comes across much like Big G pushing Starmer’s illegal beers and curry, after even the Daily Mail itself had long given up* - the difference being Big G actually had a bit of a point, but here Starmer had 0% responsibility in his public role for what Post Office doing privately. It really was the government overseers of PO and preventers of injustice in this country, the Alan Bates’s needed to turn to.
Do you have anything to add in your defence? Can you actually put your hands in the air and admit you got this wrong right up front, before digging yourself deeper into the same hole the Post Office did! 😈
*the Mail and Big G incessantly pushing Sir Beers Korma’s DID actually work though, looking back, they closed the Opinion poll gap right up to just a handful of points by the end of that month, and you recall had Labour whining “it’s so unfair” 🤣
Boris Tories got a much better set of local elections, for making the campaign all about Starmer denying he had messed up and broke the law, so these sort of things really do work.
PB Boys and Westside Trolls
Some of the deaths have been *planned* to be especially cruel and painful.
I’d say that kind of behaviour would suggest a somewhat unusual personality type.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions
"Where the CPS receives a specific request to intervene in a private prosecution, the CPS should contact the private prosecutor and invite them to supply a complete set of the papers that they intend to use to support their prosecution. The CPS should request any information which undermines the prosecution or assists the defence with their case."
Rishi has come out swinging. He has taken the Post Office fight to Labour and the LDs.
As officers of the court, they have an absolute ethical duty to tell the truth in legal proceedings. It seems inconceivable to me that several did not knowingly commit perjury at some stage of the whole mess.
There are probably many individuals responsible, but the lawyers must have been better aware than most what they were doing, when trying to cover this up.
I’m off to spend more time with my sheep. They are more normal and less weird than PBers. 🐑
And because the computer is always correct - I suspect most lawyers couldn’t see the point as it wouldn’t really help their clients.
So unless I see evidence - all I see is someone trying to pin blame when in reality until last week Rishi thought £5,000 was more than enough compensation for losing your liberty, your reputation, your house, your marriage and your mental health because of a false allegation
Don’t believe me see the post office offer I posted earlier which was the Governments offer (and still is until they get round to changing it).
You are a strange one Miss Rabbit.
Lawyers acting as prosecutors of course have the same disclosure obligations towards defendants.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/private-prosecutions
..If the CPS takes over a private prosecution, the reviewing lawyer will have the usual prosecutor's duty to disclose unused material to the defence. Where the CPS has not taken over a private prosecution, the private prosecutor is under that duty; see the Disclosure Manual...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGDmLMn-0h4
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
The root of the Horizon problem, is that the PO management believed that there was a lot of fraud going on at the SPM level, but they didn’t have the technology to detect it.
So they put in the technology, and bingo, loads of fraud. Management bonuses all round!
(Just ignore all of the tech people both in the PO and at the supplier, who said that the software wasn’t fit for purpose as it was being rolled out, and continued to say this even as the prosecutions were ongoing).
Cooper has had three and a quarter years as deputy. How much longer does she need to build experience and profile?
https://www.colesmithey.com/reviews/2023/11/barbie.html
""Barbie" is a chunky diarrhea stain on humanity." Lol
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
The PO is a privately owned company with 1 shareholder: HMG. Why was the Board not sacked and replaced at least 5 years ago?
This started on someone else's watch but being in government is supposed to mean being in charge and responsible for cleaning up the mess, no matter who was responsible. The government, Rishi's government and its predecessors have been asleep at the wheel for far too long.
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
And I would really hope that no one is suggesting upholding convictions that _are_ dependent on Horizon, just because other sub-postmasters have been guilty of fraud in the past!
Interesting how everyone piled in to defend Barbie and not Oppenheimer.
Partly, it’s that a key object of the system from the outset was to detect or eliminate fraud - benefit fraud in the case of the DWP - and the idea that computer accounting and real time control was detecting stuff that had previously gone undetected wasn’t totally incredible.
Finally, with banks closing branches, a lot more small businesses were bringing their daily takings into SPSOs and hence the cash the PO had on hand was increasing significantly.
The level of prosecutions rose by about something between treble and quadruple, compared to the old paper-based world. It’s odd that this didn’t raise concerns, for sure.
But the most surprising thing isn’t that there suddenly appeared to be more fraud. What is surprising is why people would think of stealing from their PO till in the first place when the contract required them to make it good? That really only makes sense in cases where someone has some kind of addiction and ‘borrows’ the money imagining they will pay it back later, when their horse wins or whatever, and things spiral out of control. Which does, of course, happen. But not as often as all that.
I'll let you tell her!
But we live and learn.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
This is, I think, a useful source:
https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know
(Are there only two of these in the UK? I’ve spent way too much time going around both of them!).
There are, of course, degrees of blame but when hundreds of SPMs were being prosecuted and some voices, however lonely, were saying something was wrong in this, then for the ministers with direct responsibility to simply ignore it for 12 years looks to be a considerable dereliction of duty. And of course the same apllies, even more so, to those ministers following 2009.
ETA: Wikipedia lists seven: Swindon; Hemel Hempstead; High Wycombe; Denham; Colchester; Tamworth; Hatton Cross Roundabout in London
I have followed the scandal in Private Eye for years (as well as the articles and comments on here), and I watched the panorama episode years ago. I have even watched - or had half an eye on - some of the inquiry sessions. But, my partner isn’t interested in that sort of stuff. And you can see why it is a scandal built on reconciliation errors.
I series linked the ITV series with a view to watching it at some point - I am well down the pecking order on TV rights in my household. There was nothing on Saturday night that we fancied watching so the partner suggested watching Mr Bates v PO - her view was that Toby Jones isn’t in too many bad things. Well we watched it and my partner couldn’t stop watching it. She binged through all four episodes (we saved the documentary for Sunday night). In turns we were both angry, upset, incredulous. So Bravo ITV and all involved.
I appreciate they laid it on thick. But, why not? It just goes to show the power of great storytelling (obviously it helps if you have a good story to begin with - but as we know this a dense and complicated issue, boiling it down to something so immediate and impactful is an excellent achievement).
Not EVER.
While some on here seem to want to agonise over the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats, how about this damning indictment of the last nearly 14 years of Conservative Government from that well-known leftwinger Danny Kruger:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/07/conservatives-face-obliteration-as-uk-in-worse-state-than-2010-tory-mp-says
Though its hard to tell, as its a good act.
Poe's Law applies here.
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
“These things are significant, but, overall I’m afraid, if we leave office next year, we would have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it.”'
If I am right, have you changed? joined BJO's Tooting Popular Front faction? or are you playing a huge piss-take game?
Genuinely interested.
Today, the cynical wisdom behind Sir Humphrey’s advice is perhaps more clear.
“Here is a perfect example of why Alfred Hitchcock called actors, "cattle." 😈
“And, yes that's right, the creator of Barbie based this popular landfill ingredient on a sex doll.” 🫢
“I will say that anyone calling themself a "film critic" has no business giving "Barbie" a passing grade; if they do, they should turn in their credentials and quit because they haven't the first clue about Cinema, film, or movies — to pretend otherwise is just wrong.” 😈
“Co-screenwriters Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig stumble over themselves with face-plants of dialogue and monologues that wallow in stupifaction.”
They are actually married to each other.
They teamed up brilliantly on White Noise. It’s easy to guess they did White Noise out of love for their craft, took the Barbie gig for the money. It’s actually the same film, that pause for a moment when you contemplate death - only White Noise doesn’t have huge plot holes to skip around, is a visual treat, and a genuine comedy. It’s easy to guess as Barbie had the bums on seats and gongs, whilst White Noise doesn’t, Noah and Greta know this as a real world tragedy - that same real world tragedy I have been trying to explain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgwKZAMx_gM&t=26s
Everyone who praised Barbie and not seen White Noise, it’s free on your Netflix subscription.
It argues Fujitsu knew about bugs as early as 1999/2000. Multiple postmasters were saying Horizon was the problem by 2003. The Computer Weekly story was 2009. The Post Office was internally reporting bugs in Horizon from at least 2010.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/layla-moran-set-to-withdraw-from-liberal-democrat-leadership-race-following-revelations-she-was-arrested-for-assaulting-a-boyfriend-a4141586.html