💥 These switchers have left the Tories "for good", furious at lack of delivery of promises in 14 years of govt
💥 Rishi Sunak has gone from a breath of fresh air a year ago to "typical politician who never answers a question", "out of touch", "spineless", and "false"
💥 Sunak's new year election visits have been noticed - and have gone down like a cup of cold sick ("oily", "staged", PM "full of himself")
💥 Tax cuts viewed as a "sweetener" just to get votes
💥 Keir Starmer seen as "weak", "spineless", "unchallenging", "boring" and - above all else - as having "no plan". They are voting Labour *despite* Keir Starmer rather than because of him. Lack of plan/square one attack by Sunak was the only clip that went down well
💥 The person who got the best reception - and is a threat to both parties - is Nigel Farage, seen as "relatable", "strong", shown to be "in touch" by time in the jungle. All bar one said they would vote for Nigel Farage if they had the chance
💥 Tory win would leave people "gutted", Labour win a mix of "worried" and "hopeful". Hard to argue that - as the polling of direct switchers shows - these voters are coming back to the Conservatives any time soon
Farage has a real appeal for a lot of people (not me - I’m just the messenger)
The tories need to be led by Farage to stand a chance but I don't see a way for even those scheming, treacherous ratfuckers to make it happen.
I think most countries in Europe will be led by hard right or far right governments within 5-10 years. I’ve no idea why Britain will be immune
The Tories should get ahead of the curve and smuggle Farage in now, before they are replaced by an actual Farageiste party
About 40% of the time I fear you may be right; feels like the 1930s all over again. Maybe democracy was the short-lived sweet fruit of the Enlightenment, a fruit now rotting on the tree.
(Then again, 60% of the time I think it's two steps forward, one step back towards a fairer, ever more humane, ever more comfortable human existence. Onwards comrades!)
Democracy doesn’t really work if you have mass immigration of people who don’t believe in democracy, allied with an elite which refuses to admit there are any serious problems with immigration and equally refuses to do anything serious to restrict it
That’s when you get far right governments, as voters pull the last lever remaining
Oh come on, where's your evidence for that?
The issue is that a large chunk of the indigenous population no longer believe in democracy.
What's the cause of that? My guess is it's largely down to the gap between expectation and reality. The constant sniping at politicians especially from the media (all sides) can't help, nor can the patent ineptitude of our governments.
I'd add that I suspect a pretty large proportion of immigrants are likely to be amongst the MOST likely to "believe in democracy" as they've made a conscious decision to leave a home country that lacks a stable democracy with a functioning rule of law to go to one that does.
That's not going to be universal, of course, but Leon's comment is just his usual lazy bullshit, designed to get attention. He always strikes me as a sort of aging peacock - increasingly aggressive squawking to cover for the fact half his feathers have fallen off.
Yes of course, dear
Gr8 zinger, m8. Although you should, of course, acknowledge David Cameron for coming up with it in 2011.
There is an interesting line in a recent interview with Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor
"a party which promises investors stability can hardly re-litigate the paralysing Brexit debates"
And yet, they must. The Country can't stop arguing about it. The Mayor of London wants to launch a new campaign after a report suggests 140bn loss due to Brexit.
A party of Government may not want to re-litigate, but they equally can't just shrug their shoulders and say "We know it's shit, but we can't fix it..."
Reeves is right.
Should the country want to move forward from where we are, or to continually try and re-litigate the past?
You don't have to 're-litigate the past' to decide that the current relationship with Europe isn't set in stone.
An in any event, the country has already reached a verdict on Brexit, and condemned it as a mistake. So we can at least draw that line under it.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There is an interesting line in a recent interview with Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor
"a party which promises investors stability can hardly re-litigate the paralysing Brexit debates"
And yet, they must. The Country can't stop arguing about it. The Mayor of London wants to launch a new campaign after a report suggests 140bn loss due to Brexit.
A party of Government may not want to re-litigate, but they equally can't just shrug their shoulders and say "We know it's shit, but we can't fix it..."
Keep banging that pointless drum Scott. It's quaint if nothing else.
It's a political view, Richard, such as the like of which we all have.
Or would you like to pick a point in history and freeze every political development there. Scott, you, me, Rachel Reeves are allowed to ponder and want to change any goddamn thing we want.
The fact that they are choosing the shitshow that is Brexit (not heard the £140bn before but doesn't seem outrageous to me) should surprise no one. Not even you.
I didn't say he shouldn't keep posting his drivel, exactly the opposite in fact. I am delighted to see people like Scott still fighting yesterday's wars. It is the political equivalent of the treacle and the feather. Great for keeping young minds quiet.
As for the £140bn figure, just pick a number and pretend it has some real world significance. It is what politicians of all stripes do and it has no basis in reality at all.
Is campaigning for the Conservatives or Labour or the Greens this year "fighting yesterday's wars"?
Do you get how the whole democratic politics thing works.
💥 These switchers have left the Tories "for good", furious at lack of delivery of promises in 14 years of govt
💥 Rishi Sunak has gone from a breath of fresh air a year ago to "typical politician who never answers a question", "out of touch", "spineless", and "false"
💥 Sunak's new year election visits have been noticed - and have gone down like a cup of cold sick ("oily", "staged", PM "full of himself")
💥 Tax cuts viewed as a "sweetener" just to get votes
💥 Keir Starmer seen as "weak", "spineless", "unchallenging", "boring" and - above all else - as having "no plan". They are voting Labour *despite* Keir Starmer rather than because of him. Lack of plan/square one attack by Sunak was the only clip that went down well
💥 The person who got the best reception - and is a threat to both parties - is Nigel Farage, seen as "relatable", "strong", shown to be "in touch" by time in the jungle. All bar one said they would vote for Nigel Farage if they had the chance
💥 Tory win would leave people "gutted", Labour win a mix of "worried" and "hopeful". Hard to argue that - as the polling of direct switchers shows - these voters are coming back to the Conservatives any time soon
Farage has a real appeal for a lot of people (not me - I’m just the messenger)
The tories need to be led by Farage to stand a chance but I don't see a way for even those scheming, treacherous ratfuckers to make it happen.
I think most countries in Europe will be led by hard right or far right governments within 5-10 years. I’ve no idea why Britain will be immune
The Tories should get ahead of the curve and smuggle Farage in now, before they are replaced by an actual Farageiste party
In professional circles in the UK (even in private) people who disagree rarely risk saying what they really think for fear of how it might affect their careers.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Obviously the point I'm making is that when numbers are tiny it is practically impossible to pick up statistically significant anomalies from them.
Whereas the actual point (cf Paula Vennells) is that when you are in charge of something you are in charge of something.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
It is nothing to do with that. This is all entirely about the fact that Starmer was DPP and it is a desperate attempt to politicise the whole sad affair and drag him into it to his detrement.
Put simply, If Starmer had never been DPP this discussion would not be happening.
Ironically this Tory effort to smear Starmer is blocking its own good news about the announced vindication of sub-postmasters. I swear CCHQ is run by 12-year-olds.
Surely the promoted notion that Starmer is wholly responsible for the Horizon scandal is the bigger news story.
Depends on how you define 'news'.
I'd rather avoid the state of the U.S. media, where Trump's latest lie is always given headline billing. Providing free publicity for the most egregious lies ought not to be the purpose of journalism.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
The fact that one of their senior engineers and developers lied in court to help secure the convictions of some of the SPMs? I assume he was doing so as an authorised representative of Fujitsu.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, what?? You think I drove this story on PB with a hidden anti semitic agenda?
Or do you think it is just a brilliantly mad story which appeals to millions - for different reasons - as it fits so many insane conspiracy theories?
I don't think you drove this story with a hidden (or blatant) anti semitic agenda. I do think, however, that you were extraordinarily exercised by it as though you saw some great meaning in there being a passageway under a building in NY.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
There is a real question here
Next time someone has bullshit evidence and uses it to prosecute people, how will that be stopped?
Computer = Right is still the legal definition.
Handing the prosecutions to the DPP won’t do much, unless we do something else as well.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
The fact that one of their senior engineers and developers lied in court to help secure the convictions of some of the SPMs? I assume he was doing so as an authorised representative of Fujitsu.
Am incredibly sceptical that focus group is actually representative of Con to Lab switchers. Disillusioned ex-Tory voters who like Farage are more likely to switch to Reform or 'Don't Know' than Labour and, as Sir John Curtice has pointed out, Con to Lab switchers are often 'Bregreters' rather than people who think Brexit would have worked had it been 'tried properly'. isam is probably pretty representative of ex-Tory voters who like Farage... and he isn't switching to Labour.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
It is nothing to do with that. This is all entirely about the fact that Starmer was DPP and it is a desperate attempt to politicise the whole sad affair and drag him into it to his detrement.
Put simply, If Starmer had never been DPP this discussion would not be happening.
Ironically this Tory effort to smear Starmer is blocking its own good news about the announced vindication of sub-postmasters. I swear CCHQ is run by 12-year-olds.
Surely the promoted notion that Starmer is wholly responsible for the Horizon scandal is the bigger news story.
Which is a problem if your aim is to get kind Uncle Rishi into the headlines.
But isn't an early election and a Rishi landslide more likely if Starmer is hounded out of office for programming the Horizon software so ineptly?
No. Have you not seen the polling? No-one supports Labour because of Starmer. It is entirely negative in that voters no longer trust the Conservatives to deliver anything, and their one day of good news is overshadowed by their own student politicking.
💥 These switchers have left the Tories "for good", furious at lack of delivery of promises in 14 years of govt
💥 Rishi Sunak has gone from a breath of fresh air a year ago to "typical politician who never answers a question", "out of touch", "spineless", and "false"
💥 Sunak's new year election visits have been noticed - and have gone down like a cup of cold sick ("oily", "staged", PM "full of himself")
💥 Tax cuts viewed as a "sweetener" just to get votes
💥 Keir Starmer seen as "weak", "spineless", "unchallenging", "boring" and - above all else - as having "no plan". They are voting Labour *despite* Keir Starmer rather than because of him. Lack of plan/square one attack by Sunak was the only clip that went down well
💥 The person who got the best reception - and is a threat to both parties - is Nigel Farage, seen as "relatable", "strong", shown to be "in touch" by time in the jungle. All bar one said they would vote for Nigel Farage if they had the chance
💥 Tory win would leave people "gutted", Labour win a mix of "worried" and "hopeful". Hard to argue that - as the polling of direct switchers shows - these voters are coming back to the Conservatives any time soon
Farage has a real appeal for a lot of people (not me - I’m just the messenger)
The tories need to be led by Farage to stand a chance but I don't see a way for even those scheming, treacherous ratfuckers to make it happen.
I think most countries in Europe will be led by hard right or far right governments within 5-10 years. I’ve no idea why Britain will be immune
The Tories should get ahead of the curve and smuggle Farage in now, before they are replaced by an actual Farageiste party
In professional circles in the UK (even in private) people who disagree rarely risk saying what they really think for fear of how it might affect their careers.
But, of course, in the ballot box it's different.
It’s not like I’m making some mad crazy prediction which is totally off the wall
Italy is already led by the hard right Wilders just won in Holland Le Pen is favourite in France The afd are 2nd in German polls Sweden and Denmark (IIRC) have hard right parties in some form of coalition Hungary: tick
And so on and so forth. The trajectory is clear. Britain is further behind because of Brexit, I think: We gave the people a voice and they made it heard
However the failure to stop mass migration and the boats will likely force us down the same path
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There has to be some accountability for committing perjury, surely?
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Obviously the point I'm making is that when numbers are tiny it is practically impossible to pick up statistically significant anomalies from them.
Whereas the actual point (cf Paula Vennells) is that when you are in charge of something you are in charge of something.
Is the CPS responsible if it prosecutes a case in which the police cooked up the evidence? That seems the closest parallel here.
My response: it depends - if the CPS knew of should have known, then yes - i.e. if the evidence presented has clear inconsistencies that should have been picked up. If not and the CPS could not have reasonably known, then no. So for the PO, it depends on timing - anything prosecuted after the problems became widely known stinks; before then the CPS is probably off the hook. The PO, of course, kept prosecuting well after they knew there were issues.
ETA: If the CPS did cock up on Starmer's watch then some responsibility rests with him, but I'm not quite sure what that means in practical terms. Johnson cocked up multiple times in jobs before being PM, but that didn't mean he couldn't be PM.
💥 These switchers have left the Tories "for good", furious at lack of delivery of promises in 14 years of govt
💥 Rishi Sunak has gone from a breath of fresh air a year ago to "typical politician who never answers a question", "out of touch", "spineless", and "false"
💥 Sunak's new year election visits have been noticed - and have gone down like a cup of cold sick ("oily", "staged", PM "full of himself")
💥 Tax cuts viewed as a "sweetener" just to get votes
💥 Keir Starmer seen as "weak", "spineless", "unchallenging", "boring" and - above all else - as having "no plan". They are voting Labour *despite* Keir Starmer rather than because of him. Lack of plan/square one attack by Sunak was the only clip that went down well
💥 The person who got the best reception - and is a threat to both parties - is Nigel Farage, seen as "relatable", "strong", shown to be "in touch" by time in the jungle. All bar one said they would vote for Nigel Farage if they had the chance
💥 Tory win would leave people "gutted", Labour win a mix of "worried" and "hopeful". Hard to argue that - as the polling of direct switchers shows - these voters are coming back to the Conservatives any time soon
Farage has a real appeal for a lot of people (not me - I’m just the messenger)
The tories need to be led by Farage to stand a chance but I don't see a way for even those scheming, treacherous ratfuckers to make it happen.
I think most countries in Europe will be led by hard right or far right governments within 5-10 years. I’ve no idea why Britain will be immune
The Tories should get ahead of the curve and smuggle Farage in now, before they are replaced by an actual Farageiste party
About 40% of the time I fear you may be right; feels like the 1930s all over again. Maybe democracy was the short-lived sweet fruit of the Enlightenment, a fruit now rotting on the tree.
(Then again, 60% of the time I think it's two steps forward, one step back towards a fairer, ever more humane, ever more comfortable human existence. Onwards comrades!)
It's the same old story as the 1930s. The proletariat being screwed by the bourgeoisie (the PPE scandal says hi!). Marx identified the problem but his solution failed. Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, Trump and Farage offer the snake oil remedy, And damn, snake oil is both cheap and tastes good.
Cheap to produce, but usually ends up being very costly to the buyers.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
They lied to the PO about what was happening, initially. Telling the truth would have stopped the prosecutions, earlier.
They sent people who lied in court, which secured the convictions.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Unfortunately, yes this is margin of error. There are two aspects here, the miscarriage of justice and the deliberate lies that led to them occurring.
The former happens, in both directions, day in and day out. The system is far from perfect. But that doesn’t mean that the the people operating within that system should be pilloried.
The latter is crminal and those who perpetrated it should be prosecuted.
💥 These switchers have left the Tories "for good", furious at lack of delivery of promises in 14 years of govt
💥 Rishi Sunak has gone from a breath of fresh air a year ago to "typical politician who never answers a question", "out of touch", "spineless", and "false"
💥 Sunak's new year election visits have been noticed - and have gone down like a cup of cold sick ("oily", "staged", PM "full of himself")
💥 Tax cuts viewed as a "sweetener" just to get votes
💥 Keir Starmer seen as "weak", "spineless", "unchallenging", "boring" and - above all else - as having "no plan". They are voting Labour *despite* Keir Starmer rather than because of him. Lack of plan/square one attack by Sunak was the only clip that went down well
💥 The person who got the best reception - and is a threat to both parties - is Nigel Farage, seen as "relatable", "strong", shown to be "in touch" by time in the jungle. All bar one said they would vote for Nigel Farage if they had the chance
💥 Tory win would leave people "gutted", Labour win a mix of "worried" and "hopeful". Hard to argue that - as the polling of direct switchers shows - these voters are coming back to the Conservatives any time soon
Farage has a real appeal for a lot of people (not me - I’m just the messenger)
The tories need to be led by Farage to stand a chance but I don't see a way for even those scheming, treacherous ratfuckers to make it happen.
I think most countries in Europe will be led by hard right or far right governments within 5-10 years. I’ve no idea why Britain will be immune
The Tories should get ahead of the curve and smuggle Farage in now, before they are replaced by an actual Farageiste party
About 40% of the time I fear you may be right; feels like the 1930s all over again. Maybe democracy was the short-lived sweet fruit of the Enlightenment, a fruit now rotting on the tree.
(Then again, 60% of the time I think it's two steps forward, one step back towards a fairer, ever more humane, ever more comfortable human existence. Onwards comrades!)
It's the same old story as the 1930s. The proletariat being screwed by the bourgeoisie (the PPE scandal says hi!). Marx identified the problem but his solution failed. Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, Trump and Farage offer the snake oil remedy, And damn, snake oil is both cheap and tastes good.
Cheap to produce, but usually ends up being very costly to the buyers.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Obviously the point I'm making is that when numbers are tiny it is practically impossible to pick up statistically significant anomalies from them.
Whereas the actual point (cf Paula Vennells) is that when you are in charge of something you are in charge of something.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Obviously the point I'm making is that when numbers are tiny it is practically impossible to pick up statistically significant anomalies from them.
Whereas the actual point (cf Paula Vennells) is that when you are in charge of something you are in charge of something.
Is the CPS responsible if it prosecutes a case in which the police cooked up the evidence? That seems the closest parallel here.
My response: it depends - if the CPS knew of should have known, then yes - i.e. if the evidence presented has clear inconsistencies that should have been picked up. If not and the CPS could not have reasonably known, then no. So for the PO, it depends on timing - anything prosecuted after the problems became widely known stinks; before then the CPS is probably off the hook. The PO, of course, kept prosecuting well after they knew there were issues.
Its the difference between a screw up and a cover up.
Early convictions are justifiable in that the evidence said that, and nobody knew any better. People make mistakes.
Once the mistakes were known and it was covered up to get further convictions, once people were committing perjury to get convictions, that's a whole different ballgame.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
The fact that one of their senior engineers and developers lied in court to help secure the convictions of some of the SPMs? I assume he was doing so as an authorised representative of Fujitsu.
Yes, that’s potentially the one problem. But if the PO had agreed the lie in advance…
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, what?? You think I drove this story on PB with a hidden anti semitic agenda?
Or do you think it is just a brilliantly mad story which appeals to millions - for different reasons - as it fits so many insane conspiracy theories?
I don't think you drove this story with a hidden (or blatant) anti semitic agenda. I do think, however, that you were extraordinarily exercised by it as though you saw some great meaning in there being a passageway under a building in NY.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
Er, what???
Is this a joke? I loved this story because it is FUNNY - because it really does play into every anti semitic conspiracy theory on earth. How can you not see that?
You are rephrasing me. I said within 5-10 years the majority of European governments will be led by hard right or far right parties. Far right is pretty extreme - that’s actual fascists. Hard right encompasses Meloni, le pen, wilders, AfD, those Polish dudes. I stand by 5-10 years
- Brexit working out
This is more difficult and interesting. At some point Britain WILL sort itself out (presumably) and the pendulum will swing and we will do better vis a vis the EU. Could be happening already
Hard to to put numbers on it however
It is possible the far right will take over Government all across Europe (maybe even here), but the idiots that brought us Brexit confidently predicted that we were just the first domino and may other countries would follow our path out the door to prosperity and wisdom.
They looked at our shitshow and none of them jumped...
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, the article refers to the diggers as members of a Hassidic group and the building as a Synagogue so unless there are Hassidic Methodists who worship in a Synagogue I think the whole thing is very clear.
You are rephrasing me. I said within 5-10 years the majority of European governments will be led by hard right or far right parties. Far right is pretty extreme - that’s actual fascists. Hard right encompasses Meloni, le pen, wilders, AfD, those Polish dudes. I stand by 5-10 years
- Brexit working out
This is more difficult and interesting. At some point Britain WILL sort itself out (presumably) and the pendulum will swing and we will do better vis a vis the EU. Could be happening already
Hard to to put numbers on it however
It is possible the far right will take over Government all across Europe (maybe even here), but the idiots that brought us Brexit confidently predicted that we were just the first domino and may other countries would follow our path out the door to prosperity and wisdom.
They looked at our shitshow and none of them jumped...
Actually it was people like you primarily that were banging on about dominos.
Quite a few people who backed Brexit suggested that the EU might be fine for other countries, but wasn't suitable for Britain, for unique reasons.
And others were suggesting that even if the EU is problematic, other countries by joining the Euro had already passed the point of no return and the UK should take the off ramp before we get to that point too.
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, the article refers to the diggers as members of a Hassidic group and the building as a Synagogue so unless there are Hassidic Methodists who worship in a Synagogue I think the whole thing is very clear.
If you follow the story on social media EVERYONE is calling them “the Jewish tunnels”. Or “Jew tunnels” (an ugly phrase to my mind). ONLY the guardian uses the excruciatingly coy euphemism “tunnels made by religious diggers”
I’m intrigued why. Perhaps because the more direct phrases “feel” anti semitic?
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, the article refers to the diggers as members of a Hassidic group and the building as a Synagogue so unless there are Hassidic Methodists who worship in a Synagogue I think the whole thing is very clear.
If you follow the story on social media EVERYONE is calling them “the Jewish tunnels”. Or “Jew tunnels” (an ugly phrase to my mind). ONLY the guardian uses the excruciatingly coy euphemism “tunnels made by religious diggers”
I’m intrigued why. Perhaps because the more direct phrases “feel” anti semitic?
Or because the more direct phrases are from people being anti-semitic and you should spend less time in the swamp of racist social media.
💥 These switchers have left the Tories "for good", furious at lack of delivery of promises in 14 years of govt
💥 Rishi Sunak has gone from a breath of fresh air a year ago to "typical politician who never answers a question", "out of touch", "spineless", and "false"
💥 Sunak's new year election visits have been noticed - and have gone down like a cup of cold sick ("oily", "staged", PM "full of himself")
💥 Tax cuts viewed as a "sweetener" just to get votes
💥 Keir Starmer seen as "weak", "spineless", "unchallenging", "boring" and - above all else - as having "no plan". They are voting Labour *despite* Keir Starmer rather than because of him. Lack of plan/square one attack by Sunak was the only clip that went down well
💥 The person who got the best reception - and is a threat to both parties - is Nigel Farage, seen as "relatable", "strong", shown to be "in touch" by time in the jungle. All bar one said they would vote for Nigel Farage if they had the chance
💥 Tory win would leave people "gutted", Labour win a mix of "worried" and "hopeful". Hard to argue that - as the polling of direct switchers shows - these voters are coming back to the Conservatives any time soon
Farage has a real appeal for a lot of people (not me - I’m just the messenger)
The tories need to be led by Farage to stand a chance but I don't see a way for even those scheming, treacherous ratfuckers to make it happen.
I think most countries in Europe will be led by hard right or far right governments within 5-10 years. I’ve no idea why Britain will be immune
The Tories should get ahead of the curve and smuggle Farage in now, before they are replaced by an actual Farageiste party
In professional circles in the UK (even in private) people who disagree rarely risk saying what they really think for fear of how it might affect their careers.
But, of course, in the ballot box it's different.
It’s not like I’m making some mad crazy prediction which is totally off the wall
Italy is already led by the hard right Wilders just won in Holland Le Pen is favourite in France The afd are 2nd in German polls Sweden and Denmark (IIRC) have hard right parties in some form of coalition Hungary: tick
And so on and so forth. The trajectory is clear. Britain is further behind because of Brexit, I think: We gave the people a voice and they made it heard
However the failure to stop mass migration and the boats will likely force us down the same path
I agree, the rise in right wing populism is clear in a wide range of countries and you can see it in the UK too. I don't think we're "behind because of Brexit", though -- I think it's more a product of how our electoral system massively disadvantages third parties. The result is that right wing populism at the ballot box is a mix of (a) diverted into tributaries like the EU relationship and Brexit (b) held back below its actual support level (c) drawn into an existing party -- the Tories are not far right by any stretch but their policy and presentation mix has definitely been affected by right wing populists on their flank.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
All I’m seeing there in your post is a very partisan witch hunt with you trying to blame someone else.
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, the article refers to the diggers as members of a Hassidic group and the building as a Synagogue so unless there are Hassidic Methodists who worship in a Synagogue I think the whole thing is very clear.
If you follow the story on social media EVERYONE is calling them “the Jewish tunnels”. Or “Jew tunnels” (an ugly phrase to my mind). ONLY the guardian uses the excruciatingly coy euphemism “tunnels made by religious diggers”
I’m intrigued why. Perhaps because the more direct phrases “feel” anti semitic?
I don't rely on social media for news, and I think the degree of interest in this story is odd and displays more than a whiff of anti semitism. Perhaps you are enjoying the story in a harmlessly ironic, detached kind of way but I don't think there's anything very funny about conspiracy theories, they're dangerous.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
The fact that one of their senior engineers and developers lied in court to help secure the convictions of some of the SPMs? I assume he was doing so as an authorised representative of Fujitsu.
Yes, that’s potentially the one problem. But if the PO had agreed the lie in advance…
Then I comes down to who made the suggestion as to the level of the blame - one takes 100% of it the other slightly less (say 99%).
Being blunt it doesn’t make any difference - going to court and lying knowing someone is going to jail because of your lie should be resulting in serious jail time
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, what?? You think I drove this story on PB with a hidden anti semitic agenda?
Or do you think it is just a brilliantly mad story which appeals to millions - for different reasons - as it fits so many insane conspiracy theories?
I don't think you drove this story with a hidden (or blatant) anti semitic agenda. I do think, however, that you were extraordinarily exercised by it as though you saw some great meaning in there being a passageway under a building in NY.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
Er, what???
Is this a joke? I loved this story because it is FUNNY - because it really does play into every anti semitic conspiracy theory on earth. How can you not see that?
Disappointed by your stupidity, here
And in your normal ingenuous if witless way you contributed to that.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
There is a real question here
Next time someone has bullshit evidence and uses it to prosecute people, how will that be stopped?
Computer = Right is still the legal definition.
Handing the prosecutions to the DPP won’t do much, unless we do something else as well.
This is a point I've been making about AI for some time. The Horizon system had been designed and worked on for years, and worked well *most* of the time. Sadly, occasionally if fu**ed up. No-one working on the system would have wanted those failures, but as anyone who has ever coded knows: bugs happen. And because the code is a known quantity, it is possible to go back and discern the cause of those bugs.
Yet the Horizon system was trusted; trusted enough for people to consciously lie to back up the computer
Imagine how this will be with AI, when stupid people will point at a system and say: "The computer's intelligent! It cannot possibly be wrong!"
Yet because of the way ML/AI works, it may actually be *harder* to work out why something happened. Not necessarily with accountancy, but in many other areas.
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, what?? You think I drove this story on PB with a hidden anti semitic agenda?
Or do you think it is just a brilliantly mad story which appeals to millions - for different reasons - as it fits so many insane conspiracy theories?
I don't think you drove this story with a hidden (or blatant) anti semitic agenda. I do think, however, that you were extraordinarily exercised by it as though you saw some great meaning in there being a passageway under a building in NY.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
Er, what???
Is this a joke? I loved this story because it is FUNNY - because it really does play into every anti semitic conspiracy theory on earth. How can you not see that?
Disappointed by your stupidity, here
There have been some pretty funny memes (and some very ugly ones). The video of the Jewish guy crawling up from the grate then running off is like something out of an absurdist comedy, or a Nazi propaganda film.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
I suppose the point is that Sir Keir should have been more like Quincy or Perry Mason: launch his own investigation and uncover stuff that the silly police and authorities missed.
There is an interesting line in a recent interview with Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor
"a party which promises investors stability can hardly re-litigate the paralysing Brexit debates"
And yet, they must. The Country can't stop arguing about it. The Mayor of London wants to launch a new campaign after a report suggests 140bn loss due to Brexit.
A party of Government may not want to re-litigate, but they equally can't just shrug their shoulders and say "We know it's shit, but we can't fix it..."
Keep banging that pointless drum Scott. It's quaint if nothing else.
It's a political view, Richard, such as the like of which we all have.
Or would you like to pick a point in history and freeze every political development there. Scott, you, me, Rachel Reeves are allowed to ponder and want to change any goddamn thing we want.
The fact that they are choosing the shitshow that is Brexit (not heard the £140bn before but doesn't seem outrageous to me) should surprise no one. Not even you.
I didn't say he shouldn't keep posting his drivel, exactly the opposite in fact. I am delighted to see people like Scott still fighting yesterday's wars. It is the political equivalent of the treacle and the feather. Great for keeping young minds quiet.
As for the £140bn figure, just pick a number and pretend it has some real world significance. It is what politicians of all stripes do and it has no basis in reality at all.
There are plenty of anecdotes of businesses that have given up, or are struggling, with export/import, and if you shop online you can't miss the "not available in northern Ireland" flags, which is a particular problem for them. And, from the EU, suppliers who have excluded UK destinations from orders. What it all adds up to, I have no idea. Plus there's the obvious impact on those sectors that relied on EU youngsters for labour. And the fishermen here think it's made their situations worse, not better, although I don't understand the detail.
What you don't see are stories of someone whose created or expanded a business because of the wonderful new opportunities offered by the government's new trade deal with Mongolia or wherever...
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, the article refers to the diggers as members of a Hassidic group and the building as a Synagogue so unless there are Hassidic Methodists who worship in a Synagogue I think the whole thing is very clear.
If you follow the story on social media EVERYONE is calling them “the Jewish tunnels”. Or “Jew tunnels” (an ugly phrase to my mind). ONLY the guardian uses the excruciatingly coy euphemism “tunnels made by religious diggers”
I’m intrigued why. Perhaps because the more direct phrases “feel” anti semitic?
Or because the more direct phrases are from people being anti-semitic and you should spend less time in the swamp of racist social media.
You’re right. From now on I shall refer to them as “the excavations made by people who are known for religiosity. And hats”
Postmistress plots election challenge to Sir Ed Davey
Lib Dem leader who served as Post Office minister wrote a letter saying he was ‘fully aware’ of what was going on, claims critic
Sir Ed Davey is facing an election challenge from a former postmistress amid warnings that his role in the Post Office scandal will cost him vital votes.
Residents in the Liberal Democrat leader’s seat are planning to stand an independent candidate against him over his handling of the Horizon fiasco during his time as Post Office minister in 2010-12
They are in talks about putting up Yvonne Tracey, a local independent councillor who was the deputy manager of a Post Office branch, at the next general election.
Sir Ed lost his Kingston and Surbiton seat to the Tories as recently as 2015, and a rival campaign could eat into the majority of 10,000 he had when he won it back in 2017.
Cllr James Giles, the leader of the Kingston Independent Residents Group, said voters were bringing up Sir Ed’s role in the Post Office scandal on the doorstep.
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, what?? You think I drove this story on PB with a hidden anti semitic agenda?
Or do you think it is just a brilliantly mad story which appeals to millions - for different reasons - as it fits so many insane conspiracy theories?
I don't think you drove this story with a hidden (or blatant) anti semitic agenda. I do think, however, that you were extraordinarily exercised by it as though you saw some great meaning in there being a passageway under a building in NY.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
Er, what???
Is this a joke? I loved this story because it is FUNNY - because it really does play into every anti semitic conspiracy theory on earth. How can you not see that?
Disappointed by your stupidity, here
There have been some pretty funny memes (and some very ugly ones). The video of the Jewish guy crawling up from the grate then running off is like something out of an absurdist comedy, or a Nazi propaganda film.
Exactly. Its FUNNY
It’s like a Woody Allen sketch, back when he was amusing
Of course it can also be skewed to be nasty and anti semitic. But that’s just reality. It is a funny story
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Arbuthnot, Bates, and others involved with the campaign, clearly reject the government's rather sordid attempt to make it a party-political issue, and want them to get back to the (long-neglected) day job of sorting out the redress. If the Tories aren't careful, thinking voters - just the type they are losing - will regard the smears as cynical and distasteful and it will backfire.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
There is a real question here
Next time someone has bullshit evidence and uses it to prosecute people, how will that be stopped?
Computer = Right is still the legal definition.
Handing the prosecutions to the DPP won’t do much, unless we do something else as well.
This is a point I've been making about AI for some time. The Horizon system had been designed and worked on for years, and worked well *most* of the time. Sadly, occasionally if fu**ed up. No-one working on the system would have wanted those failures, but as anyone who has ever coded knows: bugs happen. And because the code is a known quantity, it is possible to go back and discern the cause of those bugs.
Yet the Horizon system was trusted; trusted enough for people to consciously lie to back up the computer
Imagine how this will be with AI, when stupid people will point at a system and say: "The computer's intelligent! It cannot possibly be wrong!"
Yet because of the way ML/AI works, it may actually be *harder* to work out why something happened. Not necessarily with accountancy, but in many other areas.
Yes, you get this cargo cult where people who don’t know anything about ML/AI are easily impressed and become convinced of its genius. I think that’s a particular problem for non-tech journalists, who then write gushing pieces about it.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There has to be some accountability for committing perjury, surely?
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
The usual penalty for perjury, is a period of imprisonment.
I’ve not yet seen evidence that Fujitsu as a company were lying in court, in a way that the PO were unaware. They were collaborators.
A brilliantly coy, euphemistic Guardian article on the NYC tunnels story. Admits memes are exploding, but at no point explicitly says why: ie coz these are “Jewish tunnels”. Instead the tunnels are made by “religious diggers”. Methodists, maybe?
Er, what?? You think I drove this story on PB with a hidden anti semitic agenda?
Or do you think it is just a brilliantly mad story which appeals to millions - for different reasons - as it fits so many insane conspiracy theories?
I don't think you drove this story with a hidden (or blatant) anti semitic agenda. I do think, however, that you were extraordinarily exercised by it as though you saw some great meaning in there being a passageway under a building in NY.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
Er, what???
Is this a joke? I loved this story because it is FUNNY - because it really does play into every anti semitic conspiracy theory on earth. How can you not see that?
Disappointed by your stupidity, here
And in your normal ingenuous if witless way you contributed to that.
I’m flattered I have such power. Just one comment from me on PB and the world agenda changes. Cool!
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
Since the change in law, to allow the CPS to take over private prosecutions, it was assumed that the CPS was taking on a role as a regulator.
The CPS doesn't seem to have realised this.
Unjoined up government.
Assume makes an ass of you and me. Or at any rate of the small number of people who made the false assumption.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
There is a real question here
Next time someone has bullshit evidence and uses it to prosecute people, how will that be stopped?
Computer = Right is still the legal definition.
Handing the prosecutions to the DPP won’t do much, unless we do something else as well.
This is a point I've been making about AI for some time. The Horizon system had been designed and worked on for years, and worked well *most* of the time. Sadly, occasionally if fu**ed up. No-one working on the system would have wanted those failures, but as anyone who has ever coded knows: bugs happen. And because the code is a known quantity, it is possible to go back and discern the cause of those bugs.
Yet the Horizon system was trusted; trusted enough for people to consciously lie to back up the computer
Imagine how this will be with AI, when stupid people will point at a system and say: "The computer's intelligent! It cannot possibly be wrong!"
Yet because of the way ML/AI works, it may actually be *harder* to work out why something happened. Not necessarily with accountancy, but in many other areas.
Yes, you get this cargo cult where people who don’t know anything about ML/AI are easily impressed and become convinced of its genius. I think that’s a particular problem for non-tech journalists, who then write gushing pieces about it.
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There has to be some accountability for committing perjury, surely?
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
The usual penalty for perjury, is a period of imprisonment.
I’ve not yet seen evidence that Fujitsu as a company were lying in court, in a way that the PO were unaware. They were collaborators.
Yes and as collaborators, they are both responsible and should both face justice.
Is it the official position of PB that we shouldn’t talk about the New York excavations made by people with religious convictions who also wear hats a lot?
Just trying to get this clear. Don’t want to offend
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There has to be some accountability for committing perjury, surely?
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
The usual penalty for perjury, is a period of imprisonment.
I’ve not yet seen evidence that Fujitsu as a company were lying in court, in a way that the PO were unaware. They were collaborators.
Some of the senior PO folk may be in deep water, for sure. So are some of the junior Fujitsu people. I believe the only people interviewed under caution by the Police so far are from Fujitsu?
We haven't really heard from the senior Fujitsu guys, yet, I don't think?
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There has to be some accountability for committing perjury, surely?
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
The usual penalty for perjury, is a period of imprisonment.
I’ve not yet seen evidence that Fujitsu as a company were lying in court, in a way that the PO were unaware. They were collaborators.
Yes and as collaborators, they are both responsible and should both face justice.
Justice yes.
That’s not the same as the PO saying that Fujitsu should be the entity paying the compensation.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
All I’m seeing there in your post is a very partisan witch hunt with you trying to blame someone else.
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
I'm finding @Casino_Royale and @isam posts sickening in trying to make political capital out of such a tragedy You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The system is broken where it takes a drama to get action from politicians and it doesn't matter which party they come from. This is endemic. It is the same story for Windrush, Blood contamination, Equitable Life, etc. And there are a whole host of others. As mentioned before I am helping a campaign that is identical in most respects (except people didn't go to prison) to the Post Office, but I don't blame the party in power in this case (2012 - Now) because I know it wouldn't be any different if it were Labour or LD or anyone else and interestingly the MPs that support our campaign come from the Conservatives, Labour, LDs and SNP.
When the system is rotten and people have suffered badly, making political points out of it is pathetic and self defeating. We need to fix the system. That isn't happening currently. We are just fixing the one that got a drama made out of it. It is excellent that is happening, but people's lives are being ruined in all the other cases also.
Is it the official position of PB that we shouldn’t talk about the New York excavations made by people with religious convictions who also wear hats a lot?
Just trying to get this clear. Don’t want to offend
The only official PB position is that is you’re a gullible and excitable poster.
Is it the official position of PB that we shouldn’t talk about the New York excavations made by people with religious convictions who also wear hats a lot?
Just trying to get this clear. Don’t want to offend
The only official PB position is that is you’re a gullible and excitable poster.
I’m also fasting again. Brain working at keto-speed. Hard for the rest of you to keep up
This might create a diplomatic problem should the Japanese government get involved, just as any proposal for fair taxation of Amazon or Google on their UK profits will be opposed by the American government.
It’s also a total cop-out by the PO.
It wasn’t the case that the vendor was lying to the customer, it was that the customer was using the vendor to back up their own lies in court, both of whom had knowledge that the lies were lies.
Yes I’d bar the company from public projects, but trying to pin a financial penalty on them is unjust. The PO, as the prosecuting authority, needs to take the blame for the miscarriages of justice. Which sadly means that taxpayers pick up the bill.
They, the company, delivered utterly shit software that caused the problem in the first place.
Which is a commercial dispute, of which many happen every year and the lawyers usually work out something appropriate.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
There has to be some accountability for committing perjury, surely?
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
The usual penalty for perjury, is a period of imprisonment.
I’ve not yet seen evidence that Fujitsu as a company were lying in court, in a way that the PO were unaware. They were collaborators.
Yes and as collaborators, they are both responsible and should both face justice.
Justice yes.
That’s not the same as the PO saying that Fujitsu should be the entity paying the compensation.
If their software was at fault, and they knowingly lied about that to the courts, then of course they should!
The Post Office should also be paying compensation, but its not only one party responsible here and all parties at fault need to be held liable for their actions.
Just because the Post Office wanted Fujitsu to lie does not excuse or remove Fujistu's culpability for lying, they could and should have refused to do so.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
All I’m seeing there in your post is a very partisan witch hunt with you trying to blame someone else.
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
I'm finding @Casino_Royale and @isam posts sickening in trying to make political capital out of such a tragedy You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The system is broken where it takes a drama to get action from politicians and it doesn't matter which party they come from. This is endemic. It is the same story for Windrush, Blood contamination, Equitable Life, etc. And there are a whole host of others. As mentioned before I am helping a campaign that is identical in most respects (except people didn't go to prison) to the Post Office, but I don't blame the party in power in this case (2012 - Now) because I know it wouldn't be any different if it were Labour or LD or anyone else and interestingly the MPs that support our campaign come from the Conservatives, Labour, LDs and SNP.
When the system is rotten and people have suffered badly, making political points out of it is pathetic and self defeating. We need to fix the system. That isn't happening currently. We are just fixing the one that got a drama made out of it. It is excellent that is happening, but people's lives are being ruined in all the other cases also.
I was, though, quite amused when some SNP MP spoke about successive governments, over many years, failing to do anything about the PO debacle - and Rishi condemned him for politicising the issue...
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
I suppose the point is that Sir Keir should have been more like Quincy or Perry Mason: launch his own investigation and uncover stuff that the silly police and authorities missed.
Starmer will be fine. The only potential problem he has if if journalists find lots of examples of him calling for resignations of cabinet ministers, CEOs of Banks or businesses etc for things that happened on their watch which they couldn’t really be responsible for as the problems were lower down the chain and nobody would expect the top person to know about.
I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that so it’s all ok.
It seems to me that the DPP is attacked for prosecuting people and attacked for not prosecuting people. Can't win, eh?
On a completely unrelated note, I have had much to say over the years about the epic disaster that is BT Group but Openreach's FTTP rollout has been extraordinary, surely one of the fastest in history of any country, which is a real credit to their engineering teams and also to Ofcom who provided a good regulatory environment finally that encouraged/forced them to do it. It is a shame it took so long but I have nothing but good things to say about both organisations now.
To put this into context, Openreach currently cover 60,000 premises a week with their rollout and will hit another 1 million premises covered in total in just Q1 this year, another new record. These rates surpass countries like Germany, Spain and France.
At the moment they are well on track to hit their aim of 25 million premises covered by 2026 and they have now said they will continue building "after", which suggests to me that they will eventually cover everyone with a mix of private and public subsidy. And for once I think I am supportive of them getting most of it as they seem to be doing the best job.
Interesting stuff. 3 key points: 1. The Tories are fucked. Proper Fucked. Another relaunch of Sunak won't make any difference. Their catastrophic failure to deliver quality of life improvements (because things are worse) means these voters are *done* with the Tories. 2. Labour need to stop attacking the Tories and switch to Shadow Government mode. The election could be less than 5 months away. We'd do this. We'd do that. You need this. 3. The Operation Samson approach for the Tories is to weaponise the Nigel. Yes, he would take votes off them. But more critically he could take votes off Labour. We have seen this week how Farage saying Starmer should resign as Post Office Minister has played. Offer him a knighthood - a proper one not a crappy one like IDS got.
The problem in point 2 is the media view that positive promises are boring. Take today's story about reviving serious child support (aka the nanny state). It's important and a first step towards reviving the really good Surestart scheme which the Tories ran down. It gets minor Guardian coverage and I'll be surprised if it turns up in most of the media, including TV coverage.
By contrast, if we focused on attacking the Tories ("betrayed a generation of children" etc.) it'd get more coverage, but also reinforce the "they just attack, they don't have answers" image. We could put out a leaflet but the same problem arises - people tend not to read stuff about what we might do.
It's a general problem, not a left/right thing, stemming from the general approach of treating politics as an entertaining blood sport. I'm not sure what the answer is.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
All I’m seeing there in your post is a very partisan witch hunt with you trying to blame someone else.
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
I'm finding @Casino_Royale and @isam posts sickening in trying to make political capital out of such a tragedy You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The system is broken where it takes a drama to get action from politicians and it doesn't matter which party they come from. This is endemic. It is the same story for Windrush, Blood contamination, Equitable Life, etc. And there are a whole host of others. As mentioned before I am helping a campaign that is identical in most respects (except people didn't go to prison) to the Post Office, but I don't blame the party in power in this case (2012 - Now) because I know it wouldn't be any different if it were Labour or LD or anyone else and interestingly the MPs that support our campaign come from the Conservatives, Labour, LDs and SNP.
When the system is rotten and people have suffered badly, making political points out of it is pathetic and self defeating. We need to fix the system. That isn't happening currently. We are just fixing the one that got a drama made out of it. It is excellent that is happening, but people's lives are being ruined in all the other cases also.
My view is somewhat different: the politicians are at the top. The people at the bottom; the man and women who ran post offices, and their staff, have suffered because of incompetence and lies of others. No-one else; in particular the managers, lawyers, politicians etc have had much penalty for misdeed or mistakes so far.
We cannot fix the system unless the people who make mistakes learn that mistakes can cost *them*, as well as the plebs. We cannot fix the system unless the people who do misdeeds learn those misdeeds can cost *them*.
Starmer was DPP; a fact he takes pride in. The CPS was involved in the mess; not in a major way, but involved nonetheless. How much Starmer was involved, or should have been involved, is an open question, and not the closed one that some on here want. There are questions, whether you like it nor not. As there are for many other politicians.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Obviously the point I'm making is that when numbers are tiny it is practically impossible to pick up statistically significant anomalies from them.
Whereas the actual point (cf Paula Vennells) is that when you are in charge of something you are in charge of something.
Is the CPS responsible if it prosecutes a case in which the police cooked up the evidence? That seems the closest parallel here.
My response: it depends - if the CPS knew of should have known, then yes - i.e. if the evidence presented has clear inconsistencies that should have been picked up. If not and the CPS could not have reasonably known, then no. So for the PO, it depends on timing - anything prosecuted after the problems became widely known stinks; before then the CPS is probably off the hook. The PO, of course, kept prosecuting well after they knew there were issues.
ETA: If the CPS did cock up on Starmer's watch then some responsibility rests with him, but I'm not quite sure what that means in practical terms. Johnson cocked up multiple times in jobs before being PM, but that didn't mean he couldn't be PM.
Well, there were a lot of people jumping up and down saying Johnson's track record of cocking up in multiple jobs before being PM meant he SHOULDN'T be PM.
The worst miscarriage of justice in our life times partly happened on Starmer's watch as DPP. That goes into the scales of whether he should be PM. Along with sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for years, whilst anti-semitism ran rife in the Labour Party. He has a poor track record of either not noticing or closing his eyes to awkward stuff.
@breeallegretti Exc: Chris Skidmore has declined to endorse the Conservatives in the Kingswood byelection triggered by his resignation.
The former Tory minister tells me he’s “left party politics behind” and hopes the contest will be a “weathervane” moment to show the “electoral consequences” of “rowing back on net zero”.
In response to critics, Skidmore says he’s sticking by his principles: Pursuing decarbonisation by quitting over further oil and gas drilling and a long-held belief that those who defect or sit as an independent should trigger a byelection.
“I accept some people will be angry and disappointed but my constituents put me in the House of Commons. They should have the opportunity now I’ve changed my position to re-elect their MP,” he says.
He hopes the contest will send a strong message to ministers to push ahead with the green agenda.
“Kingswood will now be a weathervane in the way people saw Uxbridge and South Ruislip,” he says. “You can win a byelection by hundreds of votes, or lose a byelection by thousands.”
Asked if he'll back the next Tory candidate, he says: "I’m not going to endorse one political party over another... I’ve left party politics behind. I want to work with all political parties that prioritise the energy transition.”
Skidmore adds he's still “a conservative who believes in conserving”.
@breeallegretti Anger among Conservative MPs at Chris Skidmore is palpable.
I’ve seen WhatsApp messages showing Anna Firth - PPS to the Home Secretary - asking “why should the taxpayer have to keep paying for all these unnecessary byelections?”.
She suggests: “Perhaps the rules need to change such that if an MP causes an unnecessary byelection out of choice within a year of a GE, they should bear the costs”.
Two thumbs up from fellow MPs - including a whip 👀
About 3,000 live viewers - up on the live totals previously, but not massively so.
Today is one of the more notorious POL investigators, one of the few cross-examined after being reminded of his right not to self-incriminate. I reckon he's slowly going to be taken apart. Next week there'll be mostly more senior Fujitsu people, including one of the directors. Then a break before the next phase, expected to start relatively early in the spring.
Starmer was DPP; a fact he takes pride in. The CPS was involved in the mess; not in a major way, but involved nonetheless. How much Starmer was involved, or should have been involved, is an open question, and not the closed one that some on here want. There are questions, whether you like it nor not. As there are for many other politicians.
Ignoring those questions will not fix the system.
There are questions for him to answer, no question. But the people asking him to answer those questions oddly seem to be Tories.
They all have questions to answer, everyone does. The political system has failed these people.
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
12 cases apparently. I mean what's 12 cases in the scheme of things. Margin of error and all that. Families, lives ruined etc but that's fine 12 over a large number is a rounding error. Let's move on.
Obviously the point I'm making is that when numbers are tiny it is practically impossible to pick up statistically significant anomalies from them.
Whereas the actual point (cf Paula Vennells) is that when you are in charge of something you are in charge of something.
Is the CPS responsible if it prosecutes a case in which the police cooked up the evidence? That seems the closest parallel here.
My response: it depends - if the CPS knew of should have known, then yes - i.e. if the evidence presented has clear inconsistencies that should have been picked up. If not and the CPS could not have reasonably known, then no. So for the PO, it depends on timing - anything prosecuted after the problems became widely known stinks; before then the CPS is probably off the hook. The PO, of course, kept prosecuting well after they knew there were issues.
ETA: If the CPS did cock up on Starmer's watch then some responsibility rests with him, but I'm not quite sure what that means in practical terms. Johnson cocked up multiple times in jobs before being PM, but that didn't mean he couldn't be PM.
Well, there were a lot of people jumping up and down saying Johnson's track record of cocking up in multiple jobs before being PM meant he SHOULDN'T be PM.
The worst miscarriage of justice in our life times partly happened on Starmer's watch as DPP. That goes into the scales of whether he should be PM. Along with sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for years, whilst anti-semitism ran rife in the Labour Party. He has a poor track record of either not noticing or closing his eyes to awkward stuff.
0.5% of prosecutions were made by people working under Starmer. 99.5% of prosecutions were made by people working under various Post Office Ministers, Business Secretaries and PM's.
I wonder what could be possibly be the reason for this Starmer fixation? Given the seriousness of the issue it would be pretty poor if Tories were merely trying to hijack the most important miscarriage of justice in British history for (doomed) partisan political gain. Perverse even.
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
All I’m seeing there in your post is a very partisan witch hunt with you trying to blame someone else.
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
I'm finding @Casino_Royale and @isam posts sickening in trying to make political capital out of such a tragedy You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The system is broken where it takes a drama to get action from politicians and it doesn't matter which party they come from. This is endemic. It is the same story for Windrush, Blood contamination, Equitable Life, etc. And there are a whole host of others. As mentioned before I am helping a campaign that is identical in most respects (except people didn't go to prison) to the Post Office, but I don't blame the party in power in this case (2012 - Now) because I know it wouldn't be any different if it were Labour or LD or anyone else and interestingly the MPs that support our campaign come from the Conservatives, Labour, LDs and SNP.
When the system is rotten and people have suffered badly, making political points out of it is pathetic and self defeating. We need to fix the system. That isn't happening currently. We are just fixing the one that got a drama made out of it. It is excellent that is happening, but people's lives are being ruined in all the other cases also.
My view is somewhat different: the politicians are at the top. The people at the bottom; the man and women who ran post offices, and their staff, have suffered because of incompetence and lies of others. No-one else; in particular the managers, lawyers, politicians etc have had much penalty for misdeed or mistakes so far.
We cannot fix the system unless the people who make mistakes learn that mistakes can cost *them*, as well as the plebs. We cannot fix the system unless the people who do misdeeds learn those misdeeds can cost *them*.
Starmer was DPP; a fact he takes pride in. The CPS was involved in the mess; not in a major way, but involved nonetheless. How much Starmer was involved, or should have been involved, is an open question, and not the closed one that some on here want. There are questions, whether you like it nor not. As there are for many other politicians.
Ignoring those questions will not fix the system.
Does it really matter now that the CPS has been abolished? Oh, hold on, no, the CPS is still there, in which case it is odd that humble seekers after truth, such as yourself, have not asked about the three DPPs since Starmer, or the one before.
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
Unwittingly your suggestion that the US military has filed it as unexplainable and (even) you think it's bird doodoo probably tells us more about all of this than you realise.
It seems to me that the DPP is attacked for prosecuting people and attacked for not prosecuting people. Can't win, eh?
On a completely unrelated note, I have had much to say over the years about the epic disaster that is BT Group but Openreach's FTTP rollout has been extraordinary, surely one of the fastest in history of any country, which is a real credit to their engineering teams and also to Ofcom who provided a good regulatory environment finally that encouraged/forced them to do it. It is a shame it took so long but I have nothing but good things to say about both organisations now.
To put this into context, Openreach currently cover 60,000 premises a week with their rollout and will hit another 1 million premises covered in total in just Q1 this year, another new record. These rates surpass countries like Germany, Spain and France.
At the moment they are well on track to hit their aim of 25 million premises covered by 2026 and they have now said they will continue building "after", which suggests to me that they will eventually cover everyone with a mix of private and public subsidy. And for once I think I am supportive of them getting most of it as they seem to be doing the best job.
And yet their record on connecting the countryside to FTTP - which is the real issue that has existed for years - is pretty abysmal. I am not talking just about remote properties but relatively large villages.
Their forward plans show they will not reach most of the countryside outside the major towns until at least the end of 2026. And even then it looks like they will miss much of that target.
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
Unwittingly your suggestion that the US military has filed it as unexplainable and (even) you think it's bird doodoo probably tells us more about all of this than you realise.
I PRESUMED it was bird poo. As did 90% of the people who have viewed it
But then the Great Debunker in Chief, Mick West, has said No, it’s not. And see here
“Here's my analysis of the "jellyfish."
I was wrong. It's not a smudge or any kind of artifact. This is a 3-dimensional object.”
All the fuss about trying to blame the DPP for a miscarriage of justice seems very strange to me. It seems to be based on the idea that the DPP should in effect be conducting a preliminary trial before the case comes to court. Why would anyone think that was the DPP's job?
Perhaps the DPP could reasonably be expected to pick up on anomalously large numbers of disputed cases with a common factor that might point to a systemic problem. But not if the DPP had involvement in only a tiny number of these cases, as was the case here.
The mistake you are making is trying to answer this logically and look at the relative competencies between the PO and the DPP/CPS.
No, I'm not. I'm pointing out that that trying to hang this on the DPP is completely illogical.
Obvious the reason it's happening is the one you give - it's a purely political smear campaign against Starmer.
The problem with the Post Office story is that virtually no-one with any power comes out of it looking good. A couple of journalists and politicians, perhaps. Some of the poor victims as well.
Everyone in power has questions to answer; including the government, and those who were in government. But that also extends to Starmer, and these attempts to try to make him into a victim of this mess ("political smear campaign') carries more than a little whiff.
Starmer has questions to answer.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
All I’m seeing there in your post is a very partisan witch hunt with you trying to blame someone else.
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
I'm finding @Casino_Royale and @isam posts sickening in trying to make political capital out of such a tragedy You should be ashamed of yourselves.
The system is broken where it takes a drama to get action from politicians and it doesn't matter which party they come from. This is endemic. It is the same story for Windrush, Blood contamination, Equitable Life, etc. And there are a whole host of others. As mentioned before I am helping a campaign that is identical in most respects (except people didn't go to prison) to the Post Office, but I don't blame the party in power in this case (2012 - Now) because I know it wouldn't be any different if it were Labour or LD or anyone else and interestingly the MPs that support our campaign come from the Conservatives, Labour, LDs and SNP.
When the system is rotten and people have suffered badly, making political points out of it is pathetic and self defeating. We need to fix the system. That isn't happening currently. We are just fixing the one that got a drama made out of it. It is excellent that is happening, but people's lives are being ruined in all the other cases also.
My view is somewhat different: the politicians are at the top. The people at the bottom; the man and women who ran post offices, and their staff, have suffered because of incompetence and lies of others. No-one else; in particular the managers, lawyers, politicians etc have had much penalty for misdeed or mistakes so far.
We cannot fix the system unless the people who make mistakes learn that mistakes can cost *them*, as well as the plebs. We cannot fix the system unless the people who do misdeeds learn those misdeeds can cost *them*.
Starmer was DPP; a fact he takes pride in. The CPS was involved in the mess; not in a major way, but involved nonetheless. How much Starmer was involved, or should have been involved, is an open question, and not the closed one that some on here want. There are questions, whether you like it nor not. As there are for many other politicians.
Ignoring those questions will not fix the system.
I don't disagree with that, but we have to accept that things will go wrong because of incompetence, cover ups, bad luck etc. It will always happen. The issue is the inability oif the small guy (Windrush person deported, blood recipient who gets hiv, postmaster, etc) to be able to get themselves heard.
The establishment has a mentality of initially denying anything here. Civil Servants don't want a problem to solve so deny there is a problem. As the complaints go on the effort in denying a problem just gets bigger than actually solving it (I have been there). Civil Servants draft the letters for ministers to send out (I have seen them in FOI replies). They are always word for word. Ministers change jobs too often and have no concept of the details. Often complaints fall between the remits of Ombudsman and Govts block private members bills to change that remit (Equitable Life is one notable exception). The courts are often not available due to cost or the limitation act.
Postmistress plots election challenge to Sir Ed Davey
Lib Dem leader who served as Post Office minister wrote a letter saying he was ‘fully aware’ of what was going on, claims critic
Sir Ed Davey is facing an election challenge from a former postmistress amid warnings that his role in the Post Office scandal will cost him vital votes.
Residents in the Liberal Democrat leader’s seat are planning to stand an independent candidate against him over his handling of the Horizon fiasco during his time as Post Office minister in 2010-12
They are in talks about putting up Yvonne Tracey, a local independent councillor who was the deputy manager of a Post Office branch, at the next general election.
Sir Ed lost his Kingston and Surbiton seat to the Tories as recently as 2015, and a rival campaign could eat into the majority of 10,000 he had when he won it back in 2017.
Cllr James Giles, the leader of the Kingston Independent Residents Group, said voters were bringing up Sir Ed’s role in the Post Office scandal on the doorstep.
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
Unwittingly your suggestion that the US military has filed it as unexplainable and (even) you think it's bird doodoo probably tells us more about all of this than you realise.
I PRESUMED it was bird poo. As did 90% of the people who have viewed it
But then the Great Debunker in Chief, Mick West, has said No, it’s not. And see here
“Here's my analysis of the "jellyfish."
I was wrong. It's not a smudge or any kind of artifact. This is a 3-dimensional object.”
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
Unwittingly your suggestion that the US military has filed it as unexplainable and (even) you think it's bird doodoo probably tells us more about all of this than you realise.
I PRESUMED it was bird poo. As did 90% of the people who have viewed it
But then the Great Debunker in Chief, Mick West, has said No, it’s not. And see here
“Here's my analysis of the "jellyfish."
I was wrong. It's not a smudge or any kind of artifact. This is a 3-dimensional object.”
Is it the official position of PB that we shouldn’t talk about the New York excavations made by people with religious convictions who also wear hats a lot?
Just trying to get this clear. Don’t want to offend
It feels fairly simple to me - others may disagree.
Jews Dig Tunnels is a minor news story. Escalated to absurd levels by people busy fapping themselves into hospital at the opportunity to use it to push attacks on Jews over Gaza.
It is only exciting if your agenda is Attack Jews.
It seems to me that the DPP is attacked for prosecuting people and attacked for not prosecuting people. Can't win, eh?
On a completely unrelated note, I have had much to say over the years about the epic disaster that is BT Group but Openreach's FTTP rollout has been extraordinary, surely one of the fastest in history of any country, which is a real credit to their engineering teams and also to Ofcom who provided a good regulatory environment finally that encouraged/forced them to do it. It is a shame it took so long but I have nothing but good things to say about both organisations now.
To put this into context, Openreach currently cover 60,000 premises a week with their rollout and will hit another 1 million premises covered in total in just Q1 this year, another new record. These rates surpass countries like Germany, Spain and France.
At the moment they are well on track to hit their aim of 25 million premises covered by 2026 and they have now said they will continue building "after", which suggests to me that they will eventually cover everyone with a mix of private and public subsidy. And for once I think I am supportive of them getting most of it as they seem to be doing the best job.
And yet their record on connecting the countryside to FTTP - which is the real issue that has existed for years - is pretty abysmal. I am not talking just about remote properties but relatively large villages.
Their forward plans show they will not reach most of the countryside outside the major towns until at least the end of 2026. And even then it looks like they will miss much of that target.
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
Unwittingly your suggestion that the US military has filed it as unexplainable and (even) you think it's bird doodoo probably tells us more about all of this than you realise.
I PRESUMED it was bird poo. As did 90% of the people who have viewed it
But then the Great Debunker in Chief, Mick West, has said No, it’s not. And see here
“Here's my analysis of the "jellyfish."
I was wrong. It's not a smudge or any kind of artifact. This is a 3-dimensional object.”
Am incredibly sceptical that focus group is actually representative of Con to Lab switchers. Disillusioned ex-Tory voters who like Farage are more likely to switch to Reform or 'Don't Know' than Labour and, as Sir John Curtice has pointed out, Con to Lab switchers are often 'Bregreters' rather than people who think Brexit would have worked had it been 'tried properly'. isam is probably pretty representative of ex-Tory voters who like Farage... and he isn't switching to Labour.
I doubt I am, I only voted Tory once, in 2019. 97-10 I voted Labour
About 3,000 live viewers - up on the live totals previously, but not massively so.
Today is one of the more notorious POL investigators, one of the few cross-examined after being reminded of his right not to self-incriminate. I reckon he's slowly going to be taken apart. Next week there'll be mostly more senior Fujitsu people, including one of the directors. Then a break before the next phase, expected to start relatively early in the spring.
The witness appears to have just admitted to repeated mass perjury.
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
My first reaction?
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Well, you may say that from the safety of your Barratt home near Newent but the US military has filed this as an official “UAP” video - they can’t entirely explain it
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
Unwittingly your suggestion that the US military has filed it as unexplainable and (even) you think it's bird doodoo probably tells us more about all of this than you realise.
I PRESUMED it was bird poo. As did 90% of the people who have viewed it
But then the Great Debunker in Chief, Mick West, has said No, it’s not. And see here
“Here's my analysis of the "jellyfish."
I was wrong. It's not a smudge or any kind of artifact. This is a 3-dimensional object.”
Is it the official position of PB that we shouldn’t talk about the New York excavations made by people with religious convictions who also wear hats a lot?
Just trying to get this clear. Don’t want to offend
It feels fairly simple to me - others may disagree.
Jews Dig Tunnels is a minor news story. Escalated to absurd levels by people busy fapping themselves into hospital at the opportunity to use it to push attacks on Jews over Gaza.
It is only exciting if your agenda is Attack Jews.
I disagree. It’s interesting if you like studying human psychology, and seeing how people react to disturbing or anomalous phenomena
Which I do
I also find the whole thing funny. It’s a stand up comedy sketch waiting to be made. As I’ve said, the young Woody Allen would have made it hilarious - he often poked fun at ultra religious Jews
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/10/eton-mess-college-delays-school-term-as-flooding-causes-toilets-to-back-up
'“The sewers in the centre of Eton won’t cope with the arrival of nearly 1,350 boys.”'
Though Thames Water are carefully blamed.
An in any event, the country has already reached a verdict on Brexit, and condemned it as a mistake. So we can at least draw that line under it.
The distinguishing feature of this particular scandal was the private prosecution of SPMs, which is entirely on the PO rather than their vendor.
I fail to see how Fujitsu is accountable for compensation to the SPMs, with whom they had no relationship.
Do you get how the whole democratic politics thing works.
But, of course, in the ballot box it's different.
I'd rather avoid the state of the U.S. media, where Trump's latest lie is always given headline billing. Providing free publicity for the most egregious lies ought not to be the purpose of journalism.
Rather than answering them his defenders prefer to scream "Partisan!" and then, without any sense of irony, point to Peter Lilley who was last responsible for the scope nearly 30 years ago.
Now of course you are extraordinarily exercised by many things but, as Brendan O'Neil points out, a socials pile on can have all sorts of meaning and attendant useful idiots.
Next time someone has bullshit evidence and uses it to prosecute people, how will that be stopped?
Computer = Right is still the legal definition.
Handing the prosecutions to the DPP won’t do much, unless we do something else as well.
Disillusioned ex-Tory voters who like Farage are more likely to switch to Reform or 'Don't Know' than Labour and, as Sir John Curtice has pointed out, Con to Lab switchers are often 'Bregreters' rather than people who think Brexit would have worked had it been 'tried properly'.
isam is probably pretty representative of ex-Tory voters who like Farage... and he isn't switching to Labour.
Italy is already led by the hard right
Wilders just won in Holland
Le Pen is favourite in France
The afd are 2nd in German polls
Sweden and Denmark (IIRC) have hard right parties in some form of coalition
Hungary: tick
And so on and so forth. The trajectory is clear. Britain is further behind because of Brexit, I think: We gave the people a voice and they made it heard
However the failure to stop mass migration and the boats will likely force us down the same path
The Post Office are primarily responsible, but without Fujitsu's representative lying to the courts which is criminal behaviour, then the Post Office may not have got away with it for so long.
My response: it depends - if the CPS knew of should have known, then yes - i.e. if the evidence presented has clear inconsistencies that should have been picked up. If not and the CPS could not have reasonably known, then no. So for the PO, it depends on timing - anything prosecuted after the problems became widely known stinks; before then the CPS is probably off the hook. The PO, of course, kept prosecuting well after they knew there were issues.
ETA: If the CPS did cock up on Starmer's watch then some responsibility rests with him, but I'm not quite sure what that means in practical terms. Johnson cocked up multiple times in jobs before being PM, but that didn't mean he couldn't be PM.
They sent people who lied in court, which secured the convictions.
The former happens, in both directions, day in and day out. The system is far from perfect. But that doesn’t mean that the the people operating within that system should be pilloried.
The latter is crminal and those who perpetrated it should be prosecuted.
Early convictions are justifiable in that the evidence said that, and nobody knew any better. People make mistakes.
Once the mistakes were known and it was covered up to get further convictions, once people were committing perjury to get convictions, that's a whole different ballgame.
Is this a joke? I loved this story because it is FUNNY - because it really does play into every anti semitic conspiracy theory on earth. How can you not see that?
Disappointed by your stupidity, here
They looked at our shitshow and none of them jumped...
Quite a few people who backed Brexit suggested that the EU might be fine for other countries, but wasn't suitable for Britain, for unique reasons.
And others were suggesting that even if the EU is problematic, other countries by joining the Euro had already passed the point of no return and the UK should take the off ramp before we get to that point too.
I’m intrigued why. Perhaps because the more direct phrases “feel” anti semitic?
Few people currently want to go into politics, the odds of finding seriously qualified and suitable people is even less likely. And with posts like yours literally no-one will do it in future, because with social media and a daily witch hunt either of reflect blame or for the lols it’s not worth the grief
Being blunt it doesn’t make any difference - going to court and lying knowing someone is going to jail because of your lie should be resulting in serious jail time
Yet the Horizon system was trusted; trusted enough for people to consciously lie to back up the computer
Imagine how this will be with AI, when stupid people will point at a system and say: "The computer's intelligent! It cannot possibly be wrong!"
Yet because of the way ML/AI works, it may actually be *harder* to work out why something happened. Not necessarily with accountancy, but in many other areas.
What you don't see are stories of someone whose created or expanded a business because of the wonderful new opportunities offered by the government's new trade deal with Mongolia or wherever...
Lib Dem leader who served as Post Office minister wrote a letter saying he was ‘fully aware’ of what was going on, claims critic
Sir Ed Davey is facing an election challenge from a former postmistress amid warnings that his role in the Post Office scandal will cost him vital votes.
Residents in the Liberal Democrat leader’s seat are planning to stand an independent candidate against him over his handling of the Horizon fiasco during his time as Post Office minister in 2010-12
They are in talks about putting up Yvonne Tracey, a local independent councillor who was the deputy manager of a Post Office branch, at the next general election.
Sir Ed lost his Kingston and Surbiton seat to the Tories as recently as 2015, and a rival campaign could eat into the majority of 10,000 he had when he won it back in 2017.
Cllr James Giles, the leader of the Kingston Independent Residents Group, said voters were bringing up Sir Ed’s role in the Post Office scandal on the doorstep.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/10/postmistress-election-challenge-ed-davey-post-office-scanda/
It’s like a Woody Allen sketch, back when he was amusing
Of course it can also be skewed to be nasty and anti semitic. But that’s just reality. It is a funny story
I’ve not yet seen evidence that Fujitsu as a company were lying in court, in a way that the PO were unaware. They were collaborators.
They have been given this power. What are they going to do with it? When should it be used?
Lets try and make the system better, rather than just complain.
Just trying to get this clear. Don’t want to offend
Some of the senior PO folk may be in deep water, for sure. So are some of the junior Fujitsu people. I believe the only people interviewed under caution by the Police so far are from Fujitsu?
We haven't really heard from the senior Fujitsu guys, yet, I don't think?
That’s not the same as the PO saying that Fujitsu should be the entity paying the compensation.
The system is broken where it takes a drama to get action from politicians and it doesn't matter which party they come from. This is endemic. It is the same story for Windrush, Blood contamination, Equitable Life, etc. And there are a whole host of others. As mentioned before I am helping a campaign that is identical in most respects (except people didn't go to prison) to the Post Office, but I don't blame the party in power in this case (2012 - Now) because I know it wouldn't be any different if it were Labour or LD or anyone else and interestingly the MPs that support our campaign come from the Conservatives, Labour, LDs and SNP.
When the system is rotten and people have suffered badly, making political points out of it is pathetic and self defeating. We need to fix the system. That isn't happening currently. We are just fixing the one that got a drama made out of it. It is excellent that is happening, but people's lives are being ruined in all the other cases also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3AI_Q5jk_M
The Post Office should also be paying compensation, but its not only one party responsible here and all parties at fault need to be held liable for their actions.
Just because the Post Office wanted Fujitsu to lie does not excuse or remove Fujistu's culpability for lying, they could and should have refused to do so.
I’m sure he wouldn’t have done that so it’s all ok.
It seems to me that the DPP is attacked for prosecuting people and attacked for not prosecuting people. Can't win, eh?
On a completely unrelated note, I have had much to say over the years about the epic disaster that is BT Group but Openreach's FTTP rollout has been extraordinary, surely one of the fastest in history of any country, which is a real credit to their engineering teams and also to Ofcom who provided a good regulatory environment finally that encouraged/forced them to do it. It is a shame it took so long but I have nothing but good things to say about both organisations now.
To put this into context, Openreach currently cover 60,000 premises a week with their rollout and will hit another 1 million premises covered in total in just Q1 this year, another new record. These rates surpass countries like Germany, Spain and France.
At the moment they are well on track to hit their aim of 25 million premises covered by 2026 and they have now said they will continue building "after", which suggests to me that they will eventually cover everyone with a mix of private and public subsidy. And for once I think I am supportive of them getting most of it as they seem to be doing the best job.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/01/openreach-to-hit-quarterly-uk-fttp-broadband-build-rate-of-1m-premises.html
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/10/keir-starmer-announces-plan-for-supervised-toothbrushing-in-schools
By contrast, if we focused on attacking the Tories ("betrayed a generation of children" etc.) it'd get more coverage, but also reinforce the "they just attack, they don't have answers" image. We could put out a leaflet but the same problem arises - people tend not to read stuff about what we might do.
It's a general problem, not a left/right thing, stemming from the general approach of treating politics as an entertaining blood sport. I'm not sure what the answer is.
We cannot fix the system unless the people who make mistakes learn that mistakes can cost *them*, as well as the plebs. We cannot fix the system unless the people who do misdeeds learn those misdeeds can cost *them*.
Starmer was DPP; a fact he takes pride in. The CPS was involved in the mess; not in a major way, but involved nonetheless. How much Starmer was involved, or should have been involved, is an open question, and not the closed one that some on here want. There are questions, whether you like it nor not. As there are for many other politicians.
Ignoring those questions will not fix the system.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is showing pornographic images of Hunter Biden again. It is unclear why she has an unhealthy obsession with Hunter Biden’s penis but here we are.
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1745175556810027140
The worst miscarriage of justice in our life times partly happened on Starmer's watch as DPP. That goes into the scales of whether he should be PM. Along with sitting in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet for years, whilst anti-semitism ran rife in the Labour Party. He has a poor track record of either not noticing or closing his eyes to awkward stuff.
What do people think of the latest UFO video? It is really peculiar in its humdrum quality, but causing quite a stir
https://x.com/uapjames/status/1744569450878165278?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
My first reaction? A splat of something on the lens. Probably bird poo
Here's Leon banging on about "UFOs" again.
You're boring.
Exc: Chris Skidmore has declined to endorse the Conservatives in the Kingswood byelection triggered by his resignation.
The former Tory minister tells me he’s “left party politics behind” and hopes the contest will be a “weathervane” moment to show the “electoral consequences” of “rowing back on net zero”.
In response to critics, Skidmore says he’s sticking by his principles: Pursuing decarbonisation by quitting over further oil and gas drilling and a long-held belief that those who defect or sit as an independent should trigger a byelection.
“I accept some people will be angry and disappointed but my constituents put me in the House of Commons. They should have the opportunity now I’ve changed my position to re-elect their MP,” he says.
He hopes the contest will send a strong message to ministers to push ahead with the green agenda.
“Kingswood will now be a weathervane in the way people saw Uxbridge and South Ruislip,” he says. “You can win a byelection by hundreds of votes, or lose a byelection by thousands.”
Asked if he'll back the next Tory candidate, he says: "I’m not going to endorse one political party over another... I’ve left party politics behind. I want to work with all political parties that prioritise the energy transition.”
Skidmore adds he's still “a conservative who believes in conserving”.
@breeallegretti
Anger among Conservative MPs at Chris Skidmore is palpable.
I’ve seen WhatsApp messages showing Anna Firth - PPS to the Home Secretary - asking “why should the taxpayer have to keep paying for all these unnecessary byelections?”.
She suggests: “Perhaps the rules need to change such that if an MP causes an unnecessary byelection out of choice within a year of a GE, they should bear the costs”.
Two thumbs up from fellow MPs - including a whip 👀
Today is one of the more notorious POL investigators, one of the few cross-examined after being reminded of his right not to self-incriminate. I reckon he's slowly going to be taken apart. Next week there'll be mostly more senior Fujitsu people, including one of the directors. Then a break before the next phase, expected to start relatively early in the spring.
They all have questions to answer, everyone does. The political system has failed these people.
I wonder what could be possibly be the reason for this Starmer fixation? Given the seriousness of the issue it would be pretty poor if Tories were merely trying to hijack the most important miscarriage of justice in British history for (doomed) partisan political gain. Perverse even.
He's already started to contradict himself...
And it behoves those of us with sharper, more inquiring minds to point out that it is surely a splat of bird shit on the lens
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/24/isnt-that-a-balloon-deflating-a-dod-ufo-video/
I) The guilty party genuinely was guilty and importantly
II) Branched out to into other crimes like money laundering which the PO couldn’t prosecute
If this true then Starmer should be safe.
Their forward plans show they will not reach most of the countryside outside the major towns until at least the end of 2026. And even then it looks like they will miss much of that target.
https://www.openreach.com/content/dam/openreach/openreach-dam-files/documents/Ultrafast_Full_Fibre_broadband_Build_Programme_July_2022_online.pdf
But then the Great Debunker in Chief, Mick West, has said No, it’s not. And see here
“Here's my analysis of the "jellyfish."
I was wrong. It's not a smudge or any kind of artifact. This is a 3-dimensional object.”
https://x.com/ophello/status/1745223391760814139?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
The establishment has a mentality of initially denying anything here. Civil Servants don't want a problem to solve so deny there is a problem. As the complaints go on the effort in denying a problem just gets bigger than actually solving it (I have been there). Civil Servants draft the letters for ministers to send out (I have seen them in FOI replies). They are always word for word. Ministers change jobs too often and have no concept of the details. Often complaints fall between the remits of Ombudsman and Govts block private members bills to change that remit (Equitable Life is one notable exception). The courts are often not available due to cost or the limitation act.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/when-scandal-strikes-britain-leaps-into-action-zclhzcp0k
They might at least credit this site.
The UAP was filmed in Iraq during Eid
Jews Dig Tunnels is a minor news story. Escalated to absurd levels by people busy fapping themselves into hospital at the opportunity to use it to push attacks on Jews over Gaza.
It is only exciting if your agenda is Attack Jews.
Based on both the Post Office evidence and say banking evidence the CPS obtained to AML violations.
And this is where backhaul via other means becomes useful. If only the government had invested in LEO satellite networks....
Which I do
I also find the whole thing funny. It’s a stand up comedy sketch waiting to be made. As I’ve said, the young Woody Allen would have made it hilarious - he often poked fun at ultra religious Jews