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Nikki Haley moves up 12% in new WH2024 poll – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,214
edited January 14 in General
imageNikki Haley moves up 12% in new WH2024 poll – politicalbetting.com

The only WH2024 bet I have placed has been on Nikki HaleyHale to beat Trump in the first proper primary in New Hampshire towards the end of the month. She appears to be running the best campaign as doubts about Trump increase by the day.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,961
    first.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Haley is my forecast to win POTUS 2024.

    DYOR
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,147
    Third rate like Trump
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,701

    Haley is my forecast to win POTUS 2024.

    DYOR

    I've backed Haley/Harris at 100/1 as a nominee match-up with a few quid.

    Hayley wins that, of course.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 2,366

    Haley is my forecast to win POTUS 2024.

    DYOR

    No chance of that happening. New Hampshire is a possibility but she will get buried in the South.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    de Santis on 5%.

    Hur hur hur....
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    A federal judge just declared in a new order that has ruled that at the upcoming punitive damages trial against Trump for having defamed E Jean Carroll while he was president, “Mr Trump” and his attorneys will NOT be able to drag the victim through the mud to prove that he never sexually assaulted her.

    Expect Trump to use the time until the damages hearing to continue defaming her.

    Expect it to cost him extra tens of millions.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,701
    WillG said:

    Haley is my forecast to win POTUS 2024.

    DYOR

    No chance of that happening. New Hampshire is a possibility but she will get buried in the South.
    Jesus, US primaries really are brutal.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,067
    Congratulations to OGH for his new name
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,453

    A federal judge just declared in a new order that has ruled that at the upcoming punitive damages trial against Trump for having defamed E Jean Carroll while he was president, “Mr Trump” and his attorneys will NOT be able to drag the victim through the mud to prove that he never sexually assaulted her.

    Expect Trump to use the time until the damages hearing to continue defaming her.

    Expect it to cost him extra tens of millions.

    Real money? Either he returns to the White House, in which case I imagine the bill will disappear, or he's utterly Donald Ducked, in which case he won't have tens of millions anyway.

    It's the White House or the Big House, isn't it?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,127
    CatMan said:

    Congratulations to OGH for his new name

    A name worthy of a Dutch salute!
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 14,466
    FPT @Casino_Royale

    Well done. CR, but be warned. it gets worse.

    I found episode three particularly distressing.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326
    Anyway, English and drama teachers must be rubbing their hands with glee and practising their pitch to students and their parents:

    "Look, STEM subjects are all very well. But if you really want to make an impact, you need to write TV dramas. Or act in one."
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,961
    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,395
    @MikeSmithson

    Good evening sir: I hope your health has not gotten worse. As others have no doubt pointed out, you have incorrectly credited yourself as "Mike Smit" and have misnamed "Nikki Haley" as "Nikki HaleyHale"
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,474

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    Can he not be required to appear at the Inquiry? I was told I was legally obliged to answer the COVID-19 Inquiry’s questions.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I thought the Inquiry had agreed that for certain witnesses they would be reminded of their rights against self-incrimination and so could choose not to answer questions. Not that they'd get immunity in return for answering questions.

    A number of witnesses have already been given this warning and a few have exercised this right, though sparingly, as far as I know.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,474
    edited January 9

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    Maybe studying English or drama perfectly adequately won't get you in the heap of shit being totally crap at STEM will.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326
    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I thought the Inquiry had agreed that for certain witnesses they would be reminded of their rights against self-incrimination and so could choose not to answer questions. Not that they'd get immunity in return for answering questions.

    A number of witnesses have already been given this warning and a few have exercised this right, though sparingly, as far as I know.
    What I'd like to know is what on earth those lawyers who knew what Jenkins had said privately about Horizon thought they were doing putting forward his witness statements or him as an expert.

    Their behaviour was about as bad a breach of professional standards as is possible, short of actually going into the witness box to lie yourself.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    Can he not be required to appear at the Inquiry? I was told I was legally obliged to answer the COVID-19 Inquiry’s questions.
    He can. See my answer just now.
  • first.

    Did you apply to Dhotya with your Crypto story?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,949
    edited January 9

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    Interesting, although this isn't new. This is from October 2022.

    https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/jenkins-wants-inquiry-immunity/
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,147

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    He’s done the same at least twice already, twice dismissed
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,831

    Anger at Starmer as he failed to stop the Black Death - The Sun

    https://x.com/UkTruth2020/status/1744771844312281521?s=20

    Probably got the wrong end of the stick and took the knee to it instead.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326
    edited January 9

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,124

    Anger at Starmer as he failed to stop the Black Death - The Sun

    https://x.com/UkTruth2020/status/1744771844312281521?s=20

    Kid Starver Ate My Hamster.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,780
    The Private Eye special report also concludes with a "Post Office Hall of Shame", fingering those
    "who resisted attempts to
    get to the bottom of the
    affair and blocked the
    sub-postmasters’ pursuit of
    justice."

    Together with the top brass at the Post Office and Fujitsu it also fingers the junior ministers who were to party to the obstruction:
    "These were the
    government ministers
    who failed to properly
    examine the unfurling
    public scandal while
    holding the postal services
    brief. Under the coalition
    came the uninspiring trio
    of Ed Davey (2010-2012),
    Norman Lamb (for seven
    months) and Jo Swinson
    (2012-2015). They were
    followed by a succession
    of shortlived Tory junior
    ministers with other fish to
    fry and careers that would
    not have been helped
    by addressing the subpostmasters’ grievances:
    George Freeman, Baroness
    (Lucy) Neville-Rolfe, Margot
    James, Andrew Griffiths and
    Kelly Tolhurst."

    Given the further inaction in the four years since the report was written, you could add a few more to that list now.

    And earlier in the article, it's made clear that the responsibility doesn't just rest at junior ministerial level:
    "The mediation scheme also gave a shield to
    ministers who were less than determined to help
    those in trouble. When Arbuthnot raised the
    scheme’s shortcomings, the Lib Dem with the
    Post Office brief, Jo Swinson MP, bleated about
    the “slightly difficult territory, because the
    [mediation] working group discussions are
    confidential… I cannot find out what is said in
    them”. Her two superior wise monkeys, business
    secretary Vince Cable (nominally sole
    shareholder of the Post Office) and prime
    minister David Cameron, were equally unhelpful
    when Arbuthnot confronted them in the
    Commons."

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    WillG said:

    Haley is my forecast to win POTUS 2024.

    DYOR

    No chance of that happening. New Hampshire is a possibility but she will get buried in the South.
    South Carolina is first Southern Republican primary, February 24. Not predicting she wins, but doubt she gets "buried".

    As for rest of (what used to be called) Dixie, next GOP primaries are on Super Tuesday 2024, March 5
    - Alabama
    - Arkansas
    - North Carolina
    - Tennessee
    - Texas
    - Virginia

    Which look (at least as of this week) to be tougher for Haley than her home turf, with best bets looking like North Carolina and Virginia, maybe Texas.

    KEEP IN MIND that historically, traditionally, recently what Bush the Elder (and Better) called The Big M is during POTUS nominating process. What happens in earlier caucuses or primaries definitely effects subsequent contest in other states.

    For example, in 2008 Barack Obama's caucus victory (32%) in snows of Iowa, helped Hilary Clinton beat him a week later in also-snowy New Hampshire. Even more important, it convinced Black voters across the nation, but especially in South Carolina then other Southern, Super-Tuesday states, that Obama really had a chance. With result that much her support from this quarter decamped to the Obama camp.

  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    IanB2 said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    He’s done the same at least twice already, twice dismissed
    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Watched several hours of one ex-PO mouthpiece lawyer, started out crap and ended worst as he was slowly suffered the Death of 1,000 Paper-Cuts at hands of polite, patient, persistent, unrelenting, superb inquisitor.

    The PO clown wasn't up to notarizing a pet license for a sick parrot.
  • How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    What on earth does that even mean?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,645
    For the SHAMELESS PB posters asking if Ed Davey has resigned yet…

    Huge headline on front of tommorows FT - Fujitsu won contracts under Sunak’s Watch despite Post Office IT Scandal.
    Fijutsu has not been properly held accountable for this Scandal, yet they are still in Sunak’s Fast Lane to more deals from his government - complains a former Tory Chancellor.

    And for the SHAMELESS PB posters pointing out to us that if Starmer is explaining why it’s not his fault, he’s already losing - a question. Will the promises to fast track help to the wrongly convicted postmasters actually happen under Primeminister Sunak, or under Primeminister Starmer? What do you think? 🤷‍♀️

    PS headline from tomorrow’s Telegraph front page - Britain is on track to borrow a record £206 Billion from private investors this year as shameless Rishi Sunak embarks on a “Debt Binge ahead of the General Election.”

    Anyway, I’m having an early night, I have to get up early to look after my sheep. 🐑🐑🐑
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 5,980
    edited January 9

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    Starmer supported every Corbyn policy until he'd won as Labour leader

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    What on earth does that even mean?
    Starmer supported every Corbyn policy until he'd won as Labour leader
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,240
    Vennells’ contagion is spreading pretty quickly to the Church of England: https://twitter.com/kayaburgess/status/1744764751182176352

    (Retweeted by our new vicar…)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    Met Office long range forecast increasingly indicate snow disruption in the UK later in January.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    edited January 9

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    Starmer supported every Corbyn policy until he'd wo Labour leader

    So what? Which policies do you think Starmer should have rejected?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,317

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    Starmer supported every Corbyn policy until he'd wo Labour leader

    So what? Which policies do you think Starmer should have rejected?
    Much of the Corbyn policy platform is now being followed by both Tories and Labour.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    Starmer supported every Corbyn policy until he'd wo Labour leader

    So what? Which policies do you think Starmer should have rejected?
    Much of the Corbyn policy platform is now being followed by both Tories and Labour.
    I'm not really sure what point Blanche is trying to make beyond not liking Starmer.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,147
    edited January 9
    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,317
    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,147

    IanB2 said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    He’s done the same at least twice already, twice dismissed
    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Watched several hours of one ex-PO mouthpiece lawyer, started out crap and ended worst as he was slowly suffered the Death of 1,000 Paper-Cuts at hands of polite, patient, persistent, unrelenting, superb inquisitor.

    The PO clown wasn't up to notarizing a pet license for a sick parrot.
    That sounds like the now infamous Mr Singh.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    edited January 9
    ...
    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    It looks like Brendan Clarke- Smith is on the case.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,240
    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Indeed. Starmer is merely wrong weekly.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/parents-refuse-child-gender-change-jail-snp-conversion-ban/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    Parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender would face up to seven years in jail under SNP plans to ban “conversion therapy”...
    Stopping someone from “dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” was put forward as an example of an action that would become illegal, even if a parent believed they were acting in a child’s best interests.


    @ydoethur you queried a comment I made a few weeks ago about how in practice people in Russia have 'freedom'. The answer is that they are free from laws like this. This type of thing is also why people vote for Trump as a 'least worst option'. People call them fascist etc but they have sound reasons that make sense to them and to me this explains the destabilisation of Western Culture - because the liberal establishment fails to stop the totalitarian tendencies of the "woke left".
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326
    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,420

    Anger at Starmer as he failed to stop the Black Death - The Sun

    https://x.com/UkTruth2020/status/1744771844312281521?s=20

    I thought Starmer looked a bit like the serial killer in this week's Silent Witness.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,996
    edited January 9

    The Private Eye special report also concludes with a "Post Office Hall of Shame", fingering those
    "who resisted attempts to
    get to the bottom of the
    affair and blocked the
    sub-postmasters’ pursuit of
    justice."

    Together with the top brass at the Post Office and Fujitsu it also fingers the junior ministers who were to party to the obstruction:
    "These were the
    government ministers
    who failed to properly
    examine the unfurling
    public scandal while
    holding the postal services
    brief. Under the coalition
    came the uninspiring trio
    of Ed Davey (2010-2012),
    Norman Lamb (for seven
    months) and Jo Swinson
    (2012-2015). They were
    followed by a succession
    of shortlived Tory junior
    ministers with other fish to
    fry and careers that would
    not have been helped
    by addressing the subpostmasters’ grievances:
    George Freeman, Baroness
    (Lucy) Neville-Rolfe, Margot
    James, Andrew Griffiths and
    Kelly Tolhurst."

    Given the further inaction in the four years since the report was written, you could add a few more to that list now.

    And earlier in the article, it's made clear that the responsibility doesn't just rest at junior ministerial level:
    "The mediation scheme also gave a shield to
    ministers who were less than determined to help
    those in trouble. When Arbuthnot raised the
    scheme’s shortcomings, the Lib Dem with the
    Post Office brief, Jo Swinson MP, bleated about
    the “slightly difficult territory, because the
    [mediation] working group discussions are
    confidential… I cannot find out what is said in
    them”. Her two superior wise monkeys, business
    secretary Vince Cable (nominally sole
    shareholder of the Post Office) and prime
    minister David Cameron, were equally unhelpful
    when Arbuthnot confronted them in the
    Commons."

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Imagine when a really big scandal happens. A scandal involving important people. Someone might need to resign a once-a-month well paid seat on a Quango!

    ... The Horror.....

    Kier might have to look sad in a press release. That's how serious it could be. If it's even more serious Rishi or Clegg might have to issue press statements from abroad.

    And that's expensive.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    ...
    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,996
    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/parents-refuse-child-gender-change-jail-snp-conversion-ban/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    Parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender would face up to seven years in jail under SNP plans to ban “conversion therapy”...
    Stopping someone from “dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” was put forward as an example of an action that would become illegal, even if a parent believed they were acting in a child’s best interests.


    @ydoethur you queried a comment I made a few weeks ago about how in practice people in Russia have 'freedom'. The answer is that they are free from laws like this. This type of thing is also why people vote for Trump as a 'least worst option'. People call them fascist etc but they have sound reasons that make sense to them and to me this explains the destabilisation of Western Culture - because the liberal establishment fails to stop the totalitarian tendencies of the "woke left".

    Have you considered that the Daily Telegraph might not itself be entirely unbiased in it's reporting?

    (I have no idea myself, but listening to some of their podcast output they clearly have a very, very odd outlook)
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937

    Anger at Starmer as he failed to stop the Black Death - The Sun

    https://x.com/UkTruth2020/status/1744771844312281521?s=20

    I thought Starmer looked a bit like the serial killer in this week's Silent Witness.
    The serial killer was way more cheerful.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    edited January 9
    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,920
    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    Does it not also throw up some interesting questions about the standards needed to qualify as a lawyer, and the process which would-be lawyers go through?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
    That Starmer was Continuity Corbyn? I wouldn’t have thought so
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Nadhim Zahawi has has had a massive result with the tv show hasn’t he?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,949
    Did my previous comment get deleted? It was some links to various 2009 reports about the Horizon system.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    edited January 9
    isam said:

    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
    That Starmer was Continuity Corbyn? I wouldn’t have thought so
    Continuity Crippen?

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    I just googled "Starmer" in news and I got three brand spanking new slurs from under the paywall articles from the Telegraph. Don't shoot the messenger.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,286
    Andy_JS said:

    Did my previous comment get deleted? It was some links to various 2009 reports about the Horizon system.

    I think you posted it in the old thread by mistake.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    He’s done the same at least twice already, twice dismissed
    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Watched several hours of one ex-PO mouthpiece lawyer, started out crap and ended worst as he was slowly suffered the Death of 1,000 Paper-Cuts at hands of polite, patient, persistent, unrelenting, superb inquisitor.

    The PO clown wasn't up to notarizing a pet license for a sick parrot.
    That sounds like the now infamous Mr Singh.
    No - it was the guy who said/implied that Singh was incompetent.

    If it takes one to know one, he'll know for sure.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    ohnotnow said:

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/parents-refuse-child-gender-change-jail-snp-conversion-ban/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    Parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender would face up to seven years in jail under SNP plans to ban “conversion therapy”...
    Stopping someone from “dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” was put forward as an example of an action that would become illegal, even if a parent believed they were acting in a child’s best interests.


    @ydoethur you queried a comment I made a few weeks ago about how in practice people in Russia have 'freedom'. The answer is that they are free from laws like this. This type of thing is also why people vote for Trump as a 'least worst option'. People call them fascist etc but they have sound reasons that make sense to them and to me this explains the destabilisation of Western Culture - because the liberal establishment fails to stop the totalitarian tendencies of the "woke left".

    Have you considered that the Daily Telegraph might not itself be entirely unbiased in it's reporting?

    (I have no idea myself, but listening to some of their podcast output they clearly have a very, very odd outlook)
    Yeah, but actually, if you read the 'establishments' own account of the proposed legislation it is not far off what is reported in the telegraph.

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24037768.conversion-therapy-ban-proposal-published-scottish-government/

    This whole article reports the view of the 'progressives' that are promoting the legislation. One sentence is given to view of the 'opponent', although they put a photo of him in the article, an old white man, presumably signifying the past.

    "Writing in his local paper, the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald, Ewing argued that he had not “come across any parents who were happy about the prospect of some third party having power – unclear and unspecified power at that – over their own children”."




  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,474
    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/parents-refuse-child-gender-change-jail-snp-conversion-ban/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    Parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender would face up to seven years in jail under SNP plans to ban “conversion therapy”...
    Stopping someone from “dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” was put forward as an example of an action that would become illegal, even if a parent believed they were acting in a child’s best interests.


    @ydoethur you queried a comment I made a few weeks ago about how in practice people in Russia have 'freedom'. The answer is that they are free from laws like this. This type of thing is also why people vote for Trump as a 'least worst option'. People call them fascist etc but they have sound reasons that make sense to them and to me this explains the destabilisation of Western Culture - because the liberal establishment fails to stop the totalitarian tendencies of the "woke left".

    Firstly, it is silly to suggest that the only options are either the SNP criminalising parents objecting to their transgendered children OR Putin/Trump. You can vote Conservative, Labour, LibDem or Alba in Scotland, for instance. In the US, where the vote is likely to be between Biden and Trump, Biden isn’t proposing anything remotely like this. The liberal establishment does stop the totalitarian tendencies of the “woke left”.

    Secondly, the SNP have not jailed any parents opposed to their children’s gender transition. I doubt they ever would. This is a biased write-up of a proposal. It is not a description of something that is happening.

    Thirdly, yes, even if everything in this Telegraph write-up came to pass, that would be better than living under Putin!

    The MAGA-esque right in the US screamed that Obama would take their guns. He didn’t. They screamed that Biden would take their guns. He didn’t. Endlessly crying wolf over the evils of the “woke left” is equally unconvincing.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    Personally can understand Boris Johnson obsession, or Trump obsession, Putin obsession.

    But Keir Starmer obsession? WTF?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    If the number was a significant portion of the 28, you'd think The Telegraph would have released the number.

    Unless they don't know.

    But Starmer does.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792

    isam said:

    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
    That Starmer was Continuity Corbyn? I wouldn’t have thought so
    Continuity Crippen?

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    I just googled "Starmer" in news and I got three brand spanking new slurs from under the paywall articles from the Telegraph. Don't shoot the messenger.
    So great are those stories you decided to repost them. The one about him preferring a warm office was a corker. Real hold the front page material. Donkeygate eat your heart out.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,193
    viewcode said:

    @MikeSmithson

    Good evening sir: I hope your health has not gotten worse. As others have no doubt pointed out, you have incorrectly credited yourself as "Mike Smit" and have misnamed "Nikki Haley" as "Nikki HaleyHale"

    She should totally go with that.
    Great name.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    Personally can understand Boris Johnson obsession, or Trump obsession, Putin obsession.

    But Keir Starmer obsession? WTF?
    It’s an affliction that affects many on PB, as odd as it seems, and indeed is.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,395
    Andy_JS said:

    Did my previous comment get deleted? It was some links to various 2009 reports about the Horizon system.

    Is it this one? https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4651910/#Comment_4651910
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    I am watching the FT analysis of Brexit. It's a year old but it's very good.

    https://youtu.be/wO2lWmgEK1Y?si=ZH679TbkH_xLCC72

    Hands up if you believe it is going well.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/parents-refuse-child-gender-change-jail-snp-conversion-ban/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you

    Parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender would face up to seven years in jail under SNP plans to ban “conversion therapy”...
    Stopping someone from “dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” was put forward as an example of an action that would become illegal, even if a parent believed they were acting in a child’s best interests.


    @ydoethur you queried a comment I made a few weeks ago about how in practice people in Russia have 'freedom'. The answer is that they are free from laws like this. This type of thing is also why people vote for Trump as a 'least worst option'. People call them fascist etc but they have sound reasons that make sense to them and to me this explains the destabilisation of Western Culture - because the liberal establishment fails to stop the totalitarian tendencies of the "woke left".

    Firstly, it is silly to suggest that the only options are either the SNP criminalising parents objecting to their transgendered children OR Putin/Trump. You can vote Conservative, Labour, LibDem or Alba in Scotland, for instance. In the US, where the vote is likely to be between Biden and Trump, Biden isn’t proposing anything remotely like this. The liberal establishment does stop the totalitarian tendencies of the “woke left”.

    Secondly, the SNP have not jailed any parents opposed to their children’s gender transition. I doubt they ever would. This is a biased write-up of a proposal. It is not a description of something that is happening.

    Thirdly, yes, even if everything in this Telegraph write-up came to pass, that would be better than living under Putin!

    The MAGA-esque right in the US screamed that Obama would take their guns. He didn’t. They screamed that Biden would take their guns. He didn’t. Endlessly crying wolf over the evils of the “woke left” is equally unconvincing.
    I never said it was what I believed - I was explaining the phenomena. One problem though with what you are saying is that there is a time lag between legislation being passed and it being implemented. It seems like it is harmless/nothing will actually happen but if the legislation says that you can go to jail for 7 years for misgendering your child then it can happen and is likely to along the line. It is a fair point about Biden being a restraining influence but unfortunately it is not restraining enough to stop these forces of polarisation.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890

    isam said:

    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
    That Starmer was Continuity Corbyn? I wouldn’t have thought so
    Continuity Crippen?

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    I just googled "Starmer" in news and I got three brand spanking new slurs from under the paywall articles from the Telegraph. Don't shoot the messenger.
    So great are those stories you decided to repost them. The one about him preferring a warm office was a corker. Real hold the front page material. Donkeygate eat your heart out.
    I am pleased you liked the story.@Marqueemark likes the Post Office piece too. Glad I could be of service.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,286
    There are some horrific videos circulating. A complete breakdown in law and order verging on civil war.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792

    isam said:

    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
    That Starmer was Continuity Corbyn? I wouldn’t have thought so
    Continuity Crippen?

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    I just googled "Starmer" in news and I got three brand spanking new slurs from under the paywall articles from the Telegraph. Don't shoot the messenger.
    So great are those stories you decided to repost them. The one about him preferring a warm office was a corker. Real hold the front page material. Donkeygate eat your heart out.
    I am pleased you liked the story.@Marqueemark likes the Post Office piece too. Glad I could be of service.
    Who knows what your feverish SKS
    Googling will yield next?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
  • AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    Good morning PB :)

    We can see the final throws of the desperate Tory regime now, to try and blame SKS for the failure of the government's 14 years to get a handle on the Post Office scandal.

    A final throw of the dice, I am sure next week we will see SKS go up in the polls once again.

    The public have had enough. This country is broken and it is the Tories who broke it. Not Ed Davey. Not Sir Keir Starmer. The Tories.

    See you all soon :)
  • AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    I note YouGov now shows a 24 point lead, making my guess of a 30 point lead before the next election looking like a good one at present:

    Latest YouGov Westminster voting intention results (2-3 Jan)

    Con: 22% (-2 from 19-20 Dec)
    Lab: 46% (+3)
    Lib Dem: 10% (=)
    Reform UK: 9% (-2)
    Green: 7% (-1)
    SNP: 3% (=)

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1744656534208909536

    See you :)
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,893
    New Hampshire is certainly a must win for Haley. It is normally the most likely of the early Republican primary and caucus states to vote for a moderate
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    ...
    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    I wouldn't let facts trouble your narrative if I were you.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,317

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890

    isam said:

    isam said:

    How do none of his supporters care that Starmer was continuity Corbyn when elected as Labour leader?

    That is ridiculous, Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly Continuity Corbyn
    Didn’t you try to make this point yourself, yesterday?
    I guess not. You are right though, Keir was a “Corbyn had his place but it’s time to move on” candidate.
    That Starmer was Continuity Corbyn? I wouldn’t have thought so
    Continuity Crippen?

    B@st@rd

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/09/starmer-work-new-labour-office-freezing-parliament-building/

    The good news is all these Starmer smears are in front of the paywall. Bargain!

    You are becoming - or have already become - almost as obsessed with SKS as the very weird Big John Owls.
    I just googled "Starmer" in news and I got three brand spanking new slurs from under the paywall articles from the Telegraph. Don't shoot the messenger.
    So great are those stories you decided to repost them. The one about him preferring a warm office was a corker. Real hold the front page material. Donkeygate eat your heart out.
    I am pleased you liked the story.@Marqueemark likes the Post Office piece too. Glad I could be of service.
    Who knows what your feverish SKS
    Googling will yield next?
    More of the same until the client media
    win the election for the Conservative Party I suspect.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,317

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
    darkage said:

    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).

    I’d expect to see more of this as more adventurous middle classes simply opt out of failing public provision.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Betfair Exchange have added Reform to the list of runners for Overall Majority - can be laid at 810 for a fiver
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,124

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
    darkage said:

    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).

    I’d expect to see more of this as more adventurous middle classes simply opt out of failing public provision.
    I know of people who went the Free School + Tuition route who are clubbing together to have joint tuition sessions for their children.

    At some point, when you have a tutor teaching 10+ children, you’ll need a proper classroom space (WeWork?)….
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
    darkage said:

    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).

    I’d expect to see more of this as more adventurous middle classes simply opt out of failing public provision.
    I guess the system isn't failing, they have just turned schools in to prison like compounds with millions of pointless rules dictated by Ofsted and where the salaries and conditions are crap and no one wants to work. I guess that labour will eventually ruin this homeschooling thing by engulfing it in a million regulations and ofsted inspections of its own.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,949

    I note YouGov now shows a 24 point lead, making my guess of a 30 point lead before the next election looking like a good one at present:

    Latest YouGov Westminster voting intention results (2-3 Jan)

    Con: 22% (-2 from 19-20 Dec)
    Lab: 46% (+3)
    Lib Dem: 10% (=)
    Reform UK: 9% (-2)
    Green: 7% (-1)
    SNP: 3% (=)

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1744656534208909536

    See you :)

    Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited January 10
    OT be careful betting to stuff you see on Twitter. They made everyone register a phone number to get a paid account, which you have to do if you want visibility. If you register a phone number your phone can be used to reset your account. You can temporarily take control of a US phone number with some personal information and a good story to tell the phone network's support person, or if the target has set their account to maximum security by paying someone at their callcenter $10000 or so.

    So some bright spark buys bitcoins, takes over the SEC account, tweets that they've approved a bitcoin ETF and then sells the bitcoins. The betting market on this temporarily goes from 17% to 1%:



    * There's also the theory that the SEC posted the tweet early by mistake and are lying about being hacked.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,317
    darkage said:

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
    darkage said:

    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).

    I’d expect to see more of this as more adventurous middle classes simply opt out of failing public provision.
    I guess the system isn't failing, they have just turned schools in to prison like compounds with millions of pointless rules dictated by Ofsted and where the salaries and conditions are crap and no one wants to work. I guess that labour will eventually ruin this homeschooling thing by engulfing it in a million regulations and ofsted inspections of its own.
    Agree with you last sentence.
    The UK generally will conspire to make this red-taped into non-existence, as they’ve tried to do with childcare provision.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,890
    edited January 10

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    You do know it's bollocks don't you? But it is bollocks that may have legs if Sunak pushes it at PMQs tomorrow and the BBC for example run with it.

    It is a nonsense, but it is a nonsense that could damage Starmer.

    What is utterly remarkable is that the Conservatives have not been contaminated after the ITV show despite being in Government since 2010. The wagons have been circled and are protecting little Rishi. He is as you suggest a lucky General.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,395
    edited January 10
    isam said:

    Betfair Exchange have added Reform to the list of runners for Overall Majority - can be laid at 810 for a fiver

    Interesting. IIRC (correct me if wrong), laying at 810/1 means that for every 810 you send out you get 811 back if it doesn't happen. At 500 pennies, that's 0.62 pence profit. What fees do they charge on this?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,949
    viewcode said:

    isam said:

    Betfair Exchange have added Reform to the list of runners for Overall Majority - can be laid at 810 for a fiver

    Interesting. IIRC (correct me if wrong), laying at 810/1 means that for every 810 you send out you get 811 back if it doesn't happen. At 500 pennies, that's 0.62 pence profit. What fees do they charge on this?
    They take 5% if you win a bet.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    darkage said:

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
    darkage said:

    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).

    I’d expect to see more of this as more adventurous middle classes simply opt out of failing public provision.
    I guess the system isn't failing, they have just turned schools in to prison like compounds with millions of pointless rules dictated by Ofsted and where the salaries and conditions are crap and no one wants to work. I guess that labour will eventually ruin this homeschooling thing by engulfing it in a million regulations and ofsted inspections of its own.
    Agree with you last sentence.
    The UK generally will conspire to make this red-taped into non-existence, as they’ve tried to do with childcare provision.

    darkage said:

    isam said:

    ...

    Cyclefree said:

    IanB2 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Paging @Cyclefree

    The architect of the faulty Horizon IT system who gave evidence used to convict sub-postmasters has demanded immunity before agreeing to appear at the public inquiry.

    Gareth Jenkins, who is understood to have been instrumental in developing the software as a senior computer engineer at Fujitsu, is under police investigation over his role in the Post Office scandal.

    His testimony given in court cases that the Fujitsu IT system was working correctly was central to convictions, and was repeatedly used by Post Office lawyers.

    Tracked down by The Telegraph to his home in Berkshire, Mr Jenkins, 69, said when asked if he was sorry for what had happened: “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have anything to say to you.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/horizon-expert-gareth-jenkins-post-office-inquiry-immunity/

    I can see why he might feel in need of legal immunity:

    From the Private Eye special report (dating from 2020) I believe:

    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post

    Page 5:

    "When the main event resumed in the high
    court, the performance of the Fujitsu staff
    responsible for running the Horizon IT system
    made the Post Office’s arse-covering and
    mendacity in the first trial look open and honest.
    QC Patrick Green dragged Fujitsu witnesses
    through reams of obvious computer errors and
    glitches going back nearly 20 years and featuring
    a “bug table” listing 23 serious software faults.
    But still, almost all of them refused to face the
    plain truth that the IT was flawed.
    It didn’t help that, in line with its strategy of
    evasion, the Post Office didn’t call key Fujitsu
    personnel for fear of what they might be forced
    to reveal. One absentee was a central figure on
    the Horizon contract, recently-retired lead
    engineer Gareth Jenkins. He had nevertheless
    provided vast amounts of information for the
    written statements of the witnesses who did
    appear. He’d also, it turned out, been the
    company’s witness at criminal trials including
    Seema Misra’s nine years earlier. This meant that
    when the misleading words he had fed more
    junior staff were scrutinised in the courtroom,
    the cover-up began to look dark indeed.

    Fujitsu IT security analyst Andy Dunks was
    questioned on a particularly tortuous part of his
    written evidence. He’d claimed that “at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it”. Was this mangled syntax the party
    line? No, said Dunks; there was no party line.
    Green then presented him with Gareth Jenkins’s
    evidence in Seema Misra’s trial all those years
    before, which read word-for-word the same as
    Dunks’s statement.
    Plainly there was a party line, right down to
    the mis-spelling of “affect”. It was also clearly an
    untrue line. Emails revealed in the trial showed
    that a senior Fujitsu specialist had said as far
    back as 2006 about one glitch causing accounting
    errors, “this bug has been around for years and
    affects a number of sites most weeks”. Four
    years after that, the “party line” put Seema
    Misra behind bars."
    These words in those witness statements - "“at all
    material times the system was operating properly,
    or if not, any respect in which it was not
    operating properly, or was out of operation was
    not such as to effect [sic] the information held
    within it
    ”. - are a carbon copy of the wording in S.69(1)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act i.e. the section which had been removed by Parliament after lobbying by the Post Office.

    This shows how utterly crap the Post Office's legal department was. It was obviously the party line and it was pretty obviously put there by the lawyers without the witnesses having the first clue what it meant.
    Legal Services will have sent a junior lawyer out to interview people due to give evidence in court, and written the first draft of their witness statement for them. Very often these were just signed without being read - that much was obvious from one of the witness sessions of a female investigator being asked about her witness statement, which she’d signed, but which in the event, hadn’t been used in court because the case wasn’t proceeded with. It is crystal clear from that inquiry session that the lady had never read the unused statement nor could explain anything within it, or what it meant.
    The entire legal department at the Post Office needs sacking and a fair few of them should face disciplinary proceedings with some facing criminal charges.

    Simply not fit for purpose.
    The Telegraph has identified the ring leader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/09/cps-keir-starmer-role-post-office-wrongful-convictions/
    Yesterday morning we were being told Sir Keir could not have had any jurisdiction over the Post Office prosecutions as they were all private; now there seem to be fifty public prosecutions, although we don’t know if he was the DPP that allowed them
    Think there might have already been a press release if the number was zero.

    We have had people on here crowing that Starmer is a lucky general. Well, maybe that luck is about to break - and in a really spectacular way. He may have a huge lead in the polls - but any affection for him is an inch deep.

    And frankly, if he is going to be PM, he will be better in the job if he has had a tough crisis to negotiate first.
    Classic late night copium.
    darkage said:

    On the subject of schooling in the UK my neighbour has said they are homeschooling and not entering their son in to the English school system at age 4. She is trainee teacher. Apparently there is a really big local homeschooling community where we live, with various privately run classes every day. One class offers to cover the national curriculum one day per week for £25. Lots of drop out teachers running classes. A friend in Surrey (who I knew from uni) has made similar decisions and gone down a similar path. From what I can see it is a really good option (if you are motivated enough to make it work).

    I’d expect to see more of this as more adventurous middle classes simply opt out of failing public provision.
    I guess the system isn't failing, they have just turned schools in to prison like compounds with millions of pointless rules dictated by Ofsted and where the salaries and conditions are crap and no one wants to work. I guess that labour will eventually ruin this homeschooling thing by engulfing it in a million regulations and ofsted inspections of its own.
    Agree with you last sentence.
    The UK generally will conspire to make this red-taped into non-existence, as they’ve tried to do with childcare provision.
    This is why I have no regrets moving my son to Finland - and an education system where every school would be ruled inadequate and closed down by ofsted due to "safeguarding breaches".
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,395
    Andy_JS said:

    viewcode said:

    isam said:

    Betfair Exchange have added Reform to the list of runners for Overall Majority - can be laid at 810 for a fiver

    Interesting. IIRC (correct me if wrong), laying at 810/1 means that for every 810 you send out you get 811 back if it doesn't happen. At 500 pennies, that's 0.62 pence profit. What fees do they charge on this?
    They take 5% if you win a bet.
    So you send £5.00 out and get £5+0.95*0.62 = £5.0058 back If you were right and nothing back if you were wrong.

    I want to be a bookie... :)
This discussion has been closed.