When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
That sounds bad - but when it comes to a trial, I'd want even the worst people to have a capable defence lawyer. That way, justice can be seen to be done.
I don't like attacking defence lawyers for defending, in a reasonable manner, terrible people.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
So he used his talents to ensure the death penalty was downgraded to a life sentence.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
Thanks to @isam for showing what namby-pamby so-called "justice" is to Keith Donkey. Proper justice is the people's justice. Reading the newspaper. Shouting insults and spitting at guilty sub postmasters. And then a kangaroo court for anyone who is guilty of being foreign or has a funny name.
A "defence lawyer?" Don't you know that 17.4m people voted to get rid of them. String Em Up!
Given that we haven’t included Teresa May, Cameron and Osbourne into the story yet - let’s talk about the reason why the compensation until now was so low
As the issue of compensation for miscarriages of justice is rightly in the news, it’s timely to note that in 2014, the government changed the law to make it all but impossible for people wrongly convicted and imprisoned to claim compensation.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
The death penalty is never "justice" - too many miscarriages of justice occur for it to ever be acceptable. This week of all weeks we should know this, sometimes people get wrongly convicted.
Life without parole is an acceptable punishment, the death penalty is not.
If Starmer did his job encouraging that - then good for him.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
The death penalty is never "justice" - too many miscarriages of justice occur for it to ever be acceptable. This week of all weeks we should know this, sometimes people get wrongly convicted.
Life without parole is an acceptable punishment, the death penalty is not.
If Starmer did his job encouraging that - then good for him.
Thank you for not suffering from Starmer Derangement Syndrome.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
Let us remember the true victim here - the Reverend Paula Vennells. A Church of England vicar in a sleepy village parish, she has been accused of being the CEO of the Post Office! All to distract from the real villain of the piece, Ed Davey Keir Starmer.
If there is any justice, the Tories will win a majority of 704. Justice! We demand it!
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
The death penalty is never "justice" - too many miscarriages of justice occur for it to ever be acceptable. This week of all weeks we should know this, sometimes people get wrongly convicted.
Life without parole is an acceptable punishment, the death penalty is not.
If Starmer did his job encouraging that - then good for him.
Those posts do though perhaps point to the inevitable next chapter in the culture war, once the ECHR is done away with.
I note the countries most notorious donkey botherer was in Loughborough yesterday and not in a suit. He looks a lot better for the smart casual look, it is more relatable.
They're not slowing full stop. I keep getting morons posting things like "Toyota are stopping making EVs". One even posted a YouTube video which looked like it had been done by AI explaining how that was the case. Whereas in the real world Toyota (to use the example) are investing $8bn in one factory in the US and significantly more than that in Japan and other markets. And the response? "Fake News"
There is Starmer Derangemenrt Syndrome. There is also EV Derangement Syndrome.The Sun are very good at pumping out nonsense and weaponising it. Some people have been praising tweets by Kelvin McKenzie who supposedly is calling out the truth on the PO affair. Yes, *that* KM. And that "truth" front page.
We should have had another question in the PB prediction comp: How many separate slur attacks will the Tories manage to launch on Starmer before the GE?
What have we had so far? Savile-gate, Korma-gate, Defence lawyer defending people, PO scandal, Gaza... I will have missed quite a few.
We should have had another question in the PB prediction comp: How many separate slur attacks will the Tories manage to launch on Starmer before the GE?
What have we had so far? Savile-gate, Korma-gate, Defence lawyer defending people, PO scandal, Gaza... I will have missed quite a few.
I was instructed on here last night that memories of things working in this country - getting a GP appointment, the trains, water companies not hosing shit onto the beaches etc - were in fact implanted Starmer lies. Similarly our lived experience of things being broken today are just hallucinations suggested by Starmer. Most voters affected according to the polls.
Frankly its a little scary that this man could be our next Prime Minister. He is an evil magician.
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
So he used his talents to ensure the death penalty was downgraded to a life sentence.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
I read @rochdalepioneers attempt at satire then saw Harry Cole’s tweet so it seemed worth posting. Shows The Sun have got it in for Sir Keir though, rightly or wrongly
Its good to see that Rupert Myers isn’t just some deranged, culture war loving, Brexiteer. It makes his thoughts on Starmer’s inaction over the Post Office scandal more trustworthy
We should have had another question in the PB prediction comp: How many separate slur attacks will the Tories manage to launch on Starmer before the GE?
What have we had so far? Savile-gate, Korma-gate, Defence lawyer defending people, PO scandal, Gaza... I will have missed quite a few.
The irony is - if they did get rid of SKS whoever they replaced him with may do better simply because SKS has baggage which is costing them votes from people such as Bjo
I note the countries most notorious donkey botherer was in Loughborough yesterday and not in a suit. He looks a lot better for the smart casual look, it is more relatable.
Presumably people living on a barge are a lot less vulnerable to flooding than most? Was he looking for some tips?
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
I could never understand why it's permissible to eat cows, pigs or sheep but not dogs, horses or pandas.
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
I could never understand why it's permissible to eat cows, pigs or sheep but not dogs, horses or pandas.
Paul Rozin has written extensively on why these food rules exist. Basically, humans are fine with eating animals they’re used to eating, but really grossed out by eating other animals.
Yesterday's bizarre DM conversation with someone trying to set me up with a meeting with her non-existent boss has mysteriously disappeared from my LinkedIn messages. Along with her fake profile.
A pity. I was curious where they would go next after I decided not to give them my phone number.
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
I could never understand why it's permissible to eat cows, pigs or sheep but not dogs, horses or pandas.
Paul Rozin has written extensively on why these food rules exist. Basically, humans are fine with eating animals they’re used to eating, but really grossed out by eating other animals.
I had horse once in Spain long ago.
I didn't know what it was until I had taken it at a works canteen and sat down. I ate it happily enough. Like fairly low quality steak to be honest is my memory.
I've been a veggie since the BSE scandal so doubt I will ever have it again.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
As you've previously noted, 2013 is the year beyond which it was no longer really possible to argue that it was all some dreadful mistake.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
So he used his talents to ensure the death penalty was downgraded to a life sentence.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
I read @rochdalepioneers attempt at satire then saw Harry Cole’s tweet so it seemed worth posting. Shows The Sun have got it in for Sir Keir though, rightly or wrongly
Its good to see that Rupert Myers isn’t just some deranged, culture war loving, Brexiteer. It makes his thoughts on Starmer’s inaction over the Post Office scandal more trustworthy
And maybe he was wrong
I have deleted a short thread I posted yesterday re. the CPS & Seema Misra: I had found an archived transcript & an FOI response from the CPS that strongly suggested they prosecuted her, but these documents may *both* have been wrong according to evidence before the inquiry (1/2)
The extent of CPS knowledge of and involvement in Post Office prosecutions remains unclear - it is not as straightforward necessarily as saying there was no knowledge or involvement, and I understand further FOI requests have been made - one to keep an eye on (2/2)
Sorry but even after 25 people were found innocent and problems were obvious Ms Vennells didn’t put a stop to the prosecutions. The TV program is merely telling the general public a story that anyone who cared about the case (and as her manager the Diocese should have cared) has known for years
The reality is the Diocese should have removed her when the Court of Appeal released it verdict and everyone else moved to remove her immediately and the fact you didn’t reflects rather badly on the CoE regardless of the statement yesterday
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Being nice to donkeys was the worst they could find in terms of actual personal behaviour ...
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
I thought we all agreed it was Ed Davey Keir Starmer?
Remember that this scandal was decades in the making. Horizon was commissioned in 1996. So there have been a lot of managers and a lot of ministers between now and then. Whilst I accept that fear of the boss is real for many people, both the boss and the people scared of the boss changed repeatedly.
I haven't watched feeds from the public enquiry. What struck me about the dramatised storytelling in the ITV piece was that the PO managers had No Clue what Horizon actually was in detail. A cultural "Horizon is what our whole business runs on" attitude is easy to build, so nobody challenges the dialectic that Horizon is brilliant.
I note the countries most notorious donkey botherer was in Loughborough yesterday and not in a suit. He looks a lot better for the smart casual look, it is more relatable.
Presumably people living on a barge are a lot less vulnerable to flooding than most? Was he looking for some tips?
Difficult to go for the milk if the towpath is flooded.
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
I could never understand why it's permissible to eat cows, pigs or sheep but not dogs, horses or pandas.
Obviously because a lot of people form quite close bonds with dogs and horses and are revolted by the thought.
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Actually I only posted the Harry Cole tweet as it fit with @RochdalePioneers unfunny nonsense.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
It may be unfair, but Ed Davey and therefore the LibDems might end up most damaged by this. A lot of people will see his name and say 'who?' then find out he is leader of the LibDems, and also find out the LibDem leader was part of the Conservative-led Coalition government. Pinning the blame on Starmer is more difficult because hardly anybody is really sure what the DPP does.
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
I could never understand why it's permissible to eat cows, pigs or sheep but not dogs, horses or pandas.
Paul Rozin has written extensively on why these food rules exist. Basically, humans are fine with eating animals they’re used to eating, but really grossed out by eating other animals.
As you've written it, that doesn't really wash, though - over the years lots of people will have tried 'new meats' like Ostrich or Kangaroo or Reindeer or Crocodile and probably other meats that we're certainly not used to eating, without worrying. Yet most people don't fancy those that have the closest relationships with humans
They're not slowing full stop. I keep getting morons posting things like "Toyota are stopping making EVs". One even posted a YouTube video which looked like it had been done by AI explaining how that was the case. Whereas in the real world Toyota (to use the example) are investing $8bn in one factory in the US and significantly more than that in Japan and other markets. And the response? "Fake News"
There is Starmer Derangemenrt Syndrome. There is also EV Derangement Syndrome.The Sun are very good at pumping out nonsense and weaponising it. Some people have been praising tweets by Kelvin McKenzie who supposedly is calling out the truth on the PO affair. Yes, *that* KM. And that "truth" front page.
There were significant hiccups in sales growth in both the US and UK at the end of last year - with the sales share here dropping to 13% of the market in the fourth quarter. In China, it's around 40%.
You're right that a complete transition is pretty well inevitable, but it's happening a lot faster there than it is here.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
The accounting systems which the PO used prior to Horizon were not, AIUI, a thing of beauty, hence the need for the Horizon system in the first place.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Edit, apologies @RochdalePioneers, I see on refreshing you have already made exactly the same point.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
By 2013 the Second Sight enquiry had told them pretty unequivocally that they were. They then kept on denying it for another decade.
(And, of course, it's almost inconceivable that a significant number of individuals in the PO weren't aware of that much earlier.)
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Actually I only posted the Harry Cole tweet as it fit with @RochdalePioneers unfunny nonsense.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
And that’s why we get the politicians we get nowadays. Every minor mistake is blown up totally out of proportion and most people don’t have the mental strength to cope with it so only the weirdest people and those out for themselves enter politics.
Anyone sane can make a lot more money doing something way easier
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
The accounting systems which the PO used prior to Horizon were not, AIUI, a thing of beauty, hence the need for the Horizon system in the first place.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Your latter point - to ask such pointed questions you need to both understand how the system works and then identify where the system is failing. Is there any evidence the PO management actually understood the thing?
A law professor on the Today programme this morning (sorry didn't get his name) expressed the anger that I feel over the PO fiasco in that it took a TV drama to get action. He talked about the failure in our processes for the small guy to get injustices corrected.
I couldn't watch the PO drama as it would have upset me too much because I am involved in a fight that has so many parallels (although nobody has gone to jail). Huge obstacles are put in the way of getting justice by civil servants who advise ministers and ministers and MPs generally (with a few notable exceptions) just accept the crap they are fed by the administrative machine no matter how obvious it is found to be nonsense.
I am not going to bore you all here, but you would be shocked by some of the nonsense that is sent out or even reported to Parliamentary committees without consequences.
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
So he used his talents to ensure the death penalty was downgraded to a life sentence.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
I read @rochdalepioneers attempt at satire then saw Harry Cole’s tweet so it seemed worth posting. Shows The Sun have got it in for Sir Keir though, rightly or wrongly
Its good to see that Rupert Myers isn’t just some deranged, culture war loving, Brexiteer. It makes his thoughts on Starmer’s inaction over the Post Office scandal more trustworthy
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
It may be unfair, but Ed Davey and therefore the LibDems might end up most damaged by this. A lot of people will see his name and say 'who?' then find out he is leader of the LibDems, and also find out the LibDem leader was part of the Conservative-led Coalition government. Pinning the blame on Starmer is more difficult because hardly anybody is really sure what the DPP does.
The damage may be in tactical voting. I don’t think it will bother most Conservative waverers in the blue wall because they’ll be aware the Tory government has its hands all over the inaction between 2015 and today. But it could remind a few Labour supporters of the time their little cousin wasn’t loyal to the cause.
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Actually I only posted the Harry Cole tweet as it fit with @RochdalePioneers unfunny nonsense.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
Starmer is quite probably a "hypocrite and a liar". He is probably unfit for high office. Sunak is neither, but you don't rate Sunak, you rate Johnson who took hypocrisy and lying to Olympic levels.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
My experience on the mails side of the business was that the government kept a close eye on the business during the pre-1997 Tory governments; we had to clear a lot of stuff, like pay remits, with the department, whereas fairly early on under Blair, they left us much more freedom to get on with it. Slightly counter-intuitively, given how control-freaky New Labour was. Although this may or may not read across into POL, my guess is that the 'arms length' descriptions coming out of government are probably correct. Davey is saying that they no power (short of legislation) to interfere, and that is surely right, although of course any government owned business is going to take a lot of notice of any informal steer from ministers.
The extent to which the people at the very top kept junior ministers up to date with key issues informally (if they did), I can't really say. Leading officials at the DTI - like David Sibbick who gave evidence to the inquiry during the last phase - were known figures within the business and senior people would meet or lunch with such civil servants once or twice a year to keep in touch.
For POL, the government clearly had an interest in the objective of tackling its losses and returning to break even, and as a business not destined for the private sector it is possible (but I don't know) that there was more regular involvement.
The government was of course heavily involved in the Horizon decision at the outset, because of its early involvement through the DWP and then in working with the PO to find a way forward after DWP pulled out.
A law professor on the Today programme this morning (sorry didn't get his name) expressed the anger that I feel over the PO fiasco in that it took a TV drama to get action. He talked about the failure in our processes for the small guy to get injustices corrected.
I couldn't watch the PO drama as it would have upset me too much because I am involved in a fight that has so many parallels (although nobody has gone to jail). Huge obstacles are put in the way of getting justice by civil servants who advise ministers and ministers and MPs generally (with a few notable exceptions) just accept the crap they are fed by the administrative machine no matter how obvious it is found to be nonsense.
I am not going to bore you all here, but you would be shocked by some of the nonsense that is sent out or even reported to Parliamentary committees without consequences.
The drama is a reminder of the (admittedly occasional) quality there still is in ITV. In this day and age they go strangely under the radar compared with the BBC on the one hand and the US streaming services on the other.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
The accounting systems which the PO used prior to Horizon were not, AIUI, a thing of beauty, hence the need for the Horizon system in the first place.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Your latter point - to ask such pointed questions you need to both understand how the system works and then identify where the system is failing. Is there any evidence the PO management actually understood the thing?
I suspect not. They would have had some idea that it created a virtual set of books noting the transactions in and out of the branches. And in millions of cases that is exactly what it did as the Second Sight examination confirmed.
But the range of what it was being asked to do was complicated. Foreign exchange, deposit accounts, National Savings Certificates, a really weird combination of money and money equivalents, some of which had changing values. What is not clear to me yet, and that might simply be ignorance on my part, is how these discrepancies which created the deficits arose. My guess would be that it would be in these complications but its only a guess.
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
Our justice system is one of the better ones & it’s still prone to significant miscarriages. The Sun & Sunak were happy to label the Iranian regime “barbaric” for using the death penalty. Shame this poor man didn’t have the benefit of Starmer’s services
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
So he used his talents to ensure the death penalty was downgraded to a life sentence.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
I read @rochdalepioneers attempt at satire then saw Harry Cole’s tweet so it seemed worth posting. Shows The Sun have got it in for Sir Keir though, rightly or wrongly
Its good to see that Rupert Myers isn’t just some deranged, culture war loving, Brexiteer. It makes his thoughts on Starmer’s inaction over the Post Office scandal more trustworthy
Is a Harry Cole tweet ever worth posting ?
I’m this case it was as it fit perfectly with the deranged ramblings I replied to. A happy coincidence
In general it’s good to see what all sides are saying rather than stick your nose in the air and consider what is going to be read by millions of voters to be unworthy of you
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Actually I only posted the Harry Cole tweet as it fit with @RochdalePioneers unfunny nonsense.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
Starmer is quite probably a "hypocrite and a liar". He is probably unfit for high office. Sunak is neither, but you don't rate Sunak, you rate Johnson who took hypocrisy and lying to Olympic levels.
Actually I don’t comment on whether Boris was a great PM or visionary politician, I just say he was an electoral asset that the Tories were crazy to replace
He may have lied and been hypocritical, and he gets enough stick for that - Sir Keir lies and is hypocritical, yet the same people who suffered from BDS won’t hear of it
I note the countries most notorious donkey botherer was in Loughborough yesterday and not in a suit. He looks a lot better for the smart casual look, it is more relatable.
Presumably people living on a barge are a lot less vulnerable to flooding than most? Was he looking for some tips?
Living on a barge (narrowboat) on a canal - fairly floodproof.
Living on a barge (narrowboat) on a river - definitely not floodproof.
Loughborough is a canal, though one that joins to a river (the Soar) at either end.
Though the River Calder floods a few years back washed away large chunks of the adjacent Rochdale Canal, so even that’s not entirely safe.
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
Nixon delayed one of the lunar landings (apollo 17, I think) so, if there was an accident, it would not interfere with an election campaign.
The entire Apollo stack was very marginal; ISTR there was a meeting in about 1970, where engineers could not guarantee even a 1-in-1 chance of any individual mission succeeding, and only a 75% chance of crew surviving any particular mission.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
My experience on the mails side of the business was that the government kept a close eye on the business during the pre-1997 Tory governments; we had to clear a lot of stuff, like pay remits, with the department, whereas fairly early on under Blair, they left us much more freedom to get on with it. Slightly counter-intuitively, given how control-freaky New Labour was. Although this may or may not read across into POL, my guess is that the 'arms length' descriptions coming out of government are probably correct. Davey is saying that they no power (short of legislation) to interfere, and that is surely right, although of course any government owned business is going to take a lot of notice of any informal steer from ministers.
The extent to which the people at the very top kept junior ministers up to date with key issues informally (if they did), I can't really say. Leading officials at the DTI - like David Sibbick who gave evidence to the inquiry during the last phase - were known figures within the business and senior people would meet or lunch with such civil servants once or twice a year to keep in touch.
For POL, the government clearly had an interest in the objective of tackling its losses and returning to break even, and as a business not destined for the private sector it is possible (but I don't know) that there was more regular involvement.
The government was of course heavily involved in the Horizon decision at the outset, because of its early involvement through the DWP and then in working with the PO to find a way forward after DWP pulled out.
There were serious plans in 2011 for mutualisation of the business, which implies a fair amount of government interest in it.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
The accounting systems which the PO used prior to Horizon were not, AIUI, a thing of beauty, hence the need for the Horizon system in the first place.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Your latter point - to ask such pointed questions you need to both understand how the system works and then identify where the system is failing. Is there any evidence the PO management actually understood the thing?
I suspect not. They would have had some idea that it created a virtual set of books noting the transactions in and out of the branches. And in millions of cases that is exactly what it did as the Second Sight examination confirmed.
But the range of what it was being asked to do was complicated. Foreign exchange, deposit accounts, National Savings Certificates, a really weird combination of money and money equivalents, some of which had changing values. What is not clear to me yet, and that might simply be ignorance on my part, is how these discrepancies which created the deficits arose. My guess would be that it would be in these complications but its only a guess.
Power and connectivity issues resulting in transactions going missing or being corrupted between branch and the main servers at Fujitsu HQ seems to be the main candidate, coupled with a very buggy program that could in rare circumstances make mistakes.
That the senior PO execs didn't know how the system worked in any detail isn't surprising, and would surely be true of senior execs (outside the IT dept) in any large company
A point not commented on is that the legal action, and TV drama, focused heavily on the question of whether Horizon branch accounts could be accessed remotely. This is important because of the Post Office's mix of early ignorance (probably based on Fujitsu lies) and later lies about it, and as a theoretical challenge to the PO's assertion that branch accounts were "secure" - but I haven't seen any suggestion that discrepancies were arising because local accounts were being accessed remotely by some evil actor inside Fujitsu?
Our justice system is one of the better ones & it’s still prone to significant miscarriages. The Sun & Sunak were happy to label the Iranian regime “barbaric” for using the death penalty. Shame this poor man didn’t have the benefit of Starmer’s services
Unfortunately TwiX today is a good illustration of how this sort of smear story works. Cole tweets, then everyone who's outraged by the tweet and Sun story retweets, massively increasing the reach of the original story. Job done. Harrys got great engagement stats today. And if there's a side benefit of getting people talking about the death penalty again then great, two birds with one stone.
Our justice system is one of the better ones & it’s still prone to significant miscarriages. The Sun & Sunak were happy to label the Iranian regime “barbaric” for using the death penalty. Shame this poor man didn’t have the benefit of Starmer’s services
"Cold-hearted Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer saves sadistic foreign baby killer from the gallows whilst tacitly declining to help plucky Brit patriot from evading evil Islamic Guard firing squad".
I note the countries most notorious donkey botherer was in Loughborough yesterday and not in a suit. He looks a lot better for the smart casual look, it is more relatable.
Presumably people living on a barge are a lot less vulnerable to flooding than most? Was he looking for some tips?
Living on a barge (narrowboat) on a canal - fairly floodproof.
Living on a barge (narrowboat) on a river - definitely not floodproof.
Loughborough is a canal, though one that joins to a river (the Soar) at either end.
Though the River Calder floods a few years back washed away large chunks of the adjacent Rochdale Canal, so even that’s not entirely safe.
A decade or so back, a woman living on a barge on the Nene in Northampton died when her boat got involved in a flood.
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Actually I only posted the Harry Cole tweet as it fit with @RochdalePioneers unfunny nonsense.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
Starmer is quite probably a "hypocrite and a liar". He is probably unfit for high office. Sunak is neither, but you don't rate Sunak, you rate Johnson who took hypocrisy and lying to Olympic levels.
Actually I don’t comment on whether Boris was a great PM or visionary politician, I just say he was an electoral asset that the Tories were crazy to replace
He may have lied and been hypocritical, and he gets enough stick for that - Sir Keir lies and is hypocritical, yet the same people who suffered from BDS won’t hear of it
The fact that Bozo - a person fired multiple times for being untrustworthy (I won’t say lying because there are times lies are unavoidable) is regarded by you and others as an electoral asset shows how screwed politics is in the modern world
Our justice system is one of the better ones & it’s still prone to significant miscarriages. The Sun & Sunak were happy to label the Iranian regime “barbaric” for using the death penalty. Shame this poor man didn’t have the benefit of Starmer’s services
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
Nixon delayed one of the lunar landings (apollo 17, I think) so, if there was an accident, it would not interfere with an election campaign.
The entire Apollo stack was very marginal; ISTR there was a meeting in about 1970, where engineers could not guarantee even a 1-in-1 chance of any individual mission succeeding, and only a 75% chance of crew surviving any particular mission.
I enjoyed the space expert on R4 this morning describing the loss of the lunar module, which will become space debris in a day or two, as a "minor setback". "Just a flesh wound?" came back the retort from the presenter!
When people describe the prime minister as the “most powerful person in the country”, it might sound like a cliché but it’s also true. That’s exactly what he is. What he says goes. If there’s something he really wants to do, there’s not really anyone who can stop him.
I say this only to point out that, when he’s turning in little circles around a tiny coffee table inside a very small room at Accrington Stanley Football Club, doing something that used to be called a speech but which he has decided to call a “PM Connect event” instead, there’s absolutely no one making him do it.
All this excruciating embarrassment, the almost violent awkwardness of it, it’s all a matter of personal choice. It might look like an anxiety dream in which a small boy is having to take school assembly having prepared absolutely nothing to say, but it’s not that. This really is the way Rishi Sunak wants things to be. It’s how he likes it.
But the PM isn’t the most powerful person in the country. Keith Donkey is. Did you not know: That Starmer commissioned the Horizon system in 1996 as Secretary of State for Computer Systems That Starmer was the sole coder for Horizon That Starmer was the operative inside Fujitsu personally changing all those account entries That Starmer when running the Post Office chose to persecute and prosecute as many innocent sub postmasters as possible That Starmer as the Post Office minister chose not to bother meeting any campaigners That Starmer chose to award the CBE to Vennells That Starmer liked to enjoy a curry and beers with evil henchman Ed Davey whilst watching videos of former post office staff crying.
He’s a bad’un, and thank goodness the Tory media have finally exposed him and his crimes. He’s such a trickster that he’s even persuaded people that th trains ran and you could see a doctor and the schools weren’t a disaster and taxes weren’t at a record high back in 2010 - which they were - AND that the opposite is true now - which it isn’t.
Time for a Clean Sweep. Let’s get Labour out of power. Only by voting for the change candidate can we see an end to Starmer and his crimes.
You forgot this
“ Starmer worked for free as a lawyer to help scores of twisted killers around the world — including a monster who buried his two-year-old stepchild alive.
Represented Jamaican who stabbed a 9 month year old baby — pro bono.
So he used his talents to ensure the death penalty was downgraded to a life sentence.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
I read @rochdalepioneers attempt at satire then saw Harry Cole’s tweet so it seemed worth posting. Shows The Sun have got it in for Sir Keir though, rightly or wrongly
Its good to see that Rupert Myers isn’t just some deranged, culture war loving, Brexiteer. It makes his thoughts on Starmer’s inaction over the Post Office scandal more trustworthy
Is a Harry Cole tweet ever worth posting ?
I’m this case it was as it fit perfectly with the deranged ramblings I replied to. A happy coincidence
In general it’s good to see what all sides are saying rather than stick your nose in the air and consider what is going to be read by millions of voters to be unworthy of you
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
Nixon delayed one of the lunar landings (apollo 17, I think) so, if there was an accident, it would not interfere with an election campaign.
The entire Apollo stack was very marginal; ISTR there was a meeting in about 1970, where engineers could not guarantee even a 1-in-1 chance of any individual mission succeeding, and only a 75% chance of crew surviving any particular mission.
I enjoyed the space expert on R4 this morning describing the loss of the lunar module, which will become space debris in a day or two, as a "minor setback". "Just a flesh wound?" came back the retort from the presenter!
The NASA/private sector moon program assumed from the start that they might lose several efforts. That was the point of having multiple 'shots on goal'. Still disappointing.
Korea ends age-old tradition of dog meat consumption
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
Is it specifically illegal to butcher a dog in this country?
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
I just find it so odd. With very limited technology and virtually zero computer power we managed to fly 250,000 miles to the moon, land, play golf, drive an electric car around, take off and meet up with an orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon and then fly back to earth and land safely. This was 55 years ago. Since 1972 the furthest a human has flown away from earth is just 350 miles and all these new attempts to send someone back to the moon always have issues. Just imagine telling a person alive in 1972 that by 2024 not only would Apollo 17 be the last time a human went to the moon but it would also be the last time a human left earth orbit. There are now only 4 astronauts who walked on the moon left alive, soon it will be zero.
Im sure people will say lack of funding etc but that is not an explanation. Why hasn't China done it?
https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685 Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly intact!
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
Nixon delayed one of the lunar landings (apollo 17, I think) so, if there was an accident, it would not interfere with an election campaign.
The entire Apollo stack was very marginal; ISTR there was a meeting in about 1970, where engineers could not guarantee even a 1-in-1 chance of any individual mission succeeding, and only a 75% chance of crew surviving any particular mission.
Yes it is funny how people like @NerysHughes reflect on the good old days. The real irony is Apollo 13 was after the 1969 landing and yet he suggests they should have used now, the technology of then, because it worked. It is bizarre on how many think the good old days were always better. Occasionally yes, but mostly no. For one my wife would be dead from cancer now if it were 1969 as would many many others.
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
I just find it so odd. With very limited technology and virtually zero computer power we managed to fly 250,000 miles to the moon, land, play golf, drive an electric car around, take off and meet up with an orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon and then fly back to earth and land safely. This was 55 years ago. Since 1972 the furthest a human has flown away from earth is just 350 miles and all these new attempts to send someone back to the moon always have issues. Just imagine telling a person alive in 1972 that by 2024 not only would Apollo 17 be the last time a human went to the moon but it would also be the last time a human left earth orbit. There are now only 4 astronauts who walked on the moon left alive, soon it will be zero.
Im sure people will say lack of funding etc but that is not an explanation. Why hasn't China done it?
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Both parties have presided pretty equally over this mess given how long ago it started.
But you are absolutely right that the Tories have been dragging their feet over compensation and holding the Post Office's feet to the fire over the Inquiry. Davey is not the person in charge here and whatever he failed to do back in 2010 is as nothing to what the current government is failing to do now. As for the attempts to blame Starmer, these are risible and desperate.
It is worth remembering that in 2014 the Tories passed legislation which made it very difficult indeed for anyone wrongly convicted and then having their conviction overturned to get compensation. That affects lots more people than the subpostmasters. See Andy Malkinson, for instance. Then there is the "innocence" tax about which I have previously written in a header on here.
As well as the delays in overturning the convictions and securing adequate compensation, there is also the refusal to revisit the law on computer evidence so that we get a law that is fit for purpose. If that is not revisited properly, then we will continue to get miscarriages of justice, though very few of them will ever get dramas made about them even 20 years after the events in question.
https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685 Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly intact!
Next time I'm thinking of falling out a plane, I'll bear it mind.
(Maybe Apple could offer their engineering services to Boeing. Perhaps they can help make a plane that survives a fall from 16,000 feet?)
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
The accounting systems which the PO used prior to Horizon were not, AIUI, a thing of beauty, hence the need for the Horizon system in the first place.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Your latter point - to ask such pointed questions you need to both understand how the system works and then identify where the system is failing. Is there any evidence the PO management actually understood the thing?
I suspect not. They would have had some idea that it created a virtual set of books noting the transactions in and out of the branches. And in millions of cases that is exactly what it did as the Second Sight examination confirmed.
But the range of what it was being asked to do was complicated. Foreign exchange, deposit accounts, National Savings Certificates, a really weird combination of money and money equivalents, some of which had changing values. What is not clear to me yet, and that might simply be ignorance on my part, is how these discrepancies which created the deficits arose. My guess would be that it would be in these complications but its only a guess.
Power and connectivity issues resulting in transactions going missing or being corrupted between branch and the main servers at Fujitsu HQ seems to be the main candidate, coupled with a very buggy program that could in rare circumstances make mistakes.
That the senior PO execs didn't know how the system worked in any detail isn't surprising, and would surely be true of senior execs (outside the IT dept) in any large company
A point not commented on is that the legal action, and TV drama, focused heavily on the question of whether Horizon branch accounts could be accessed remotely. This is important because of the Post Office's mix of early ignorance (probably based on Fujitsu lies) and later lies about it, and as a theoretical challenge to the PO's assertion that branch accounts were "secure" - but I haven't seen any suggestion that discrepancies were arising because local accounts were being accessed remotely by some evil actor inside Fujitsu?
Needn't be a matter of a Fujitsu tech diverting money. The very fact that the record could be changed remotely would throw the question of evidential validity up in the air, surely, unless it was specifically accounted for on a forensic programming level. I've read of a case [edit: not the PO] where the accused was assuredly headed for gaol till the defence got a forensic programmer in on the case who found that the sysadmin had been poking around in the files and thereby changing times and datestamps - result, case thrown out.
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
I just find it so odd. With very limited technology and virtually zero computer power we managed to fly 250,000 miles to the moon, land, play golf, drive an electric car around, take off and meet up with an orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon and then fly back to earth and land safely. This was 55 years ago. Since 1972 the furthest a human has flown away from earth is just 350 miles and all these new attempts to send someone back to the moon always have issues. Just imagine telling a person alive in 1972 that by 2024 not only would Apollo 17 be the last time a human went to the moon but it would also be the last time a human left earth orbit. There are now only 4 astronauts who walked on the moon left alive, soon it will be zero.
Im sure people will say lack of funding etc but that is not an explanation. Why hasn't China done it?
Because this time it needs to have a commercial justification. China certainly has the capacity - they've already sent landers which have retrieved samples from the far side of the moon.
The US will return there soon - but the plan is to set up permanent infrastructure, and do it affordably. The equivalent spending on Apollo would be nearly a trillion dollars today.
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Starmer getting weak attacks like this which any sensible onlooker can see are vexatious (perhaps the current DPP can step in and stop them) can't do him any harm, in fact it might even give him a bit of cry-wolf protection.
Look at the record so far: donkey sanctuary; currygate; Saville; and now, surely the weakest attack line of all. If and when an actual scandal comes up people may well look and think it's those right wing newspapers making something out of nothing again.
Yes as isam and others write these attack posts there is a sort of self- flagellating futility that almost drips off the page. It’s weak. They know it’s weak. They even know that the main message it gives is to confirm what they already know but can’t admit…Starmer just isn’t the sort of politician that they and we have grown wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
Actually I only posted the Harry Cole tweet as it fit with @RochdalePioneers unfunny nonsense.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
Starmer is quite probably a "hypocrite and a liar". He is probably unfit for high office. Sunak is neither, but you don't rate Sunak, you rate Johnson who took hypocrisy and lying to Olympic levels.
Actually I don’t comment on whether Boris was a great PM or visionary politician, I just say he was an electoral asset that the Tories were crazy to replace
He may have lied and been hypocritical, and he gets enough stick for that - Sir Keir lies and is hypocritical, yet the same people who suffered from BDS won’t hear of it
The fact that Bozo - a person fired multiple times for being untrustworthy (I won’t say lying because there are times lies are unavoidable) is regarded by you and others as an electoral asset shows how screwed politics is in the modern world
Quite possibly. I would prefer sleaze free, honest, upstanding, public servants as politicians. That is what Sir Keir is trying to sell himself as, and those who just want the evil referendum winners out are buying it. But the truth is that Boris was an electoral asset, and 2019 Conservative voters prefer him to any other option. Like or dislike of him from people on here can’t change that
ON topic - belatedly - are things better than in 2010? Without thinking, I'd say no. This decade has seen crisis after crisis after crisis: covid, Ukraine, Gaza. We are angry and at each other's throats. Almost every public action is riven with subtext and the explicit taking of sides. We have the spectre of mass disaster hanging over us. Telly is rubbish. Pop music is rubbish. Books are rubbish. Idiocy and inanity are all around us. Inflation. Gas prices. AI. It's bloody January. The sheer frustration of having to interact with needlessly complicated technology. My knees. And so on.
And yet, have some perspective. I picture Manchester City Centre now - with its dazzling array of gleaming skyscrapers, its cranes, its vibrancy, its busyness - and back then, with its single anomalous skyscraper, its static skyline, when one unit in five was empty. It was fantasy to imagine that by 2024 Manchester could look like it does now. Or my local town centre (Sale) in suburban south Manchester, with its uninspiring selection of roughhouse pubs, unprepossessing takeaways and charity shops; again, impossible to imagine the transformation which would take place between now and then.
It's not just the private sector; despite the mood music of public decay, I think back to how the public realm and the public sector buildings I interact with were then: tired, and shabby - now is far better.
And we forget that life in the early 2010s was pretty frustrating too. OK, there were no chatbots, but there were interminable phone calls to call centres in India where staff were given scripts, which amounted to the same thing. Technology was less complicated, but worked less well. And so on.
The big difference is the direction of travel. Back then it felt like the bad times had passed. We might not expect the upward trajectory to be stellar, but there was no reason to believe it would be forever dreadful. Now, after the bruising experience of the early 2020s, it's much harder to be optimistic. And so my instinctive answer is no, things are worse. But they aren't worse, they really aren't. It might be hard to be optimistic, but it's not irrational to be.
This isn't a political point. Take almost any moment in time; 9 times out of 10 it will be better than 14 years previously. It's just not human nature to be objective about this.
I do maintain than telly has gone to the dogs, mind you; and parking apps are the devil's work.
If you choose to make a political point out of looking "into the eyes of people I’ve served and represented" over 20 year legal career as a reason to be elected to No10 - as Starmer did on Jan 4 - then the public have a right to know what that actually entailed
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
I just find it so odd. With very limited technology and virtually zero computer power we managed to fly 250,000 miles to the moon, land, play golf, drive an electric car around, take off and meet up with an orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon and then fly back to earth and land safely. This was 55 years ago. Since 1972 the furthest a human has flown away from earth is just 350 miles and all these new attempts to send someone back to the moon always have issues. Just imagine telling a person alive in 1972 that by 2024 not only would Apollo 17 be the last time a human went to the moon but it would also be the last time a human left earth orbit. There are now only 4 astronauts who walked on the moon left alive, soon it will be zero.
Im sure people will say lack of funding etc but that is not an explanation. Why hasn't China done it?
There was a cold war race. There isn't now and hasn't been for sometime. It is simple.
And you have posted one of those quotes that drives me absolutely mad as an ex mathematician (you are not the only one they do it on the News all the time) which is:
'An orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon'
Relative to what? I assume the moons surface. So what? I am currently spinning around the earths axis at some huge velocity and the sun even more and goodness know what I am doing around the milky way. What matters is it is relative to something meaningful and when it docks (ie something meaningful) it is very very very slow. When you drive down the road you say you are doing 30 mph (relative to the earth), not something meaningless. When you are in space being relative to the earth or the moon is meaningless. Recently the news reported on the lander for an asteroid and quoted some phenomenal figure. If it landed on the asteroid at that figure there wouldn't have been much left of it and relative to the earth the velocity was meaningless.
https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685 Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly intact!
Sounds impressive, but although it would have taken half an hour to reach the ground, its speed of impact would be the same as dropping it from less than ten feet above the ground, I think?
ON topic - belatedly - are things better than in 2010? Without thinking, I'd say no. This decade has seen crisis after crisis after crisis: covid, Ukraine, Gaza. We are angry and at each other's throats. Almost every public action is riven with subtext and the explicit taking of sides. We have the spectre of mass disaster hanging over us. Telly is rubbish. Pop music is rubbish. Books are rubbish. Idiocy and inanity are all around us. Inflation. Gas prices. AI. It's bloody January. The sheer frustration of having to interact with needlessly complicated technology. My knees. And so on.
And yet, have some perspective. I picture Manchester City Centre now - with its dazzling array of gleaming skyscrapers, its cranes, its vibrancy, its busyness - and back then, with its single anomalous skyscraper, its static skyline, when one unit in five was empty. It was fantasy to imagine that by 2024 Manchester could look like it does now. Or my local town centre (Sale) in suburban south Manchester, with its uninspiring selection of roughhouse pubs, unprepossessing takeaways and charity shops; again, impossible to imagine the transformation which would take place between now and then.
It's not just the private sector; despite the mood music of public decay, I think back to how the public realm and the public sector buildings I interact with were then: tired, and shabby - now is far better.
And we forget that life in the early 2010s was pretty frustrating too. OK, there were no chatbots, but there were interminable phone calls to call centres in India where staff were given scripts, which amounted to the same thing. Technology was less complicated, but worked less well. And so on.
The big difference is the direction of travel. Back then it felt like the bad times had passed. We might not expect the upward trajectory to be stellar, but there was no reason to believe it would be forever dreadful. Now, after the bruising experience of the early 2020s, it's much harder to be optimistic. And so my instinctive answer is no, things are worse. But they aren't worse, they really aren't. It might be hard to be optimistic, but it's not irrational to be.
This isn't a political point. Take almost any moment in time; 9 times out of 10 it will be better than 14 years previously. It's just not human nature to be objective about this.
I do maintain than telly has gone to the dogs, mind you; and parking apps are the devil's work.
Dunno. Silly, pointless poll IMO. People are forgetting the credit crunch? But, then again, there wasn't the ghastly social media back then.
It has been reported Ed Davey avoided tonight's debate on the Royal Mail scandal in the house
Not a good look
Newsnight asked Bates about Davey last night, and he replied that he didn’t want to single out Davey and blamed the people advising him more. When they asked him about whether Vennells should return her CBE, he was much more combative, asking who made the decision to give it to her in the first place.
Bates can surely see how the Tories don’t have his or his SPMRs interests at heart at all, but are simply flailing around trying to pin blame on the opposition leaders - both to try and distract from the fact that Tories have presided over most of this mess and dragged their feet at resolving it for years, and are in a desperate political predicament looking for any tactic, however cynical or crass, to try rescue some popularity.
Before long we should start to learn more about the relationship between the Government and the PO Board and senior management. As you have noted elsewhere, Nick Wallis indicated in his book that it was a close one, but so far the Inquiry has barely touched the subject. Vennells' testimony will be particularly interesting in this respect.
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
This is an important question. Were the Board of the PO simply well paid muppets doing what their single shareholder directed or did they in fact have executive independence?
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
From what I read a while back, for years the Post Office was convinced plenty of subpostmasters were robbing them blind for years but couldn't prove it so when Horizon turned up and 'confirmed' that they were feeling all smug and happy.
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
The accounting systems which the PO used prior to Horizon were not, AIUI, a thing of beauty, hence the need for the Horizon system in the first place.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Your latter point - to ask such pointed questions you need to both understand how the system works and then identify where the system is failing. Is there any evidence the PO management actually understood the thing?
I suspect not. They would have had some idea that it created a virtual set of books noting the transactions in and out of the branches. And in millions of cases that is exactly what it did as the Second Sight examination confirmed.
But the range of what it was being asked to do was complicated. Foreign exchange, deposit accounts, National Savings Certificates, a really weird combination of money and money equivalents, some of which had changing values. What is not clear to me yet, and that might simply be ignorance on my part, is how these discrepancies which created the deficits arose. My guess would be that it would be in these complications but its only a guess.
Power and connectivity issues resulting in transactions going missing or being corrupted between branch and the main servers at Fujitsu HQ seems to be the main candidate, coupled with a very buggy program that could in rare circumstances make mistakes.
That the senior PO execs didn't know how the system worked in any detail isn't surprising, and would surely be true of senior execs (outside the IT dept) in any large company
A point not commented on is that the legal action, and TV drama, focused heavily on the question of whether Horizon branch accounts could be accessed remotely. This is important because of the Post Office's mix of early ignorance (probably based on Fujitsu lies) and later lies about it, and as a theoretical challenge to the PO's assertion that branch accounts were "secure" - but I haven't seen any suggestion that discrepancies were arising because local accounts were being accessed remotely by some evil actor inside Fujitsu?
Needn't be a matter of a Fujitsu tech diverting money. The very fact that the record could be changed remotely would throw the question of evidential validity up in the air, surely, unless it was specifically accounted for on a forensic programming level. I've read of a case [edit: not the PO] where the accused was assuredly headed for gaol till the defence got a forensic programmer in on the case who found that the sysadmin had been poking around in the files and thereby changing times and datestamps - result, case thrown out.
Absolutely - but its a theoretical challenge to the subpostmater being solely responsible for their own accounts, without any relation to the actual cause of the shortfalls. Such it is, that lawyers spend much of their time arguing about something that is interesting but, in the real world situation, not actually relevant.
Our justice system is one of the better ones & it’s still prone to significant miscarriages. The Sun & Sunak were happy to label the Iranian regime “barbaric” for using the death penalty. Shame this poor man didn’t have the benefit of Starmer’s services
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The decision on Dobbs was categorically NOT that states could interpret the US Constitution differently from one another. It was that Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and the US Constitution did not, in fact, protect a woman's right to an abortion. That left states free to allow or not allow abortions - laws restricting abortion access ceased to be unconstitutional.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
Is ineligible to take OFFICE as President (or technically as an Officer of the US). The Constitution says nothing about someone engaging in insurrection being ineligible to be on the BALLOT for President.
So yes it is an option for the court to say the Constitution is silent on that and it is so pedantic it could, even if it looks absurd
No, they really can't do that. The whole basis of the Colorado decision is that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be President, and that state law prevents someone who would be ineligible from serving from being on the ballot.
SCOTUS literally cannot allow that decision to stand without agreeing he is constitutionally ineligible or (absurdly) saying he can be eligible to be President in one state but not another.
The option you're inventing just isn't going to happen.
Yes, they can. They are only required to interpret the US constitution which says nothing about someone who engaged in insurrection being on or off the ballot. They could say the state of Maine could interpret their electoral law that way as could any other state but that would not be a matter for the Federal highest court to rule on.
The ONLY thing the US constitution prohibits is holding OFFICE in the US after engaging in insurrection and they could say they would hold off on ruling on that until Trump is elected again, if he is
That is simply wrong. The Maine and Colorado decisions aren't about state electoral law, which is clear that those ineligible to take up the post are ineligible to be on the ballot (and I don't think Trump's legal team dispute that). The point of contention is exclusively the interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the effect that Trump is ineligible to be President.
If he is not, then Trump is absolutely right to say those states cannot keep him from the ballot when he meets all other requirements (signatures, filing fees and so on). There is absolutely no chance SCOTUS would have taken the case (they don't have to) if, as I believe is now your position, they may say it's all moot unless and until he's elected, so free swim for the states. It's ludicrous to think that will happen, and it definitely won't.
But we'll have to agree to disagree on this as it's banging my head against a brick wall to argue with someone who is so ignorant of how the law works. Come back to me when the decision is made. There are several possible outcomes with differing degrees of likelihood. But the one you suggest isn't one of them at all.
Under the constitution it is.
Section 3. 'No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.'
The US Presidency is an office of the United States.
Maybe, maybe not, they could argue the US President is head of the executive branch of the USA, not merely an officer of it.
Though yet again that relates to taking office, not election to it
Being head of something is being an officer of it. These are not exclusionary things. Is Sir Patrick Sanders not an officer of the British Army?
Yes but the King arguably isn't
But the King isn't the head of the army. The King is the head of the monarchy and the kingship is definitely an office of the monarchy.
The King is the Monarch. The Monarch is the Crown. The King is the head of the army. And the Navy. And the other one that occasionally does things. See that Crown on the shoulders of soldiers?
"The Chief of the General Staff is the head of the British Army. "
Well, it's nice to know that nobody can give him orders. Er...
The King is supreme commander and fount of all power and authority. It all goes thru him.
He appoints a Prime Minister and assigns powers to them to exercise on his behalf
The Minister (a civilian) gives instructions and directives to the Chief of the Defence Staff . This usually happens in a Cabinet subcommittee such as the National Security Council (the PM) or the Defence Council (the Minister of Defence).
At this point the CDS translates the instructions from the civilian Minister into orders, it becomes a military affair and things proceed thru the military chain of command. The CDS only does this because of the powers given to the Ministers directly or indirectly from the King.
The soldier's ultimate loyalty is to the Crown and only obeys the chain of command because of powers granted to the chain by the Crown. That's why the crowns are on the shoulders.
The King really is the top of the food chain, second only to God.
IIRC Boeing went for about 30 years without having any significant problems with their aircraft, from about 1980 to around 2010. It may have been even longer.
There were always problems, sometimes fatal ones, but usually either a one-off or something the engineers hadn't foreseen. Now we're seeing Boeing pushing out a fundamentally flawed aircraft that exists only for financial reasons, plus shoddy workmanship and inadequate quality checks.
If anyone is interested in what it would take for the 737 door plug to come away, this video explains it fairly well and has some nice, clear pictures of the door plug assembly. In short, four nuts that are supposed to be locked in place with securing pins must have been either not fitted at all or the pins were missing and the nuts fell out. Either way, it's a horrible failure on Boeing's part.
As I understand it, manufacture of the fuselage is contracted out to a separate company (Spirit) and delivered to Boeing complete, including the configuration of the door / non-door.
So in theory this would be down to Spirit, unless the non-door was subsequently taken out by Boeing to make it easier to fit the interior and the bolts not refitted afterwards.
Note that Spirit also make stuff for Airbus...
PS Happy New Year all
Spirit Aerosystems were part of Boeing until about twenty years ago.
AIUI the Airbus stuff that Spirit makes comes from the UK, mainly Glasgow, and is ex-BAE and Bombardier . Therefore probably a very different culture to the Wichita crowd.
Boeing cannot just blame Spirit, if indeed that's where the problem comes form. Their processes should have detected such problems on acceptance, especially as the shells come with interiors and the parts are easily accessed. But detection involves people, and that involves money...
The other point is that this isn't a permanent plug; it's designed to be readily openable for maintenance, as described in detail here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=maLBGFYl9_o
But given its location, probably not particularly often.
I presume that Boeing fit the interiors themselves ? In which case the plugs should be very easily and rapidly inspected, when the fuselage assembly is delivered. Quite extraordinary that this hasn't been done reliably.
The fact that other airlines have now reported multiple plugs with loose bolts suggested it's not an isolated mistake.
They're not slowing full stop. I keep getting morons posting things like "Toyota are stopping making EVs". One even posted a YouTube video which looked like it had been done by AI explaining how that was the case. Whereas in the real world Toyota (to use the example) are investing $8bn in one factory in the US and significantly more than that in Japan and other markets. And the response? "Fake News"
There is Starmer Derangemenrt Syndrome. There is also EV Derangement Syndrome.The Sun are very good at pumping out nonsense and weaponising it. Some people have been praising tweets by Kelvin McKenzie who supposedly is calling out the truth on the PO affair. Yes, *that* KM. And that "truth" front page.
Toyota were hilariously late in the EV game, due to the boss personally disliking the technology.
https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685 Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly intact!
Sounds impressive, but although it would have taken half an hour to reach the ground, its speed of impact would be the same as dropping it from less than ten feet above the ground, I think?
That - doesn't sound right to me. Instinctively, I'd think it would take an iphone a good 100 feet of falling at least to reach terminal velocity. But I'm not sure offhand how to do the sums. Your overall point is right though, I think - falling from a plane isn't much worse than falling from a high building.
https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685 Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly intact!
Sounds impressive, but although it would have taken half an hour to reach the ground, its speed of impact would be the same as dropping it from less than ten feet above the ground, I think?
Our justice system is one of the better ones & it’s still prone to significant miscarriages. The Sun & Sunak were happy to label the Iranian regime “barbaric” for using the death penalty. Shame this poor man didn’t have the benefit of Starmer’s services
"Cold-hearted Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer saves sadistic foreign baby killer from the gallows whilst tacitly declining to help plucky Brit patriot from evading evil Islamic Guard firing squad".
'-...German Spies.. -Filthy Hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war! - ...our spies... -Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!'
Though tbf I know plenty of people who think people accused of certain crimes don't deserve a defence lawyer, and anyone willing to represent them must be a terrible person. So maybe attacking Starmer on his record as a lawyer might hit home a bit. AND people who are against the death penalty in general but willing to make exceptions for certain kinds of cases.
Personally I find the attacks a bit incoherent (and therefore desperate) - on the one hand Starmer is a hypocrite happy to sacrifice his principles at the first opportunity, on the other he has such a principled opposition to the death penalty that he goes out to defend people accused of killing children in other countries. Of course perfectly possible to be both, but it doesn't help overcome the current prevailing narrative, which seems to be Starmer is very dull, but can't be worse than the current bunch of chancers.
All they need to do is use the technology that worked so well in 1969.
Lol. Just wondering where you draw the line on that one. Apollo wasn't exactly accident free - several dead in Apollo 1 and a moon landing abandoned and miraculous recovery in Apollo 13. Do we abandon flight because a window falls out of a plane, go back to horse and carriage because trains and cars crash. Go back to the stone age because people die in fires. I mean where do you draw the line?
I just find it so odd. With very limited technology and virtually zero computer power we managed to fly 250,000 miles to the moon, land, play golf, drive an electric car around, take off and meet up with an orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon and then fly back to earth and land safely. This was 55 years ago. Since 1972 the furthest a human has flown away from earth is just 350 miles and all these new attempts to send someone back to the moon always have issues. Just imagine telling a person alive in 1972 that by 2024 not only would Apollo 17 be the last time a human went to the moon but it would also be the last time a human left earth orbit. There are now only 4 astronauts who walked on the moon left alive, soon it will be zero.
Im sure people will say lack of funding etc but that is not an explanation. Why hasn't China done it?
Because this time it needs to have a commercial justification. China certainly has the capacity - they've already sent landers which have retrieved samples from the far side of the moon.
The US will return there soon - but the plan is to set up permanent infrastructure, and do it affordably. The equivalent spending on Apollo would be nearly a trillion dollars today.
We had the technology to send man to the moon in 1969, why not just use that?
Every new attempt always has issues. In 1961 the USA had not even been into space, yet just 8 years later they landed and returned from the moon. This was with zero technology compared to today. Other than the fire on the ground for Apollo 1, the Apollo programme had a perfect safety reord and even Apollo 13 managed to orbit the moon despite the explosion ( which was caused by a manufacturing error and not poor design)
Its like the first landing of the Boeing 747 at Heathrow in 1970 and then not having another one land there for 50 years.
Comments
I don't like attacking defence lawyers for defending, in a reasonable manner, terrible people.
What a monster.
Cannot imagine why you didn't quote Rupert Myers this time.
The state should *never* claim so much power over individuals that it can end their lives; the justice system isn’t reliable enough for the death penalty to ever be an acceptable sanction (just look at the post office scandal) - good for Keir Starmer
https://twitter.com/RupertMyers/status/1744630107694633466
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/meloni-urged-to-ban-neofascist-groups-after-crowds-filmed-saluting-in-rome
Who shouldn't even have legal representation.
A "defence lawyer?" Don't you know that 17.4m people voted to get rid of them. String Em Up!
https://x.com/BarristerSecret/status/1744630555797291226?s=20
As the issue of compensation for miscarriages of justice is rightly in the news, it’s timely to note that in 2014, the government changed the law to make it all but impossible for people wrongly convicted and imprisoned to claim compensation.
https://www.jcpc.uk/
Imagine not knowing the UK is the highest appellate court for some overseas countries.
Life without parole is an acceptable punishment, the death penalty is not.
If Starmer did his job encouraging that - then good for him.
"I do regard him as a threat to democracy."
https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1743768221814042631
China Plug-In Car Sales Hit 4th Consecutive Record In November 2023
The number of new registrations exceeded 870,000 and counting.
https://insideevs.com/news/703633/china-plugin-car-sales-november2023/
My guess is that that we will end up with confirmation of what many of us feel already, i.e. that no Party comes out of this well, but the one that has been in charge for the past 13 years is going to have to shoulder most of the blame, fair or not.
Ed DaveyKeir Starmer.If there is any justice, the Tories will win a majority of 704. Justice! We demand it!
There is Starmer Derangemenrt Syndrome. There is also EV Derangement Syndrome.The Sun are very good at pumping out nonsense and weaponising it. Some people have been praising tweets by Kelvin McKenzie who supposedly is calling out the truth on the PO affair. Yes, *that* KM. And that "truth" front page.
I have to teach standing doctrine to my Spring 2024
@UTexasLaw students in a few weeks.
“The rule for standing in the Fifth Circuit is … umm … well …
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1744550257927622921
What have we had so far? Savile-gate, Korma-gate, Defence lawyer defending people, PO scandal, Gaza... I will have missed quite a few.
Frankly its a little scary that this man could be our next Prime Minister. He is an evil magician.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/356_366614.html
Korea put an end to the contentious tradition of consuming dogs as the National Assembly passed a special bill, marking a rare moment of political unity to ban the trade and consumption of dog meat.
The bill garnered unanimous approval in a 208-0 vote during a plenary session, with two abstentions.
According to the bill, set to be enforced from 2027, the raising or butchering of dogs for human consumption, as well as the distribution or sale of dog meat, are prohibited.
Those who violate the law by raising and butchering dogs will be subject to a maximum three-year prison term or a fine of up to 30 million won ($22,768), while those distributing dog meat can face up to two years behind bars or a maximum fine of 20 million won.
By the first half of 2024, stakeholders in the dog meat industry, such as farmers, retailers, and restaurant owners, are mandated to register their businesses. Additionally, they must submit plans to local authorities outlining the steps to downsize and eventually close down their establishments.
The registered stakeholders will be subject to government support to exit the industry and transition to more humane professions, such as livestock breeding and agriculture.
The special act prohibits any further breeding or the establishment of new dog meat facilities...
Its good to see that Rupert Myers isn’t just some deranged, culture war loving, Brexiteer. It makes his thoughts on Starmer’s inaction over the Post Office scandal more trustworthy
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/08/president-macron-france-prime-minister-elisabeth-borne/
A pity. I was curious where they would go next after I decided not to give them my phone number.
I didn't know what it was until I had taken it at a works canteen and sat down. I ate it happily enough. Like fairly low quality steak to be honest is my memory.
I've been a veggie since the BSE scandal so doubt I will ever have it again.
I can hardly imagine that any director of the PO who reported to their paymaster that they had a major problem with a computer system that did not work reliably but which had been used as the basis for hundreds of prosecutions, most and possibly all of which had to be deemed to be unsafe, resulting in compensation claims into the hundreds of millions was going to get a warm welcome. If they did report that and were told to keep a lid on it as far as possible then their culpability, although still gross, is diminished. If they failed to disclose this to their paymasters whether out of cowardice or ineptitude, it is all the greater.
Or, to put it more succinctly, where did the buck actually stop?
They were convinced they were right and it was inconceivable for them to be wrong.
wearily used to. He doesn’t appear to be venal, corrupt or a wannabe dictator. It discombobulates them and, like an addict, they want to stop but haven’t hit rock bottom yet.
I have deleted a short thread I posted yesterday re. the CPS & Seema Misra: I had found an archived transcript & an FOI response from the CPS that strongly suggested they prosecuted her, but these documents may *both* have been wrong according to evidence before the inquiry (1/2)
The extent of CPS knowledge of and involvement in Post Office prosecutions remains unclear - it is not as straightforward necessarily as saying there was no knowledge or involvement, and I understand further FOI requests have been made - one to keep an eye on (2/2)
https://x.com/rupertmyers/status/1744597438466343056?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
As an exhibit I give you this
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/08/paula-vennells-church-compares-post-office-drama-the-crown/
Sorry but even after 25 people were found innocent and problems were obvious Ms Vennells didn’t put a stop to the prosecutions. The TV program is merely telling the general public a story that anyone who cared about the case (and as her manager the Diocese should have cared) has known for years
The reality is the Diocese should have removed her when the Court of Appeal released it verdict and everyone else moved to remove her immediately and the fact you didn’t reflects rather badly on the CoE regardless of the statement yesterday
Ed DaveyKeir Starmer?Remember that this scandal was decades in the making. Horizon was commissioned in 1996. So there have been a lot of managers and a lot of ministers between now and then. Whilst I accept that fear of the boss is real for many people, both the boss and the people scared of the boss changed repeatedly.
I haven't watched feeds from the public enquiry. What struck me about the dramatised storytelling in the ITV piece was that the PO managers had No Clue what Horizon actually was in detail. A cultural "Horizon is what our whole business runs on" attitude is easy to build, so nobody challenges the dialectic that Horizon is brilliant.
I think Sir Keir is a hypocrite and a liar, which is just like most politicians I am used to as it happens
You're right that a complete transition is pretty well inevitable, but it's happening a lot faster there than it is here.
When you have a range of people with small businesses running quite a complicated business issuing pensions, numerous permits, licences and other documents, getting paid mainly in cash and with little in the way of checks as to what had been issued it is hardly surprising that the odd one was tempted to dip into that cash flow from time to time when things were hard.
The need for a system like Horizon is obvious and you can see why the PO were keen on it and reluctant to accept that it wasn't reliable. It would undermine their entire business structure so there would be great institutional hostility to any such suggestion. All of that is understandable but there really should have come a point at which Fujitsu were being asked some very pointed questions.
Edit, apologies @RochdalePioneers, I see on refreshing you have already made exactly the same point.
(And, of course, it's almost inconceivable that a significant number of individuals in the PO weren't aware of that much earlier.)
Anyone sane can make a lot more money doing something way easier
I couldn't watch the PO drama as it would have upset me too much because I am involved in a fight that has so many parallels (although nobody has gone to jail). Huge obstacles are put in the way of getting justice by civil servants who advise ministers and ministers and MPs generally (with a few notable exceptions) just accept the crap they are fed by the administrative machine no matter how obvious it is found to be nonsense.
I am not going to bore you all here, but you would be shocked by some of the nonsense that is sent out or even reported to Parliamentary committees without consequences.
The extent to which the people at the very top kept junior ministers up to date with key issues informally (if they did), I can't really say. Leading officials at the DTI - like David Sibbick who gave evidence to the inquiry during the last phase - were known figures within the business and senior people would meet or lunch with such civil servants once or twice a year to keep in touch.
For POL, the government clearly had an interest in the objective of tackling its losses and returning to break even, and as a business not destined for the private sector it is possible (but I don't know) that there was more regular involvement.
The government was of course heavily involved in the Horizon decision at the outset, because of its early involvement through the DWP and then in working with the PO to find a way forward after DWP pulled out.
But the range of what it was being asked to do was complicated. Foreign exchange, deposit accounts, National Savings Certificates, a really weird combination of money and money equivalents, some of which had changing values. What is not clear to me yet, and that might simply be ignorance on my part, is how these discrepancies which created the deficits arose. My guess would be that it would be in these complications but its only a guess.
https://twitter.com/v_j_freeman/status/1744648794069692891/photo/1
In general it’s good to see what all sides are saying rather than stick your nose in the air and consider what is going to be read by millions of voters to be unworthy of you
He may have lied and been hypocritical, and he gets enough stick for that - Sir Keir lies and is hypocritical, yet the same people who suffered from BDS won’t hear of it
Living on a barge (narrowboat) on a river - definitely not floodproof.
Loughborough is a canal, though one that joins to a river (the Soar) at either end.
Though the River Calder floods a few years back washed away large chunks of the adjacent Rochdale Canal, so even that’s not entirely safe.
The entire Apollo stack was very marginal; ISTR there was a meeting in about 1970, where engineers could not guarantee even a 1-in-1 chance of any individual mission succeeding, and only a 75% chance of crew surviving any particular mission.
Post Office mutualisation proposals unveiled
Postal service overhaul could result in Post Office run along same lines as John Lewis or Co-operative
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/sep/18/post-office-mutualisation-proposals
That the senior PO execs didn't know how the system worked in any detail isn't surprising, and would surely be true of senior execs (outside the IT dept) in any large company
A point not commented on is that the legal action, and TV drama, focused heavily on the question of whether Horizon branch accounts could be accessed remotely. This is important because of the Post Office's mix of early ignorance (probably based on Fujitsu lies) and later lies about it, and as a theoretical challenge to the PO's assertion that branch accounts were "secure" - but I haven't seen any suggestion that discrepancies were arising because local accounts were being accessed remotely by some evil actor inside Fujitsu?
"Cold-hearted Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer saves sadistic foreign baby killer from the gallows whilst tacitly declining to help plucky Brit patriot from evading evil Islamic Guard firing squad".
Edit: goodness, it was 25 years ago!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-43503447
Still disappointing.
Im sure people will say lack of funding etc but that is not an explanation. Why hasn't China done it?
https://twitter.com/SeanSafyre/status/1744138937239822685
Found an iPhone on the side of the road... Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282 Survived a 16,000 foot drop perfectly intact!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program
But you are absolutely right that the Tories have been dragging their feet over compensation and holding the Post Office's feet to the fire over the Inquiry. Davey is not the person in charge here and whatever he failed to do back in 2010 is as nothing to what the current government is failing to do now. As for the attempts to blame Starmer, these are risible and desperate.
It is worth remembering that in 2014 the Tories passed legislation which made it very difficult indeed for anyone wrongly convicted and then having their conviction overturned to get compensation. That affects lots more people than the subpostmasters. See Andy Malkinson, for instance. Then there is the "innocence" tax about which I have previously written in a header on here.
As well as the delays in overturning the convictions and securing adequate compensation, there is also the refusal to revisit the law on computer evidence so that we get a law that is fit for purpose. If that is not revisited properly, then we will continue to get miscarriages of justice, though very few of them will ever get dramas made about them even 20 years after the events in question.
(Maybe Apple could offer their engineering services to Boeing. Perhaps they can help make a plane that survives a fall from 16,000 feet?)
China certainly has the capacity - they've already sent landers which have retrieved samples from the far side of the moon.
The US will return there soon - but the plan is to set up permanent infrastructure, and do it affordably.
The equivalent spending on Apollo would be nearly a trillion dollars today.
Without thinking, I'd say no. This decade has seen crisis after crisis after crisis: covid, Ukraine, Gaza. We are angry and at each other's throats. Almost every public action is riven with subtext and the explicit taking of sides. We have the spectre of mass disaster hanging over us. Telly is rubbish. Pop music is rubbish. Books are rubbish. Idiocy and inanity are all around us. Inflation. Gas prices. AI. It's bloody January. The sheer frustration of having to interact with needlessly complicated technology. My knees. And so on.
And yet, have some perspective. I picture Manchester City Centre now - with its dazzling array of gleaming skyscrapers, its cranes, its vibrancy, its busyness - and back then, with its single anomalous skyscraper, its static skyline, when one unit in five was empty. It was fantasy to imagine that by 2024 Manchester could look like it does now. Or my local town centre (Sale) in suburban south Manchester, with its uninspiring selection of roughhouse pubs, unprepossessing takeaways and charity shops; again, impossible to imagine the transformation which would take place between now and then.
It's not just the private sector; despite the mood music of public decay, I think back to how the public realm and the public sector buildings I interact with were then: tired, and shabby - now is far better.
And we forget that life in the early 2010s was pretty frustrating too. OK, there were no chatbots, but there were interminable phone calls to call centres in India where staff were given scripts, which amounted to the same thing. Technology was less complicated, but worked less well. And so on.
The big difference is the direction of travel. Back then it felt like the bad times had passed. We might not expect the upward trajectory to be stellar, but there was no reason to believe it would be forever dreadful. Now, after the bruising experience of the early 2020s, it's much harder to be optimistic. And so my instinctive answer is no, things are worse. But they aren't worse, they really aren't. It might be hard to be optimistic, but it's not irrational to be.
This isn't a political point. Take almost any moment in time; 9 times out of 10 it will be better than 14 years previously. It's just not human nature to be objective about this.
I do maintain than telly has gone to the dogs, mind you; and parking apps are the devil's work.
https://x.com/mrharrycole/status/1744654380664492530?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
And you have posted one of those quotes that drives me absolutely mad as an ex mathematician (you are not the only one they do it on the News all the time) which is:
'An orbiter doing 5000 mph around the moon'
Relative to what? I assume the moons surface. So what? I am currently spinning around the earths axis at some huge velocity and the sun even more and goodness know what I am doing around the milky way. What matters is it is relative to something meaningful and when it docks (ie something meaningful) it is very very very slow. When you drive down the road you say you are doing 30 mph (relative to the earth), not something meaningless. When you are in space being relative to the earth or the moon is meaningless. Recently the news reported on the lander for an asteroid and quoted some phenomenal figure. If it landed on the asteroid at that figure there wouldn't have been much left of it and relative to the earth the velocity was meaningless.
Labour 43% (+1)
Conservative 27% (+3)
Reform UK 11% (+1)
Liberal Democrat 10% (-1)
Green 5% (-1)
Scottish National Party 3% (-1)
Other 2% (–)
Changes +/- 17 Dec.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voting-intention-7-january-2024/
This is known. Given the way the plug works Toyota were hilariously late in the EV game, due to the boss personally disliking the technology.
So they are doing mad catchup now.
But I'm not sure offhand how to do the sums.
Your overall point is right though, I think - falling from a plane isn't much worse than falling from a high building.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/jan/08/heres-how-an-iphone-survived-a-16000-foot-fall-fro/
What does snow round your way normally do, then?
-Filthy Hun weasels fighting their dirty underhand war!
- ...our spies...
-Splendid fellows, brave heroes, risking life and limb for Blighty!'
Though tbf I know plenty of people who think people accused of certain crimes don't deserve a defence lawyer, and anyone willing to represent them must be a terrible person. So maybe attacking Starmer on his record as a lawyer might hit home a bit. AND people who are against the death penalty in general but willing to make exceptions for certain kinds of cases.
Personally I find the attacks a bit incoherent (and therefore desperate) - on the one hand Starmer is a hypocrite happy to sacrifice his principles at the first opportunity, on the other he has such a principled opposition to the death penalty that he goes out to defend people accused of killing children in other countries. Of course perfectly possible to be both, but it doesn't help overcome the current prevailing narrative, which seems to be Starmer is very dull, but can't be worse than the current bunch of chancers.
Every new attempt always has issues. In 1961 the USA had not even been into space, yet just 8 years later they landed and returned from the moon. This was with zero technology compared to today. Other than the fire on the ground for Apollo 1, the Apollo programme had a perfect safety reord and even Apollo 13 managed to orbit the moon despite the explosion ( which was caused by a manufacturing error and not poor design)
Its like the first landing of the Boeing 747 at Heathrow in 1970 and then not having another one land there for 50 years.