I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
Stop using sheep as term of abuse. They are actually very intelligent.
Anyone who has anything to do with sheep will confirm that all they do is try to find ways to die. Often with great success. Intelligent they are not.
Rescued one out of the Spey a few years ago. Idiot thing.
It seems the CPS have confirmed a number of cases involved evidence in Horizon and have written to the defendant's so they can pursue an appeal
In these circumstances will any act passed by Parliament exonerate the CPS prosecutions as well
An aside, Sky are saying it was when Starmer was head of the CPS but I have not seen any other confirmation of that
You forgot to mention the curry and the beer.
The story so far. A fine gentleman named Peter Lilley commissioned a PFI scheme to install whizzo new computers into the Post Office. Then a git called Keith Donkey held an illegal beer and curry meeting in Fujitsu HQ and spilled a can of Stella and some Vindaloo sauce into the server. Chaos ensued...
If Tory dirty tricks team, all their old media friends and new media trollbots put exactly that story everywhere, it will act as effective cloud of chaff and smokescreen. These smokescreens do work. It disguises who’s been the real power in this land for 14 long years - especially in the last 7 of those years when an absolute scandal here becoming increasingly flipping obvious.
But that’s not the most serious point. History books will say, the main Achilles Hill the Sunak administration died on was over promising. That’s the now all too predictable Rishi reflex - the “whatever it takes”. Are they again over promising - hamstrung by needing the full report and real good workable options that satisfies the anger? Will they do anything that matches their own hype and expectations?
It isn't over-promising. What are people's big complaints in 2024. Travelling by train is an absolute lottery. Getting a GP appointment is like a lottery win. Front line health and schools provision crumbling in front of us. Councils both jacking up council tax by the maximum amount *and* collapsing towards bankruptcy. Some urban and suburban areas being practically a demilitarised zone there is so much crime.
People aren't bothered about the big promises. They want - and expect - the basics to be done properly. Then they look at their tax bill and their rent / mortgage bill and wonder what the hell they are paying for.
The UK is taxed to an absurd level and has services that appear to be bankrupt. And punters have noticed.
And yet another 10 billion increase in the cost of the present HS2 announced this am
A large amount of that is because Rishi changed the scope again so things are having to be replanned for the nth time.
What are the odds that HS2 Lite (Sunak edition) ends up costing more than the real thing would have?
And that's before doing something about all the other transport issues that the lopped off bits of HS2 was planned to solve.
I’d say it’s a certainty. Cheese-paring costs always ends up making things more expensive in the long run (see any number of MoD procurement disasters), but post-hoc cheese-paring is the Treasury’s approach to everything so here we are.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
I don't understand how anyone can be so blinkered and partisan on such an important issue.
Indeed, why don't you enlighten us?
You're possibly the angriest and most partisan poster on this board, and you're only tolerated because you have a mildly funny name.
Watch yourself, or you might give yourself a coronary.
"Partisan". Yeah, right. You can't even correctly tell me how I voted in the last three elections. Reverting to form you lash out because you have been proved wrong. Break the habit of a lifetime and admit it will you?
I couldn't care less.
You are happy to lash out at others but cry blue-murder if you perceive someone might be doing it to you, because you're hypersensitive and assume everyone else must operate like you do.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
Stop using sheep as term of abuse. They are actually very intelligent.
Anyone who has anything to do with sheep will confirm that all they do is try to find ways to die. Often with great success. Intelligent they are not.
Wroooooooooooooong They are intelligent. It’s scientifically proven in things like face and name recognition and solving puzzles. And form emotional bonds too.
But it’s true, they die. 197 yesterday, 196 today. One died. Don’t know why. Looked like one was using her as a pillow, it might have been grieving. I’m sure some form close bonds with each other.
It might just be how we have completely changed them, and they were less good at finding ways to die when wild animals.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
Stop using sheep as term of abuse. They are actually very intelligent.
Maybe time to clone a few then and see if they are any better than the cabinet?
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
Stop using sheep as term of abuse. They are actually very intelligent.
Anyone who has anything to do with sheep will confirm that all they do is try to find ways to die. Often with great success. Intelligent they are not.
Wroooooooooooooong They are intelligent. It’s scientifically proven in things like face and name recognition and solving puzzles. And form emotional bonds too.
But it’s true, they die. 197 yesterday, 196 today. One died. Don’t know why. Looked like one was using her as a pillow, it might have been grieving. I’m sure some form close bonds with each other.
It might just be how we have completely changed them, and they were less good at finding ways to die when wild animals.
Yes, wild sheep are pretty cunning and are more than capable of acting collectively to, for example, see off a wolf. In the wild, stupid sheep die out and their genes are not passed on. Domestic sheep are not. In amongst the characteristics humans have bred them for, intelligence was not one.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
Starting under a Conservative Government, and being ignored by a Labour Govennment, then by a Conservsative Lib Dem Coalition with a Lib Dem Minister being (ir)responsible for the PO and further ignored ba a Conservative Government. It seems to me the problem is with the UK government system as a whole and attempting to lay the blame on any particular party is just being childish.
It seems the CPS have confirmed a number of cases involved evidence in Horizon and have written to the defendant's so they can pursue an appeal
In these circumstances will any act passed by Parliament exonerate the CPS prosecutions as well
An aside, Sky are saying it was when Starmer was head of the CPS but I have not seen any other confirmation of that
In answer to your first question the statement from the Minister just now was explicit that all prosecutions including those derived from the PO but not prosecuted by them will be covered by the act. He used the rather apt phrase 'poisoned fruit'
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
Stop using sheep as term of abuse. They are actually very intelligent.
Anyone who has anything to do with sheep will confirm that all they do is try to find ways to die. Often with great success. Intelligent they are not.
Wroooooooooooooong They are intelligent. It’s scientifically proven in things like face and name recognition and solving puzzles. And form emotional bonds too.
But it’s true, they die. 197 yesterday, 196 today. One died. Don’t know why. Looked like one was using her as a pillow, it might have been grieving. I’m sure some form close bonds with each other.
It might just be how we have completely changed them, and they were less good at finding ways to die when wild animals.
Yes, wild sheep are pretty cunning and are more than capable of acting collectively to, for example, see off a wolf. In the wild, stupid sheep die out and their genes are not passed on. Domestic sheep are not. In amongst the characteristics humans have bred them for, intelligence was not one.
Thanks for backing up my theory. We got Mostly Swale but some Valais across the road. I think all types are very friendly and intelligent and social when you get to know them, but obviously have different needs or outcomes. I think Dad switched from Merino to Swale becuase people down the con club convinced him less of them will die because they are proper Yorkshire sheep not soft southern cuddly toys. Swale are not amazing looking sheep. They are the Leeds Utd of sheep, division 2 and mostly boring and ugly. Don’t tell them I said that.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Let me quote Wikipedia:
"Horizon is the outcome of the Pathway project, whose procurement process commenced in August 1994,[1] and was announced by social security minister Peter Lilley at the 1995 Conservative Party conference.[2] The goal was to computerise the payment of benefits at post offices, replacing Girocheques and paper benefit books with swipe cards. It was thought this would reduce benefit fraud by £150 million per year,[2] at the same time as improving efficiency at post office counters, increasing footfall at small branches and enabling them to offer new services. The £1.5 billion project was funded by the private finance initiative; the successful bidder would develop the system and train some 70,000 Post Office staff to use it, and recover its costs from transaction-based charges.[2]
"The contract to create the system for Post Office Counters Limited and the Benefits Agency was awarded in May 1996 to ICL Pathway Limited,[3] a subsidiary created for the purpose in 1995 by British computer company ICL, which was itself majority-owned by Fujitsu of Japan.[4]"
Nah, that's not gonna wash. You can't just wave away New Labour's 13 years in office from 1997 to 2010, just because you don't want this to become an obstacle to their re-election.
It wasn't rolled-out until after Labour took office. They had the chance to cancel the procurement or delay it, the problems and delays were known when they came in, but they decided not to do so; indeed they accelerated its deployment, meaning over 13,000 branches had it by 2001, and then did nothing for years as the issues were raised and the prosecutions got underway.
They're up to their necks in it.
I’m not absolving Labour of any guilt. They absolutely fucked up over this. They did not, however, commission the system originally.
But, they did commission the system actually. And then did nothing about any of the problems for years.
Point of order, there were prosecutions as early as 1995/6 during the pilot rollout.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
Yes, I agree.
What's so interesting about this thread is that people say that it's cross-party and that Labour absolutely fucked-up as well but when you point this out immediately go back to the Major administration or try and jump forward to the Coalition, skipping over entirely the bit in the middle.
The biggest part of the Horizon scandal - its roll-out and deployment - happened under New Labour and of the 736 prosecutions of sub-postmasters and mistresses that the Post Office pursued between 1999 and 2015 the great majority happened under New Labour as well.
Evidence of the scandal was published by Computer Weekly in 2009, whilst they were still in office, as was the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA).
There's no excuses. They just passed it on to the next administration who, to fair, were slow to wake up to it.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
I suspect many voters haven't really appreciated that the tax take increases in real terms when allowances don't rise in line with inflation. That point probably wouldn't be too hard to explain during an election campaign.
Starting under a Conservative Government, and being ignored by a Labour Govennment, then by a Conservsative Lib Dem Coalition with a Lib Dem Minister being (ir)responsible for the PO and further ignored ba a Conservative Government. It seems to me the problem is with the UK government system as a whole and attempting to lay the blame on any particular party is just being childish.
Is the stuff from the 90s not just another poorly staffed IT project being managed badly and done on the cheap despite a high price tag? Obviously far from ideal but very common and irrelevant as a story.
The miscarriage of justice, perjury and perverting the cause of justice stuff happened this century. The information available to each Post Office minister about the scandal has grown cumulatively and signficantly over the last decade so whilst it would have been great if the ones earlier on had acted more inquisitively and decisively, it is the more recent ones who have the most to answer for imo.
Especially given the haste they now want to act once it is a tv drama.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Not sure whether any movement away in the New Year is real or just noise.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Technically speaking, for wages you won't see it until this week (few people) and for salaries until the end of January.
Look out for future outrage based on convictions and confessions based on 'irrefutable' DNA evidence. Turns out that it wasn't all that certain and irrefutable.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
Your continued attempts to make this a party political issue, particularly given the very long time frame of ministerial negligence, are just bloody stupid.
None of the parties at the time set out to say 'hey lets screw over a thousand or so pillars of the community'. It is doubtful if any of the governing cabinets in power over the whole saga will even have been aware of the issue until the last few years and even then it is down to the failings of individual post office ministers rather than 'the Government' at the time for not taking the issue seriously. This is a systematic problem with our governmental organisation and one that is long overdue for reform. That, combined with far too many ministers who are not fit to do their jobs (again from all parties), is what led us to this point.
It is a serious indictment of our whole system that it took a TV programme off the back of a decades long campaign by a few individuals, to finally get something done about this but that is not a party politcial issue and frankly making it one is contemptable.
You should join Lee Anderson in the naughty corner.
There are an endless list of 'scandals' that await us, after the post office situation passes and is 'corrected'. Mostly to do with hospitals, social services, prisons and the police. Many astonishing and unacceptable injustices need to get corrected and thousands of heads must roll.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Not sure whether any movement away in the New Year is real or just noise.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
On the second point you are right, there is something other than economics and cost of living pulling Tories down. Maybe they use Sunak too much at centre of messaging, like the home alone video stunt, and its voters seeing and hearing too much of Sunak that’s hurting Tory polling.
On the first point you are tad unfair, the Tories have linked the tax cut to the economy turning the corner and Sunak’s target of halfing inflation that has allowed tax cuts to start at last.
Technically I don’t know how halving inflation found extra money, isn’t it inflation actually gives government money, and rushing to tax cuts too quick can cause inflation?
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
Your continued attempts to make this a party political issue, particularly given the very long time frame of ministerial negligence, are just bloody stupid.
None of the parties at the time set out to say 'hey lets screw over a thousand or so pillars of the community'. It is doubtful if any of the governing cabinets in power over the whole saga will even have been aware of the issue until the last few years and even then it is down to the failings of individual post office ministers rather than 'the Government' at the time for not taking the issue seriously. This is a systematic problem with our governmental organisation and one that is long overdue for reform. That, combined with far too many ministers who are not fit to do their jobs (again from all parties), is what led us to this point.
It is a serious indictment of our whole system that it took a TV programme off the back of a decades long campaign by a few individuals, to finally get something done about this but that is not a party politcial issue and frankly making it one is contemptable.
You should join Lee Anderson in the naughty corner.
I'm not trying to make this a party political issue.
I'm arguing against those who are saying Labour have no responsibility, and it's either Major's administration or the Coalition who are to blame.
FWIW, I'm not one of those on here who've called for Ed Davey to resign.
Is the loan charge farrago as scandalous as the Post Office ? I always assumed it was contractors signing stuff with the likes of Knox Group who promised tax err ... management, added a whacking great fee on top and then through loan chicanery reduced the tax bill due to the contractor. Of course then HMRC comes knocking wanting their backdated tax back (With interest) - so the contractor ends up out of pocket with the Knox group fee (& stat Interest). As a PAYEr my sympathy is frankly limited.
The tainted blood scandal seems definitely worse than the Post Office one, bad as they both are.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Not sure whether any movement away in the New Year is real or just noise.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
On the second point you are right, there is something other than economics and cost of living pulling Tories down. Maybe they use Sunak too much at centre of messaging, like the home alone video stunt, and its voters seeing and hearing too much of Sunak that’s hurting Tory polling.
On the first point you are tad unfair, the Tories have linked the tax cut to the economy turning the corner and Sunak’s target of halfing inflation that has allowed tax cuts to start at last.
Technically I don’t know how halving inflation found extra money, isn’t it inflation actually gives government money, and rushing to tax cuts too quick can cause inflation?
And that is their problem. There hasn't been a tax cut. Putting taxes up to their highest level (though a tad less than you had threatened to do) and then boasting about how you're now better off is genuinely bonkers.
Somewhere in the party there must be people who know they can see Rishi's cock. And yet seemingly all are praising him on the fine tax cutting corner turned clothes he is wearing.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
Your continued attempts to make this a party political issue, particularly given the very long time frame of ministerial negligence, are just bloody stupid.
None of the parties at the time set out to say 'hey lets screw over a thousand or so pillars of the community'. It is doubtful if any of the governing cabinets in power over the whole saga will even have been aware of the issue until the last few years and even then it is down to the failings of individual post office ministers rather than 'the Government' at the time for not taking the issue seriously. This is a systematic problem with our governmental organisation and one that is long overdue for reform. That, combined with far too many ministers who are not fit to do their jobs (again from all parties), is what led us to this point.
It is a serious indictment of our whole system that it took a TV programme off the back of a decades long campaign by a few individuals, to finally get something done about this but that is not a party politcial issue and frankly making it one is contemptable.
You should join Lee Anderson in the naughty corner.
I'm not trying to make this a party political issue.
I'm arguing against those who are saying Labour have no responsibility, and it's either Major's administration or the Coalition who are to blame.
FWIW, I'm not one of those on here who've called for Ed Davey to resign.
Disappointing post from you.
Thats rubbish. You have spent days on here continually trying to pin the blame on members of other parties and trying to turn it into a party political issue. The only reason some on here have even bothered to mention the Major Government is because you kept trying to blame New Labour.
You are the one trying to make party political capital out of this. The overwhelming majority of other postrers from all political persuasions have been far more measured and reasonable.
Every party has failed to get a handle on this issue and are all equally to blame for various different times they could have sorted it out and did not.
1) Could Sir Keir have personally intervened to stop the Post Office prosecutions? 2) If he could why didn't he?
But presumably Sir Keir can't stop a prosecution just because he thinks the evidence is dodgy. That can only be established by the courts. And it can't be established by the courts if he stops the prosecution. How do we solve this circularity?
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
I suspect a lot of people don't do that, even.
Money left at end of month, result happiness (including for the government).
Month left at end of money, result misery (ditto).
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
If you are retired with no mortgage and cash savings which is a substantial part of the remaining Tory vote, then things are not too bad at all.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Let me quote Wikipedia:
"Horizon is the outcome of the Pathway project, whose procurement process commenced in August 1994,[1] and was announced by social security minister Peter Lilley at the 1995 Conservative Party conference.[2] The goal was to computerise the payment of benefits at post offices, replacing Girocheques and paper benefit books with swipe cards. It was thought this would reduce benefit fraud by £150 million per year,[2] at the same time as improving efficiency at post office counters, increasing footfall at small branches and enabling them to offer new services. The £1.5 billion project was funded by the private finance initiative; the successful bidder would develop the system and train some 70,000 Post Office staff to use it, and recover its costs from transaction-based charges.[2]
"The contract to create the system for Post Office Counters Limited and the Benefits Agency was awarded in May 1996 to ICL Pathway Limited,[3] a subsidiary created for the purpose in 1995 by British computer company ICL, which was itself majority-owned by Fujitsu of Japan.[4]"
Nah, that's not gonna wash. You can't just wave away New Labour's 13 years in office from 1997 to 2010, just because you don't want this to become an obstacle to their re-election.
It wasn't rolled-out until after Labour took office. They had the chance to cancel the procurement or delay it, the problems and delays were known when they came in, but they decided not to do so; indeed they accelerated its deployment, meaning over 13,000 branches had it by 2001, and then did nothing for years as the issues were raised and the prosecutions got underway.
They're up to their necks in it.
I’m not absolving Labour of any guilt. They absolutely fucked up over this. They did not, however, commission the system originally.
But, they did commission the system actually. And then did nothing about any of the problems for years.
Point of order, there were prosecutions as early as 1995/6 during the pilot rollout.
There have always been prosecutions of SPMs by the PO. Given their control of substantial, liquid assets under minimal supervision this is hardly surprising. We are now at the point, however, that the baby just has to be thrown out with the bathwater. Some people who were in fact dishonest will benefit but the price of those who were not waiting any longer is just too high.
There are an endless list of 'scandals' that await us, after the post office situation passes and is 'corrected'. Mostly to do with hospitals, social services, prisons and the police. Many astonishing and unacceptable injustices need to get corrected and thousands of heads must roll.
If I was a SPM now I'd tell PO to stuff their clause saying I had to make do any shortfall and nick a few quid here and there knowing that no one is going to touch me with a barge pole.
There are an endless list of 'scandals' that await us, after the post office situation passes and is 'corrected'. Mostly to do with hospitals, social services, prisons and the police. Many astonishing and unacceptable injustices need to get corrected and thousands of heads must roll.
AP (via Seattle Times) - Record-breaking cold threatens to complicate Iowa’s leadoff caucuses
WAUKEE, Iowa (AP) — Snow was still piling on top of the 8 inches that had already accumulated when Kadee Miller trekked out to see Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley in Waukee.
“There were moments on the drive up here, I was like, ‘What are we doing?’” Miller said about her 7-mile (11-kilometer) drive from Adel on Tuesday. “The reason we drove up here is to really see who she is.”
Miller isn’t sure who she’ll vote for in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses on Jan. 15, but she’s sure she’ll be there . . .
“It’s important. It’s kind of our civil duty, right?” said Miller, a 49-year-old human resources worker. “So that’s what we have to do.”
Iowa Republicans will likely confront temperatures dipping below zero degrees Fahrenheit when they kick off the 2024 election cycle, a record-breaking forecast that might complicate candidates’ hopes of making their own history if the cold depresses voter turnout.
The candidates are publicly expressing optimism that their supporters will show up no matter how bad the weather is. But the snow and cold have already wreaked havoc on the candidates’ schedules, thwarting their plans to crisscross Iowa and make their final pitches to voters.
Donald Trump ‘s campaign had to cancel events featuring surrogates advocating for the former president, including Mike Huckabee and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Mike Huckabee, who won the caucuses in 2008, posted on social media that the expected snowstorm grounded their plane.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said his car got stuck in a ditch while driving in snowy weather Monday night to Des Moines from northwest Iowa. Ramaswamy canceled his event Tuesday morning, saying it was “effectively impossible to safely get from Des Moines to Coralville,” hours after criticizing Haley for calling off her Monday event in Sioux City.
National Weather Service data shows there has never been a colder Iowa caucus night than what’s forecast for Jan. 15. The previous coldest was in 2004, when the high temperature for that year’s Jan. 19 caucuses was 16 degrees.
“We may not warm above zero degrees on Monday,” said Des Moines-based meteorologist Chad Hahn. “I would not be surprised if we don’t get above minus-20 degrees for wind chills beginning on Sunday.” . . .
SSI - Note that noted Putinist and hypocrite Ramaswamy ended up in a freaking ditch - poetic justice?
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
I don't understand how anyone can be so blinkered and partisan on such an important issue.
Indeed, why don't you enlighten us?
You're possibly the angriest and most partisan poster on this board, and you're only tolerated because you have a mildly funny name.
Watch yourself, or you might give yourself a coronary.
"Partisan". Yeah, right. You can't even correctly tell me how I voted in the last three elections. Reverting to form you lash out because you have been proved wrong. Break the habit of a lifetime and admit it will you?
I couldn't care less.
You are happy to lash out at others but cry blue-murder if you perceive someone might be doing it to you, because you're hypersensitive and assume everyone else must operate like you do.
And that's your problem right there.
And here was I thinking @Gardenwalker was the most partisan poster on this board. I’m sure some other highly balanced poster got into a spat with them a year or so ago and used almost identical language to that used against @DougSeal upthread.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Not sure whether any movement away in the New Year is real or just noise.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
On the second point you are right, there is something other than economics and cost of living pulling Tories down. Maybe they use Sunak too much at centre of messaging, like the home alone video stunt, and its voters seeing and hearing too much of Sunak that’s hurting Tory polling.
On the first point you are tad unfair, the Tories have linked the tax cut to the economy turning the corner and Sunak’s target of halfing inflation that has allowed tax cuts to start at last.
Technically I don’t know how halving inflation found extra money, isn’t it inflation actually gives government money, and rushing to tax cuts too quick can cause inflation?
Sunak’s target of halving inflation was a non-target. The Bank of England, throughout, has had a target to get inflation down to 2%. Sunak announcing a weaker target than that had zero impact.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Not sure whether any movement away in the New Year is real or just noise.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
On the second point you are right, there is something other than economics and cost of living pulling Tories down. Maybe they use Sunak too much at centre of messaging, like the home alone video stunt, and its voters seeing and hearing too much of Sunak that’s hurting Tory polling.
On the first point you are tad unfair, the Tories have linked the tax cut to the economy turning the corner and Sunak’s target of halfing inflation that has allowed tax cuts to start at last.
Technically I don’t know how halving inflation found extra money, isn’t it inflation actually gives government money, and rushing to tax cuts too quick can cause inflation?
"there is something other than economics and cost of living pulling Tories down" They seem to be looking for gimmicks to slow their descent, they don't come across as believing in anything. 'We just held on to Uxbridge, so people must have cooled on the fight against the climate emergency, so lets drill for oil and gas' No, wrong - not useful and not popular. 'Rishi thought Rwanda policy was costly and wouldn't work, but now they have to defend it'
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
I don't understand how anyone can be so blinkered and partisan on such an important issue.
Indeed, why don't you enlighten us?
You're possibly the angriest and most partisan poster on this board, and you're only tolerated because you have a mildly funny name.
Watch yourself, or you might give yourself a coronary.
"Partisan". Yeah, right. You can't even correctly tell me how I voted in the last three elections. Reverting to form you lash out because you have been proved wrong. Break the habit of a lifetime and admit it will you?
I couldn't care less.
You are happy to lash out at others but cry blue-murder if you perceive someone might be doing it to you, because you're hypersensitive and assume everyone else must operate like you do.
And that's your problem right there.
And here was I thinking @Gardenwalker was the most partisan poster on this board. I’m sure some other highly balanced poster got into a spat with them a year or so ago and used almost identical language to that used against @DougSeal upthread.
Spooky, really.
To be fair most of us are just Leon clones, albeit some of the newer arrivals are suspected of being AI chat bots.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
Starting under a Conservative Government, and being ignored by a Labour Govennment, then by a Conservsative Lib Dem Coalition with a Lib Dem Minister being (ir)responsible for the PO and further ignored ba a Conservative Government. It seems to me the problem is with the UK government system as a whole and attempting to lay the blame on any particular party is just being childish.
Sigh! We have the extreme Tory fanboys on here desperate to blame Labour, and the extreme Labour fanboys desperate to blame the Tories. All parties are implicated, and trying to make it a party political matter is wrong and counterproductive.
January 15: Iowa - Democratic and Republican caucuses January 23: New Hampshire - Democratic and Republican primaries February 3: South Carolina - Democratic primary February 6: Nevada - Democratic and Republican primaries February 8: Nevada - party-organized caucuses February 24: South Carolina - Republican primary February 27: Michigan - Democratic and Republican primaries March 2: Idaho, Michigan, and Missouri - Republican caucuses March 3: District of Columbia - Republican primary March 4:North Dakota - Republican caucuses March 5: Super Tuesday
Look out for future outrage based on convictions and confessions based on 'irrefutable' DNA evidence. Turns out that it wasn't all that certain and irrefutable.
Already happened. In the US, they used cheapo tests, for a while, that could make a match easily - not comparing enough bits. In several places this got people convicted.
Which is why in decent jurisdictions, where justice is respected, DNA testing has to be of a decent quality.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
I don't understand how anyone can be so blinkered and partisan on such an important issue.
Indeed, why don't you enlighten us?
You're possibly the angriest and most partisan poster on this board, and you're only tolerated because you have a mildly funny name.
Watch yourself, or you might give yourself a coronary.
"Partisan". Yeah, right. You can't even correctly tell me how I voted in the last three elections. Reverting to form you lash out because you have been proved wrong. Break the habit of a lifetime and admit it will you?
I couldn't care less.
You are happy to lash out at others but cry blue-murder if you perceive someone might be doing it to you, because you're hypersensitive and assume everyone else must operate like you do.
And that's your problem right there.
And here was I thinking @Gardenwalker was the most partisan poster on this board. I’m sure some other highly balanced poster got into a spat with them a year or so ago and used almost identical language to that used against @DougSeal upthread.
Spooky, really.
@Gardenwalker is one of our more interesting and fair posters, actually.
Starting under a Conservative Government, and being ignored by a Labour Govennment, then by a Conservsative Lib Dem Coalition with a Lib Dem Minister being (ir)responsible for the PO and further ignored ba a Conservative Government. It seems to me the problem is with the UK government system as a whole and attempting to lay the blame on any particular party is just being childish.
Sigh! We have the extreme Tory fanboys on here desperate to blame Labour, and the extreme Labour fanboys desperate to blame the Tories. All parties are implicated, and trying to make it a party political matter is wrong and counterproductive.
The more Tory fanboys can try to point the finger at Starmer, and Labour fanboys point the finger at the government, the better for Ed Davey!
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Not sure whether any movement away in the New Year is real or just noise.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
On the second point you are right, there is something other than economics and cost of living pulling Tories down. Maybe they use Sunak too much at centre of messaging, like the home alone video stunt, and its voters seeing and hearing too much of Sunak that’s hurting Tory polling.
On the first point you are tad unfair, the Tories have linked the tax cut to the economy turning the corner and Sunak’s target of halfing inflation that has allowed tax cuts to start at last.
Technically I don’t know how halving inflation found extra money, isn’t it inflation actually gives government money, and rushing to tax cuts too quick can cause inflation?
Tory messaging for the last couple of months seems to be:
Starmer can't be trusted and is a flip flopper The economy is fine, really Anything wrong with the country is the fault of the opposition
The idea that is going to wash with anyone not already committed Tory is pretty fanciful. You could give a task of coming up with better messenging to the teams on week 1 of the Apprentice, when the teams are led by the individual with the highest mix of arrogance, naivety and stupidity, and they would come up with a much better strategy than this.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
Your continued attempts to make this a party political issue, particularly given the very long time frame of ministerial negligence, are just bloody stupid.
None of the parties at the time set out to say 'hey lets screw over a thousand or so pillars of the community'. It is doubtful if any of the governing cabinets in power over the whole saga will even have been aware of the issue until the last few years and even then it is down to the failings of individual post office ministers rather than 'the Government' at the time for not taking the issue seriously. This is a systematic problem with our governmental organisation and one that is long overdue for reform. That, combined with far too many ministers who are not fit to do their jobs (again from all parties), is what led us to this point.
It is a serious indictment of our whole system that it took a TV programme off the back of a decades long campaign by a few individuals, to finally get something done about this but that is not a party politcial issue and frankly making it one is contemptable.
You should join Lee Anderson in the naughty corner.
I'm not trying to make this a party political issue.
I'm arguing against those who are saying Labour have no responsibility, and it's either Major's administration or the Coalition who are to blame.
FWIW, I'm not one of those on here who've called for Ed Davey to resign.
Disappointing post from you.
Thats rubbish. You have spent days on here continually trying to pin the blame on members of other parties and trying to turn it into a party political issue. The only reason some on here have even bothered to mention the Major Government is because you kept trying to blame New Labour.
You are the one trying to make party political capital out of this. The overwhelming majority of other postrers from all political persuasions have been far more measured and reasonable.
Err, no. I've just mentioned it today. I've highlighted how quiet Labour have been when they had a central role in the scandal for years. I've not called for Ed Davey to resign. Nor have I said it's all about Starmer.
Your posts are pathetic and mainly about you sensing an opportunity to exploit to showcase your "neutrality" at my expense.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Let me quote Wikipedia:
"Horizon is the outcome of the Pathway project, whose procurement process commenced in August 1994,[1] and was announced by social security minister Peter Lilley at the 1995 Conservative Party conference.[2] The goal was to computerise the payment of benefits at post offices, replacing Girocheques and paper benefit books with swipe cards. It was thought this would reduce benefit fraud by £150 million per year,[2] at the same time as improving efficiency at post office counters, increasing footfall at small branches and enabling them to offer new services. The £1.5 billion project was funded by the private finance initiative; the successful bidder would develop the system and train some 70,000 Post Office staff to use it, and recover its costs from transaction-based charges.[2]
"The contract to create the system for Post Office Counters Limited and the Benefits Agency was awarded in May 1996 to ICL Pathway Limited,[3] a subsidiary created for the purpose in 1995 by British computer company ICL, which was itself majority-owned by Fujitsu of Japan.[4]"
Nah, that's not gonna wash. You can't just wave away New Labour's 13 years in office from 1997 to 2010, just because you don't want this to become an obstacle to their re-election.
It wasn't rolled-out until after Labour took office. They had the chance to cancel the procurement or delay it, the problems and delays were known when they came in, but they decided not to do so; indeed they accelerated its deployment, meaning over 13,000 branches had it by 2001, and then did nothing for years as the issues were raised and the prosecutions got underway.
They're up to their necks in it.
I’m not absolving Labour of any guilt. They absolutely fucked up over this. They did not, however, commission the system originally.
But, they did commission the system actually. And then did nothing about any of the problems for years.
Point of order, there were prosecutions as early as 1995/6 during the pilot rollout.
There have always been prosecutions of SPMs by the PO. Given their control of substantial, liquid assets under minimal supervision this is hardly surprising. We are now at the point, however, that the baby just has to be thrown out with the bathwater. Some people who were in fact dishonest will benefit but the price of those who were not waiting any longer is just too high.
Agreed. The maxim of ten guilty going free being preferable to one innocent being falsely convicted applies (Especially if the numbers are reversed). I think a blanket pardon is probably the best way forward.
Starting under a Conservative Government, and being ignored by a Labour Govennment, then by a Conservsative Lib Dem Coalition with a Lib Dem Minister being (ir)responsible for the PO and further ignored ba a Conservative Government. It seems to me the problem is with the UK government system as a whole and attempting to lay the blame on any particular party is just being childish.
Sigh! We have the extreme Tory fanboys on here desperate to blame Labour, and the extreme Labour fanboys desperate to blame the Tories. All parties are implicated, and trying to make it a party political matter is wrong and counterproductive.
The more Tory fanboys can try to point the finger at Starmer, and Labour fanboys point the finger at the government, the better for Ed Davey!
What do the Lib Dem fanboys do?
An idea - this scandal has included lying upwards to conceal the truth.
How about we make lying, in a material fashion, that will be reported to a Minister (and these to parliament), Misconduct In a Public Office?
So you tell lies to your bosses that gets reported to the minister (say to Davey, when he asked his question). Congratulations! - you could get life in prison.
Is the loan charge farrago as scandalous as the Post Office ? I always assumed it was contractors signing stuff with the likes of Knox Group who promised tax err ... management, added a whacking great fee on top and then through loan chicanery reduced the tax bill due to the contractor. Of course then HMRC comes knocking wanting their backdated tax back (With interest) - so the contractor ends up out of pocket with the Knox group fee (& stat Interest). As a PAYEr my sympathy is frankly limited.
The tainted blood scandal seems definitely worse than the Post Office one, bad as they both are.
Quote, the loan charge is entirely reasonable. Contractors thought they could get away with a tax wheeze that allowed them to pay no income tax at all by “lending” themselves the money indefinitely from an off-shore arms length subsidiary that they controlled through their lawyers. They allowed greed & avarice to cloud their judgement.
Were they badly advised by the mendacious lawyers who came up with the scheme? Sure. But they took the unethical choice to try and completely wriggle out of paying taxes entirely & gave no thought to what would happen when HMRC worked out a way to tax them.
If you decide that your life goal is to pay 0% income tax & stick your fingers up at the rest of the tax paying public then I have no sympathy for you.
I note in passing that HMRC didn’t even demand back-dated interest. Initially they tried to have the scheme declared an illegal tax avoidance scheme, but it turned out that the scheme was in fact legal under UK law - the fact that a foreign company could make an obviously false loan like this was not something that the UK government could act upon - that was a matter for the authorities in the country in question. So they turned around & came up with another solution: it was fine to make loans to company Directors & Staff, but they would be counted as income in the UK if they crossed a tax year. Contractors who had accumulated huge loans suddenly found themselves with an equally large tax liability. But the reality is that they always owed that tax.
The tainted blood scandal is the one that should be top of the governments list after sorting out the PO debacle. Not this self-interested bunch of tax avoiding shits.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
I am no fan of his, but I don’t quite follow the attack line against Starmer re: Post Office prosecutions. The idea that the DPP would (or should) have any serious knowledge or involvement in anything but the most complex or high profile cases (and these were not that, at the time) is just silly.
Similar point to be made on Davey. The original sin was trying to commercialise and sell of the Post Office. That having been agreed, the relevant Minister of course had to stay at arms length and accept assurances from the appointed management.
It was Royal Mail which was sold off. Not the Post Office. It is and always has been owned by us the taxpayer.
Treating it as if it were a private company and keeping it at arm's length makes no sense of that leads to no effective oversight at all, which is what happened here, despite the fact that the government has to fund it. And was probably more involved in some of the key decisions than it is letting on.
The arm's length excuse is just that. Day to day operational independence is one thing. But at some point Ministers must have supervisory responsibility, especially if its failings result in an enormous bill to the taxpayer and the worst miscarriage of justice in legal history.
Any normal shareholder holds the management to account. It simply cannot be the case that HMG as shareholder simply lets the management do what they want. That is not public ownership, that is irresponsibility as the very large bill coming the taxpayer's way demonstrates.
What this demonstrates to me is that attacks on Davey, Starmer etc are missing the point. What have the relevant Ministers been doing over the last 15 years as this disaster unfolded? Why were the Board not sacked? What is Kemi doing today?
Holding management to account and actively supervising management are very different things.
A normal shareholder does not take day to day decisions (event very big ones) and does not carry out its own audits (indeed, it wouldn't be allowed to). It may do some of its own research, but would take published management information essentially at face value. It would step in, voting with its feet as a smaller shareholder or more actively for a large one, where reported information indicates disappointing performance.
There is are perfectly reasonable questions on the proper extent of involvement given the importance of Post Office services and fact that this isn't some little investment, and on how that has been discharged by government departments (including but much more widely than individual ministers). But normal shareholders simply are not a board above the board, or actively involved in management. It just isn't how corporate structures are meant to, or do, work.
There is a big difference I think between being a shareholder of a public quoted company and being the 100% shareholder of a company. I have bugger all influence over Rolls Royce with my 700 odd shares, but I ran the company I owned 100% of the shares in. The Government (or rather the civil servants) could take as much or as little interest in the Post Office as they liked.
I agree that the grandma with a handful of privatisation shares, the Pru with millions of pension funds invested, and someone who is sole shareholder with a strategic interest are different.
However, I think you're making an analogy with a one man band (or relatively small business) with a corporate structure ("I ran the company"), and that isn't valid. Clearly, there are relatively small businesses where the sole shareholder is the director and the manager. But there are also very large business where the sole shareholder appoints a board, the board appoint senior managers, the senior managers appoint juniors, the juniors appoint their teams and so on. That is delegation. Once you do that, you own the company, but don't and can't "run" the company. You can argue about the appropriate level of involvement by the sole shareholder - but that shareholder simply cannot be involved in all aspects, has to allow important decisions to be made without reference to him, and has to give a level of credence to information provided to him.
None of that is to put government in the clear on this particular issue. But I don't think your analogy works.
I 100% agree with that and my analogy was an extreme to make the point. The one man band 100% owned company, the FTSE 100 public company and the 100% Govt owned huge company are all very different to one another in terms of their management. I was trying to make the distinction between the latter two by giving the example of the first type of company to demonstrate they are all different to one another. I was being two clever by half (or too dim) by doing so.
I would expect that a Govt owned company to have (a) non executive director(s) on the board who are senior civil servants and who are diligent and active in probing. I would also anticipate that multiple levels of management and delegation for that diligence to be difficult and sometimes impossible.
My experience (which sadly is extensive) of senior civil servants is that they don't want to know about problems and the greatest amount of effort is put into trying not to find out about problems. They are very good at working hard at that activity I have found to my cost.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
If you are retired with no mortgage and cash savings which is a substantial part of the remaining Tory vote, then things are not too bad at all.
That's me exactly - the last 2 years have been pretty good. Ihave had 10 or more years though with zero interest on savings/investments while those with mortgages enjoyed very low borrowing costs.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
Absolutely right. That a computer system of such complexity didn’t work properly in the 1990’s is not surprising, even to me, whose experience of such systems is purely as a user. What is amazing, and I use the word deliberately, is that apparently no-one in the Post Office considered the possibility, and that they went ahead with prosecutions on an almost industrial scale. I believe that previously there were about one or two prosecutions of sub-Postmasters every two or three years; I think we should looking at Post Office records to see if anyone looked at the end of year figures and asked any questions about the current recruitment process.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
If they are successful on sorting out the subpostmaster issue in a timely manner, (and I suspect this is why they are going down the route of using a bill rather than an appeals process, sadly with all the unforeseen consequences this is likely to bring) AND crack on with the contaminated blood compensation, they may yet get their bounce. If it doesn't keep them in power at the next election, it will kick the financial mess over to the other lot to sort out, which may financially cripple them sufficiently that it forces an earlier GE, or at least reduces their chances of a second term.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
If you are retired with no mortgage and cash savings which is a substantial part of the remaining Tory vote, then things are not too bad at all.
That's me exactly - the last 2 years have been pretty good. Ihave had 10 or more years though with zero interest on savings/investments while those with mortgages enjoyed very low borrowing costs.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
No, it's just an ad homines which doesn't even name the targets. Nice rhetorical device, but of minimal argumentative value.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
If you are retired with no mortgage and cash savings which is a substantial part of the remaining Tory vote, then things are not too bad at all.
That's me exactly - the last 2 years have been pretty good. Ihave had 10 or more years though with zero interest on savings/investments while those with mortgages enjoyed very low borrowing costs.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
Up. And after the spring will likely quite markedly go up. Just in time for people to really feel the difference during Starmer’s first year….
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
7) A huge heap of incuriosity by people who should have been asking questions.
I'm been thinking about what I would have done if I had been employed down the ranks at the PO say ten years ago.
I would, for sure, have been asking superiors 'are we sure it's not the system' and I would have some sympathy for the SPMs and I would be aghast that the PO could prosecute outside of the checks and balances of the police/CPS - but then again I'm a skeptic and would think 'Occam's Razer, Yeah they or their staff probably did take it'.
Is the loan charge farrago as scandalous as the Post Office ? I always assumed it was contractors signing stuff with the likes of Knox Group who promised tax err ... management, added a whacking great fee on top and then through loan chicanery reduced the tax bill due to the contractor. Of course then HMRC comes knocking wanting their backdated tax back (With interest) - so the contractor ends up out of pocket with the Knox group fee (& stat Interest). As a PAYEr my sympathy is frankly limited.
The tainted blood scandal seems definitely worse than the Post Office one, bad as they both are.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Voters believe taxes are going up because taxes are going up. I know the Tories say "we are cutting taxes" - which sounds great until people see their actual tax bill going up.
I know you are technically right, but Tories have put it all over news that you can see tax cut in your wage slip. So your answer doesn’t explain why Conservatives going down in polls.
Yes it does. The Tories are saying "you can see tax cut in your wage slip". So people look, and see their taxes going up not down.
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
Yep. Most people don't look at the breakdown, they look at the bottom line. If that is going up they will instinctively feel better, if it is going down they will feel worse. I think we all know which way it is going at present.
If you are retired with no mortgage and cash savings which is a substantial part of the remaining Tory vote, then things are not too bad at all.
That's me exactly - the last 2 years have been pretty good. Ihave had 10 or more years though with zero interest on savings/investments while those with mortgages enjoyed very low borrowing costs.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
That would be the New Labour minister Peter Lilley in 1994/5?
No, that was the Pathway project.
The Horizon system was commissioned and pushed out by New Labour.
Your continued attempts to make this a party political issue, particularly given the very long time frame of ministerial negligence, are just bloody stupid.
None of the parties at the time set out to say 'hey lets screw over a thousand or so pillars of the community'. It is doubtful if any of the governing cabinets in power over the whole saga will even have been aware of the issue until the last few years and even then it is down to the failings of individual post office ministers rather than 'the Government' at the time for not taking the issue seriously. This is a systematic problem with our governmental organisation and one that is long overdue for reform. That, combined with far too many ministers who are not fit to do their jobs (again from all parties), is what led us to this point.
It is a serious indictment of our whole system that it took a TV programme off the back of a decades long campaign by a few individuals, to finally get something done about this but that is not a party politcial issue and frankly making it one is contemptable.
You should join Lee Anderson in the naughty corner.
I'm not trying to make this a party political issue.
I'm arguing against those who are saying Labour have no responsibility, and it's either Major's administration or the Coalition who are to blame.
FWIW, I'm not one of those on here who've called for Ed Davey to resign.
Disappointing post from you.
Thats rubbish. You have spent days on here continually trying to pin the blame on members of other parties and trying to turn it into a party political issue. The only reason some on here have even bothered to mention the Major Government is because you kept trying to blame New Labour.
You are the one trying to make party political capital out of this. The overwhelming majority of other postrers from all political persuasions have been far more measured and reasonable.
I'm just waiting for the posts blaming those appalling Labour prime ministers May, Boris and Truss.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
Is the loan charge farrago as scandalous as the Post Office ? I always assumed it was contractors signing stuff with the likes of Knox Group who promised tax err ... management, added a whacking great fee on top and then through loan chicanery reduced the tax bill due to the contractor. Of course then HMRC comes knocking wanting their backdated tax back (With interest) - so the contractor ends up out of pocket with the Knox group fee (& stat Interest). As a PAYEr my sympathy is frankly limited.
The tainted blood scandal seems definitely worse than the Post Office one, bad as they both are.
Quote, the loan charge is entirely reasonable. Contractors thought they could get away with a tax wheeze that allowed them to pay no income tax at all by “lending” themselves the money indefinitely from an off-shore arms length subsidiary that they controlled through their lawyers. They allowed greed & avarice to cloud their judgement.
Were they badly advised by the mendacious lawyers who came up with the scheme? Sure. But they took the unethical choice to try and completely wriggle out of paying taxes entirely & gave no thought to what would happen when HMRC worked out a way to tax them.
If you decide that your life goal is to pay 0% income tax & stick your fingers up at the rest of the tax paying public then I have no sympathy for you.
I note in passing that HMRC didn’t even demand back-dated interest. Initially they tried to have the scheme declared an illegal tax avoidance scheme, but it turned out that the scheme was in fact legal under UK law - the fact that a foreign company could make an obviously false loan like this was not something that the UK government could act upon - that was a matter for the authorities in the country in question. So they turned around & came up with another solution: it was fine to make loans to company Directors & Staff, but they would be counted as income in the UK if they crossed a tax year. Contractors who had accumulated huge loans suddenly found themselves with an equally large tax liability. But the reality is that they always owed that tax.
The tainted blood scandal is the one that should be top of the governments list after sorting out the PO debacle. Not this self-interested bunch of tax avoiding shits.
There are a number of contractors I feel sorry for - the social care workers who are relatively low paid and end up in a scheme because they’ve been badly mislead but anyone caught by the loan charge really knew what they were doing and were simply trying to avoid paying tax they should have been paying.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
Stop using sheep as term of abuse. They are actually very intelligent.
Anyone who has anything to do with sheep will confirm that all they do is try to find ways to die. Often with great success. Intelligent they are not.
Wroooooooooooooong They are intelligent. It’s scientifically proven in things like face and name recognition and solving puzzles. And form emotional bonds too.
But it’s true, they die. 197 yesterday, 196 today. One died. Don’t know why. Looked like one was using her as a pillow, it might have been grieving. I’m sure some form close bonds with each other.
It might just be how we have completely changed them, and they were less good at finding ways to die when wild animals.
Yes, wild sheep are pretty cunning and are more than capable of acting collectively to, for example, see off a wolf. In the wild, stupid sheep die out and their genes are not passed on. Domestic sheep are not. In amongst the characteristics humans have bred them for, intelligence was not one.
Thanks for backing up my theory. We got Mostly Swale but some Valais across the road. I think all types are very friendly and intelligent and social when you get to know them, but obviously have different needs or outcomes. I think Dad switched from Merino to Swale becuase people down the con club convinced him less of them will die because they are proper Yorkshire sheep not soft southern cuddly toys. Swale are not amazing looking sheep. They are the Leeds Utd of sheep, division 2 and mostly boring and ugly. Don’t tell them I said that.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
Absolutely right. That a computer system of such complexity didn’t work properly in the 1990’s is not surprising, even to me, whose experience of such systems is purely as a user. What is amazing, and I use the word deliberately, is that apparently no-one in the Post Office considered the possibility, and that they went ahead with prosecutions on an almost industrial scale. I believe that previously there were about one or two prosecutions of sub-Postmasters every two or three years; I think we should looking at Post Office records to see if anyone looked at the end of year figures and asked any questions about the current recruitment process.
It wasn't that complex as such systems go. At the same time (late 90s) I was peripherally involved in a project, as an oil giant, that handled all the data from all their petrol stations world wide. You could cross cut the data to look at individual sales of Mars Bars in Burkina Faso, or whatever. That just worked.
Big accounting and transaction systems is pretty much what commercial computers were invented for.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Taxes are going up, via fiscal drag.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Look out for future outrage based on convictions and confessions based on 'irrefutable' DNA evidence. Turns out that it wasn't all that certain and irrefutable.
Already happened. In the US, they used cheapo tests, for a while, that could make a match easily - not comparing enough bits. In several places this got people convicted.
Which is why in decent jurisdictions, where justice is respected, DNA testing has to be of a decent quality.
Nah. Just put me in the judiciary and issue a black cap. I can spot a wrong-un.
I hope one of the things to come out of this is the end of private prosecutions. Private corporations should not have the power or ability to put someone in prison. It stinks.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Taxes are going up, via fiscal drag.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Will they unfreeze thresholds at the budget? I'm guessing yes.
I hope one of the things to come out of this is the end of private prosecutions. Private corporations should not have the power or ability to put someone in prison. It stinks.
Yep that's the biggy.
Did the PO have to use these powers - I assume they could have gone down the police/CPS route if they wanted too?
They ended up 'victim', investigator and prosecutor and THEN were able to use judges and juries to imprison - it really does beggar belief.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
That's a good (but sad...) list. I'd just like to add two points:
*) Essentially, the cover-up caused this mess. When the PO realised something was wrong - which they must have done fairly early on - instead of admitting it and sorting it out, they lied and continued as before.
*) This is another case where the little person who suffers, whilst the people who caused the mess got away with their wrongdoing. I used the past tense 'got', because I hope that will change.
I hope one of the things to come out of this is the end of private prosecutions. Private corporations should not have the power or ability to put someone in prison. It stinks.
In addition it gives the worst kind of American prison leverage to those levying the private prosecutions.
In America its the state offering "plea bargains" of "plead guilty to this and get this sentence, or you'll get much worse" which pressures even innocent people to take the bargain rather than take their chances.
In the UK we saw that pressure being levied so that people were handing over thousands of pounds they never owed, because if they didn't they could go to jail.
I hope one of the things to come out of this is the end of private prosecutions. Private corporations should not have the power or ability to put someone in prison. It stinks.
My instinct is to agree. But I’d be nervous of unintended consequences. It feels like a right we all have (and we do) that we should think before giving up.
There’s also some messiness around the edges you’d have to clear up. I think a number of public bodies (e.g. the FCA and the NHS) prosecute in this way from time to time, and we know the CPS and police are overwhelmed, so would all those prosecutions end rather than be transferred?
I hope one of the things to come out of this is the end of private prosecutions. Private corporations should not have the power or ability to put someone in prison. It stinks.
It's very upsetting and scary actually. Imprisoning is an act of violence and the state should have the monopoly on violence (channelling my inner Hobbes).
In the early '00s I worked for the public sector (a fairly large quango). Fujitsu provided our IT. They were chuffing useless. Even the simplest fix required endless form-filling.
Somehow - I still don't know how - I managed to get the only Mac in the building, possibly the only one in the entire organisation. It was a curious thing called an eMac, a slightly lower-budget iMac. Given that my productivity has basically been hardwired to the Mac way of doing things since 1992, this was a massive boon.
But I spent the next two years basically hiding it from any IT staff in case they actually noticed what they'd somehow allowed to be connected to their network.
Look out for future outrage based on convictions and confessions based on 'irrefutable' DNA evidence. Turns out that it wasn't all that certain and irrefutable.
Already happened. In the US, they used cheapo tests, for a while, that could make a match easily - not comparing enough bits. In several places this got people convicted.
Which is why in decent jurisdictions, where justice is respected, DNA testing has to be of a decent quality.
Nah. Just put me in the judiciary and issue a black cap. I can spot a wrong-un.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Taxes are going up, via fiscal drag.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Will they unfreeze thresholds at the budget? I'm guessing yes.
And why not, from their perspective? They likely won’t be in power by the next one and so won’t have to live with the consequences. I expect to see many “traps” laid for Starmer aimed at defining a Labour “tax bomb shell” at the election and after it.
There are an endless list of 'scandals' that await us, after the post office situation passes and is 'corrected'. Mostly to do with hospitals, social services, prisons and the police. Many astonishing and unacceptable injustices need to get corrected and thousands of heads must roll.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Taxes are going up, via fiscal drag.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Will they unfreeze thresholds at the budget? I'm guessing yes.
Not sure about that. They will want the biggest bang possible for their bucks. A cut in the basic rate will have far more impact than an increase in allowances which relatively few people understand.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
That's a good (but sad...) list. I'd just like to add two points:
*) Essentially, the cover-up caused this mess. When the PO realised something was wrong - which they must have done fairly early on - instead of admitting it and sorting it out, they lied and continued as before.
*) This is another case where the little person who suffers, whilst the people who caused the mess got away with their wrongdoing. I used the past tense 'got', because I hope that will change.
There are an endless list of 'scandals' that await us, after the post office situation passes and is 'corrected'. Mostly to do with hospitals, social services, prisons and the police. Many astonishing and unacceptable injustices need to get corrected and thousands of heads must roll.
I’m surprised Starmer didn’t go on the Post Office scandal.
His silence has been absolutely thunderous.
Given New Labour commissioned and pushed out Horizon they're up to their necks in it. He's decided silence is the best strategy and is probably all too happy for Ed Davey to take the hit.
Can you people take responsibility for anything? It was the brainchild of Peter Lilley when he was a minister in Major's Government. Not absolving the 1997-2010 administration but, really, do some basic fact checking before spouting off will you?
Nothing wrong with my facts.
The Herd just can't stand it. They want to pretend it had nothing to do with them.
Nothing at all.
"The Herd"; "the Blob"...
Examples of Tory paranoia.
Nah, reflects our sheep-like regulars who are desperate to scrub any responsibility of Labour from the record.
There's plenty on here. We all know their names.
There is a time-value element to this which is quite important. The evidence for a huge miscarriage of justice has grown over time, as have the efforts to conceal it.
Blaming the Tories for commissioning it in the 90s is silly. Blaming the Tories for awarding Vennels a CBE in 2019 , along with Cabinet Office and NHS jobs... seems fair to me.
The basic idea of a computerised post office counter system reporting to HQ, doing the books etc was sensible. In fact, the standard way of doing things in most of retail.
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap 2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions. 3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything 4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions. 5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire. 6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
That's a good (but sad...) list. I'd just like to add two points:
*) Essentially, the cover-up caused this mess. When the PO realised something was wrong - which they must have done fairly early on - instead of admitting it and sorting it out, they lied and continued as before.
*) This is another case where the little person who suffers, whilst the people who caused the mess got away with their wrongdoing. I used the past tense 'got', because I hope that will change.
It will be “interesting” to see what the Met make of it all. From a layman’s standpoint I would expect some present and one-time senior people in the Post Office to be expecting an early morning call from police persons bearing charge sheets and handcuffs.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Taxes are going up, via fiscal drag.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Will they unfreeze thresholds at the budget? I'm guessing yes.
And why not, from their perspective? They likely won’t be in power by the next one and so won’t have to live with the consequences. I expect to see many “traps” laid for Starmer aimed at defining a Labour “tax bomb shell” at the election and after it.
Very bad Government, but inevitable.
If they don't it will be to avoid a U-turn on their pledge that thresholds are fixed until 2028.
There are an endless list of 'scandals' that await us, after the post office situation passes and is 'corrected'. Mostly to do with hospitals, social services, prisons and the police. Many astonishing and unacceptable injustices need to get corrected and thousands of heads must roll.
Just awful figures for the Tories. Nothing they do seems to make any difference.
Yes. Let’s talk polling, and basically arn’t they surprising? The Tories have been the busiest party over Christmas, talking things up, not least how quickly they have brought forward and delivered a real NI tax cut, putting real money back in peoples pay packets.
So why are they going backward in the New Year polling?
They must be just a shade over 25% now on poll of poll averages?
When does swing back begin? When do they get a tax cut bounce?
Point of order - this is not true. The NI cut reduces the size of the tax increase.
You saying voters actually believe taxes are still going up whilst they clearly see Tories actually cutting them?
Taxes are going up, via fiscal drag.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Will they unfreeze thresholds at the budget? I'm guessing yes.
Not sure about that. They will want the biggest bang possible for their bucks. A cut in the basic rate will have far more impact than an increase in allowances which relatively few people understand.
I think they will do both.
How about something really dramatic: abolish employee NI?
Comments
You are happy to lash out at others but cry blue-murder if you perceive someone might be doing it to you, because you're hypersensitive and assume everyone else must operate like you do.
And that's your problem right there.
But it’s true, they die. 197 yesterday, 196 today. One died. Don’t know why. Looked like one was using her as a pillow, it might have been grieving. I’m sure some form close bonds with each other.
It might just be how we have completely changed them, and they were less good at finding ways to die when wild animals.
Domestic sheep are not. In amongst the characteristics humans have bred them for, intelligence was not one.
Don’t tell them I said that.
What's so interesting about this thread is that people say that it's cross-party and that Labour absolutely fucked-up as well but when you point this out immediately go back to the Major administration or try and jump forward to the Coalition, skipping over entirely the bit in the middle.
The biggest part of the Horizon scandal - its roll-out and deployment - happened under New Labour and of the 736 prosecutions of sub-postmasters and mistresses that the Post Office pursued between 1999 and 2015 the great majority happened under New Labour as well.
Evidence of the scandal was published by Computer Weekly in 2009, whilst they were still in office, as was the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance (JFSA).
There's no excuses. They just passed it on to the next administration who, to fair, were slow to wake up to it.
The miscarriage of justice, perjury and perverting the cause of justice stuff happened this century. The information available to each Post Office minister about the scandal has grown cumulatively and signficantly over the last decade so whilst it would have been great if the ones earlier on had acted more inquisitively and decisively, it is the more recent ones who have the most to answer for imo.
Especially given the haste they now want to act once it is a tv drama.
However, my personal impression is that the NI cut publicity was badly handled in the sense that it sounded like "aren't you lucky?" when people are not feeling better off, and blame the Conservatives. I would have presented it a bit differently - along the lines that this has been hard, it remains hard, but some progress is being made and we want you to see that in your pay packet. There was a failure to acknowledge how people feel, and that seemed out of touch.
There was also the issue of election delay. It was praised on here and elsewhere for stealing Starmer's thunder. However, an overwhelming majority of the public want an election without delay. So Sunak stole Starmer's thunder by saying, "Look! I'm doing something you don't want me to do by postponing!" Not sure the benefit was worth the cost.
It takes a TV show for MPs to sit up and act.
It takes a TV show for the general public to sit up and act.
I wonder if these are related?
It was so believable that for a second I looked up which constituency Rosie Holt represented.
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/pro-trump-maga-republicans-much-more-likely-to-endorse-delusional-and-pro-violence-statements-study-finds-220619
The Conservatives are going down in the polls because (a) they are lying and (b) the voters can see they are lying.
Part (b) is a perplexing phenomenon for the Tories. They have spent years with their client media getting it so that they can lie to voters and the voters believe the lies. The Lizaster seems to have been the event which shattered that, and voters now see straight through the bullshit.
None of the parties at the time set out to say 'hey lets screw over a thousand or so pillars of the community'. It is doubtful if any of the governing cabinets in power over the whole saga will even have been aware of the issue until the last few years and even then it is down to the failings of individual post office ministers rather than 'the Government' at the time for not taking the issue seriously. This is a systematic problem with our governmental organisation and one that is long overdue for reform. That, combined with far too many ministers who are not fit to do their jobs (again from all parties), is what led us to this point.
It is a serious indictment of our whole system that it took a TV programme off the back of a decades long campaign by a few individuals, to finally get something done about this but that is not a party politcial issue and frankly making it one is contemptable.
You should join Lee Anderson in the naughty corner.
On the first point you are tad unfair, the Tories have linked the tax cut to the economy turning the corner and Sunak’s target of halfing inflation that has allowed tax cuts to start at last.
Technically I don’t know how halving inflation found extra money, isn’t it inflation actually gives government money, and rushing to tax cuts too quick can cause inflation?
I'm arguing against those who are saying Labour have no responsibility, and it's either Major's administration or the Coalition who are to blame.
FWIW, I'm not one of those on here who've called for Ed Davey to resign.
Disappointing post from you.
I always assumed it was contractors signing stuff with the likes of Knox Group who promised tax err ... management, added a whacking great fee on top and then through loan chicanery reduced the tax bill due to the contractor. Of course then HMRC comes knocking wanting their backdated tax back (With interest) - so the contractor ends up out of pocket with the Knox group fee (& stat Interest). As a PAYEr my sympathy is frankly limited.
The tainted blood scandal seems definitely worse than the Post Office one, bad as they both are.
Somewhere in the party there must be people who know they can see Rishi's cock. And yet seemingly all are praising him on the fine tax cutting corner turned clothes he is wearing.
You are the one trying to make party political capital out of this. The overwhelming majority of other postrers from all political persuasions have been far more measured and reasonable.
1) Could Sir Keir have personally intervened to stop the Post Office prosecutions?
2) If he could why didn't he?
But presumably Sir Keir can't stop a prosecution just because he thinks the evidence is dodgy. That can only be established by the courts. And it can't be established by the courts if he stops the prosecution. How do we solve this circularity?
Money left at end of month, result happiness (including for the government).
Month left at end of money, result misery (ditto).
Might have guessed.
AP (via Seattle Times) - Record-breaking cold threatens to complicate Iowa’s leadoff caucuses
WAUKEE, Iowa (AP) — Snow was still piling on top of the 8 inches that had already accumulated when Kadee Miller trekked out to see Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley in Waukee.
“There were moments on the drive up here, I was like, ‘What are we doing?’” Miller said about her 7-mile (11-kilometer) drive from Adel on Tuesday. “The reason we drove up here is to really see who she is.”
Miller isn’t sure who she’ll vote for in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses on Jan. 15, but she’s sure she’ll be there . . .
“It’s important. It’s kind of our civil duty, right?” said Miller, a 49-year-old human resources worker. “So that’s what we have to do.”
Iowa Republicans will likely confront temperatures dipping below zero degrees Fahrenheit when they kick off the 2024 election cycle, a record-breaking forecast that might complicate candidates’ hopes of making their own history if the cold depresses voter turnout.
The candidates are publicly expressing optimism that their supporters will show up no matter how bad the weather is. But the snow and cold have already wreaked havoc on the candidates’ schedules, thwarting their plans to crisscross Iowa and make their final pitches to voters.
Donald Trump ‘s campaign had to cancel events featuring surrogates advocating for the former president, including Mike Huckabee and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Mike Huckabee, who won the caucuses in 2008, posted on social media that the expected snowstorm grounded their plane.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said his car got stuck in a ditch while driving in snowy weather Monday night to Des Moines from northwest Iowa. Ramaswamy canceled his event Tuesday morning, saying it was “effectively impossible to safely get from Des Moines to Coralville,” hours after criticizing Haley for calling off her Monday event in Sioux City.
National Weather Service data shows there has never been a colder Iowa caucus night than what’s forecast for Jan. 15. The previous coldest was in 2004, when the high temperature for that year’s Jan. 19 caucuses was 16 degrees.
“We may not warm above zero degrees on Monday,” said Des Moines-based meteorologist Chad Hahn. “I would not be surprised if we don’t get above minus-20 degrees for wind chills beginning on Sunday.” . . .
SSI - Note that noted Putinist and hypocrite Ramaswamy ended up in a freaking ditch - poetic justice?
Spooky, really.
They seem to be looking for gimmicks to slow their descent, they don't come across as believing in anything.
'We just held on to Uxbridge, so people must have cooled on the fight against the climate emergency, so lets drill for oil and gas' No, wrong - not useful and not popular.
'Rishi thought Rwanda policy was costly and wouldn't work, but now they have to defend it'
The problem was
1) The implementation was crap
2) The crapness resulted in the prosecutions.
3) Managers with write-only minds failed to notice anything
4) When they did notice, they lied and covered up. Then lied and covered up. And carried on with the prosecutions.
5) As this went up the chain, so did the lying about it. Until everyone who knew was lying like Professors of Lying at Lying University in Lyingshire.
6) Meanwhile they were doing "Fuck you, pay me"* to all the SPMs
1) was required to create the disaster. But 2-6) were required to make the slow motion disaster destroy so many lives.
1) on it's own might have resulted in a handful of mistaken prosecutions, before the fuck up was corrected.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3bhh8fqYs
January 15: Iowa - Democratic and Republican caucuses
January 23: New Hampshire - Democratic and Republican primaries
February 3: South Carolina - Democratic primary
February 6: Nevada - Democratic and Republican primaries
February 8: Nevada - party-organized caucuses
February 24: South Carolina - Republican primary
February 27: Michigan - Democratic and Republican primaries
March 2: Idaho, Michigan, and Missouri - Republican caucuses
March 3: District of Columbia - Republican primary
March 4:North Dakota - Republican caucuses
March 5: Super Tuesday
Which is why in decent jurisdictions, where justice is respected, DNA testing has to be of a decent quality.
Provided you don't get him on Brexit.
Starmer can't be trusted and is a flip flopper
The economy is fine, really
Anything wrong with the country is the fault of the opposition
The idea that is going to wash with anyone not already committed Tory is pretty fanciful. You could give a task of coming up with better messenging to the teams on week 1 of the Apprentice, when the teams are led by the individual with the highest mix of arrogance, naivety and stupidity, and they would come up with a much better strategy than this.
Your posts are pathetic and mainly about you sensing an opportunity to exploit to showcase your "neutrality" at my expense.
Jog on.
An idea - this scandal has included lying upwards to conceal the truth.
How about we make lying, in a material fashion, that will be reported to a Minister (and these to parliament), Misconduct In a Public Office?
So you tell lies to your bosses that gets reported to the minister (say to Davey, when he asked his question). Congratulations! - you could get life in prison.
Were they badly advised by the mendacious lawyers who came up with the scheme? Sure. But they took the unethical choice to try and completely wriggle out of paying taxes entirely & gave no thought to what would happen when HMRC worked out a way to tax them.
If you decide that your life goal is to pay 0% income tax & stick your fingers up at the rest of the tax paying public then I have no sympathy for you.
I note in passing that HMRC didn’t even demand back-dated interest. Initially they tried to have the scheme declared an illegal tax avoidance scheme, but it turned out that the scheme was in fact legal under UK law - the fact that a foreign company could make an obviously false loan like this was not something that the UK government could act upon - that was a matter for the authorities in the country in question. So they turned around & came up with another solution: it was fine to make loans to company Directors & Staff, but they would be counted as income in the UK if they crossed a tax year. Contractors who had accumulated huge loans suddenly found themselves with an equally large tax liability. But the reality is that they always owed that tax.
The tainted blood scandal is the one that should be top of the governments list after sorting out the PO debacle. Not this self-interested bunch of tax avoiding shits.
I would expect that a Govt owned company to have (a) non executive director(s) on the board who are senior civil servants and who are diligent and active in probing. I would also anticipate that multiple levels of management and delegation for that diligence to be difficult and sometimes impossible.
My experience (which sadly is extensive) of senior civil servants is that they don't want to know about problems and the greatest amount of effort is put into trying not to find out about problems. They are very good at working hard at that activity I have found to my cost.
I believe that previously there were about one or two prosecutions of sub-Postmasters every two or three years; I think we should looking at Post Office records to see if anyone looked at the end of year figures and asked any questions about the current recruitment process.
Nice rhetorical device, but of minimal argumentative value.
I would, for sure, have been asking superiors 'are we sure it's not the system' and I would have some sympathy for the SPMs and I would be aghast that the PO could prosecute outside of the checks and balances of the police/CPS -
but then again I'm a skeptic and would think 'Occam's Razer, Yeah they or their staff probably did take it'.
Big accounting and transaction systems is pretty much what commercial computers were invented for.
While I'm delighted to see NI cut and want it to be abolished, giving a fraction of a tax rise back to cut taxes is nothing to be proud of.
Did the PO have to use these powers - I assume they could have gone down the police/CPS route if they wanted too?
They ended up 'victim', investigator and prosecutor and THEN were able to use judges and juries to imprison - it really does beggar belief.
*) Essentially, the cover-up caused this mess. When the PO realised something was wrong - which they must have done fairly early on - instead of admitting it and sorting it out, they lied and continued as before.
*) This is another case where the little person who suffers, whilst the people who caused the mess got away with their wrongdoing. I used the past tense 'got', because I hope that will change.
In America its the state offering "plea bargains" of "plead guilty to this and get this sentence, or you'll get much worse" which pressures even innocent people to take the bargain rather than take their chances.
In the UK we saw that pressure being levied so that people were handing over thousands of pounds they never owed, because if they didn't they could go to jail.
There’s also some messiness around the edges you’d have to clear up. I think a number of public bodies (e.g. the FCA and the NHS) prosecute in this way from time to time, and we know the CPS and police are overwhelmed, so would all those prosecutions end rather than be transferred?
I'm off for a coffee to calm down.
Somehow - I still don't know how - I managed to get the only Mac in the building, possibly the only one in the entire organisation. It was a curious thing called an eMac, a slightly lower-budget iMac. Given that my productivity has basically been hardwired to the Mac way of doing things since 1992, this was a massive boon.
But I spent the next two years basically hiding it from any IT staff in case they actually noticed what they'd somehow allowed to be connected to their network.
Very bad Government, but inevitable.
He likes to cause trouble.
You know he started The French Revolution, dontcha?
How about something really dramatic: abolish employee NI?