Question - are there AI bots operating on LinkedIn? Had a DM from someone looking to organise a chat between me and her boss. But she seems insistent on WhatsApp, and her boss appears not to exist...
Of course, there are AI bots operating everywhere. Also lying humans.
A recent scam I heard about is to do a fake job interview where you get someone to download some code from GitHub to do a task to show you can code. To do this you have to install dependencies, and the dependencies install malware.
Anyone contacting you on LinkedIn, and then wanting to use WhatsApp (because its encrypted and messages are easy to delete) will inevitably end up asking you for a 'fee' in due course.
Also worth noting that the ITV postal drama was actually POSITIVE about one politician: the Tory MP James Arbuthnot
I actually found that quite refreshing. When “a Tory MP” hoved into view I thought, wearily, here we go, he’ll be another gammony, blazer wearing fox hunter who wants to buy all the post offices and turn them into sweat shops. But no. The scriptwriter avoided that and made him pleasant and sincere and hard working. Which added to the drama - merely by being unexpected
He deserves a little credit
The Mail's review was quite snooty that not enough credit had been given to, er, The Daily Mail. But they did get a mention in e.4. If I was Computer Weekly I'd be more aggrieved, given their consistent championing of this cause. But I'm sure they are delighted that it has been brought to a wider public consciousness.
Yes. Proper journalists on computer weekly it seems: well done them
There are some quiet heroes besides Alan Bates. But an awful lot of villains
I remember saying a year ago, as I was yawning (again, and wrongly) over the tediousness of this scandal, that what it needed was a STORY - a few human examples to make it vivid and emotional. That’s exactly what ITV did: well done them, too
It is pleasing that homemade TV drama can still do this - change an entire national conversation and for a righteous cause
Some other Pb-er noted that the scriptwriter used every single cliche in the book - from the pints at the pub table to the lovable cake making lady to the absurdly pretty house in snowdonia - but who cares. It really worked
It is notable that broadcast TV still has this (unique?) power to mobilise the nation. Although I expect a lot of people also watched it on ITVX once the buzz started.
In other power of television news, THE TV event of 2023 in the Russophone world was Слово пацана. Кровь на асфальте. Lit. The Boy's Word: Blood on Asphalt.
It's a series about Kazan hoodlums in 80s Moscow. It was also immensely popular in Ukraine with songs from it topping the Ukrainian download charts so now the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture is trying to ban it.
Is it any good? If so in happier times it would surely be a shoo in for BBC4 on a Saturday night. I can even imagine that northern woman who does the doom laden intros to the Scandi stuff doing her bit - 'Now pets, transport yoursen to the streets of late Soviet Moscow as the bullets fly'.
Also worth noting that the ITV postal drama was actually POSITIVE about one politician: the Tory MP James Arbuthnot
I actually found that quite refreshing. When “a Tory MP” hoved into view I thought, wearily, here we go, he’ll be another gammony, blazer wearing fox hunter who wants to buy all the post offices and turn them into sweat shops. But no. The scriptwriter avoided that and made him pleasant and sincere and hard working. Which added to the drama - merely by being unexpected
He deserves a little credit
The Mail's review was quite snooty that not enough credit had been given to, er, The Daily Mail. But they did get a mention in e.4. If I was Computer Weekly I'd be more aggrieved, given their consistent championing of this cause. But I'm sure they are delighted that it has been brought to a wider public consciousness.
Yes. Proper journalists on computer weekly it seems: well done them
There are some quiet heroes besides Alan Bates. But an awful lot of villains
I remember saying a year ago, as I was yawning (again, and wrongly) over the tediousness of this scandal, that what it needed was a STORY - a few human examples to make it vivid and emotional. That’s exactly what ITV did: well done them, too
It is pleasing that homemade TV drama can still do this - change an entire national conversation and for a righteous cause
Some other Pb-er noted that the scriptwriter used every single cliche in the book - from the pints at the pub table to the lovable cake making lady to the absurdly pretty house in snowdonia - but who cares. It really worked
It is notable that broadcast TV still has this (unique?) power to mobilise the nation. Although I expect a lot of people also watched it on ITVX once the buzz started.
In other power of television news, THE TV event of 2023 in the Russophone world was Слово пацана. Кровь на асфальте. Lit. The Boy's Word: Blood on Asphalt.
It's a series about Kazan hoodlums in 80s Moscow. It was also immensely popular in Ukraine with songs from it topping the Ukrainian download charts so now the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture is trying to ban it.
i watched some Russia Today last night - hotels in Bangkok often save money by skimping on their satellite station selection
RT was REALLY majoring on some WW2 history that showed how Estonia was closely, intimately united with the rest of the Soviet Union, so much so, it is basically all the same country
If I lived in the Baltics, I’d be a tad nervous about Putin’s next move
If you are right the nervousness extends to home. Estonia is in NATO and Trump will win the POTUS election. European NATO member powers with nuclear capability are the front line. Better check the air defences and that the box of matches to light the blue touch paper isn't damp.
If I lived in the Baltics, I’d be a tad nervous about Putin’s next move
I don't think they have any reason to be nervous at all. The "Loudmouth Baltics" (as M. V. Zakharova calls them, LOL) are inside the EU and NATO not outside, knocking on the door with dog shit on their tattered shoes, like Ukraine. They don't have anything like the cultural and emotional heft that Donbas, Odessa, etc. have to Russia.
Also, the armed forces of the Russian Federation are advancing at the rate of one izba every four weeks. It's laughable to propose that they are any sort of conventional military threat to the LBs.
However, VVP doesn't follow his dreams, he follows his opportunties. If he got the chance to stir shit inside the LBs and foment social and political strife I have zero doubt that he'd do it.
Yes probably….
But whoever thought he’d actually invade Ukraine?!
None of the Russians I know expected it. They thought he was bluffing
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
A dilemma for many LibDem voters, since we'd probably be better off (both as a country and from party self-interest) without a landslide.
If everyone thinks like that there is a reasonable probability that Rishi gets his FPTP majority. If you really, really don't want another Tory Government, tactical voting is your best option.
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
Who you attach more blame to, the PO staff and management (aka overpromoted public sector bods) or the lawyers that advised them?
Which of these classes did the show demonise?
I don’t know enough about it, and I yield to the experts like Ms @Cyclefree
Certainly the show painted the PO management in a very bad light. But how could they not? The PO did some seriously bad shit
One good drama will reach people in a way that 100 well-researched articles can’t.
I don’t feel sorry for Pauline Vennels, even if she’s now the scapegoat. She willingly took this very well-paid position, and was completely indifferent to the way these people had suffered.
A belated Happy New Year to you all! I spent most of Christmas and New Year in hospital so was unable to keep up with things properly. Save for two posts yesterday, I think I've caught up on posts and threads.
Amidst all of the predictions for this year (and I can't wait for a breakdown of entries from @Benpointer ) somebody asked what the 'Black Swan' of this year would be. I don't believe in there being a single 'Black Swan'; rather, there are events that overtake the normal course of things and I think we've already had one. Other than @Cyclefree , who else could have predicted that a dramatisation of the Horizon/Post Office scandal would be it? It's dominated the agenda in the past week and a bit and has the potential to bring down a party leader. It's a sad state of affairs, however, that it takes a drama to highlight the issue to the public when other outlets (Panorama, Radio 4, Computer World, etc.) have been discussing it for years.
As a side note... don't be surprised if the scandal doesn't become a broader story about Post Office IT provision. In the mid-90s my brother worked for Royal & Sun Alliance. At the time, the Post Office was launching new financial services (home insurance, travel insurance, etc.) and his team were tasked with testing the integration between the brand new Post Office system and the R&SA system. Rather like the Titanic, the developers claimed it was foolproof and unbreakable. The team my brother worked with broke it multiple times - premiums were calculated incorrectly and fees were wrong. The Post Office was adamant that it wasn't breakable and that they were wrong.
Also worth noting that the ITV postal drama was actually POSITIVE about one politician: the Tory MP James Arbuthnot
I actually found that quite refreshing. When “a Tory MP” hoved into view I thought, wearily, here we go, he’ll be another gammony, blazer wearing fox hunter who wants to buy all the post offices and turn them into sweat shops. But no. The scriptwriter avoided that and made him pleasant and sincere and hard working. Which added to the drama - merely by being unexpected
He deserves a little credit
Having known him personally a little, at least in the past, I hope that he's sent ITV a fine case of wine, since he was extraordinarily lucky with his portrayal. Which isn't to detract from the difference he's made with the campaign.
I wonder who among the reasonably broad cast of campaigners can take the credit for getting ITV interested in a drama, on what at first glance must have seemed a challenging topic. Wallis, perhaps?
On the flip side, I feel slightly sorry for Ms Vennels, who is now probably the most hated person in the country, taking over from whoever chopped down the sycamore gap sycamore
She might well be an evil bitch, on the other hand she might be an averagely decent person who made idiotic mistakes and really stupid decisions. We need to know
The ITV drama, however, made it absolutely clear she is an evil bitch, right down to the casting of a sharp nosed woman who looked a bit like a well dressed witch
Harsh on Lia Williams. Very good casting and excellent acting I'd say.
But you prove my point. The actress looks like a well dressed witch, or maybe a semi retired dominatrix in a publicity still for her memoirs
OTOH I have been looking at some of the real-life people behind the story: ITV did a superb job in casting people who actually look like the people they are playing. From Alan Bates/Toby Jones, and on
I wouldn't say ex Hollyoaks star Will Mellor was exactly a mirror image of Lee Castleton who he portrayed, though he did a reasonable job of it
Richard Rolls was nothing like the person I watched giving evidence to the Inquiry, either in appearance or manner. The scene he was involved in was however done brilliantly, and got the gist of the matter across succinctly.
Brilliant tv.
Monica Dolan, however, was (made up to look like) the spit of Jo Castleton.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
A PBer (I think it's @Malmesbury: could be @JosiasJessop) is convinced that the British State is captured by and serves a small group of people. This group is referred to as The Nu10K. They are characterised by i) high-paid administrative positions, ii) rarely fired for incompetence, and iii) when fired for incompetence are rapidly reemployed at the same or higher wage.
I think he's right, btw
Were you asking for the names of specific people?
Not me; I think it was Malms.
I think there's something in it too.
Is Malmes due to be the first PBers credited with adding a new term to the English language?
“Lagershed”, surely
Also NU10K is an excellent concept - I entirely agree - but a horribly clumsy neologism. It sounds like it refers to Number 10 Downing Street. How do you even say it? The clever idea needs a better word
Another question about the Post Office scandal is whether there is a single MP, Minister or senior Civil Servant who does not read Private Eye? Or newspaper editor, come to that.
There was the article in Computer Weekly nearly fifteen years ago. There have been occasional articles in the serious papers and a lot more in Private Eye, as well as local paper coverage of many of the individual cases. Bates’s campaign has been going for twenty years and both he and many of the affected individuals have lobbied their own MPs throughout that entire period. A handful of those MPs have been raising the matter in parliament for more than ten years. Bates’s campaign has lobbied every junior minister responsible for the PO since New Labour days, but only one was interested enough to meet him personally. There’s been a Panorama documentary, a twenty-part radio series on R4, and items on other media including commercial radio. And there’s a book available in both hardback and paperback that tells the whole story. And internet sites from the campaign and others; even, late in the story, some items on PB. And the statutory inquiry has been up and running since last year.
Yet it’s taken a bit of telly drama on ITV over the holiday period to have everyone running about in apparent surprise and shock…..
Yes, Sunak was talking at the weekend like he'd only just heard of it. Despicable. I used to have quite a bit of time for him, but I now hope he gets shafted at the next election, as he deserves.
How many questions has Starmer asked about it at PMQs?
Not enough.
PMQs doesn't work to hold the government to account, nor does it get to any answers. All that would zing back across the chamber is some pre-prepared barb about how it was all New Labour's fault in the first place.
Absolutely. People sometimes just totally misunderstand how PMQs has works.
Sunak is probably the apogee of not bothering in any way to answer questions (and actually Truss, in her very short time, was a rare case of making at least some attempt to do so). But it's never been a forum for forensic questioning on worthy, long term issues, as there is zero chance of a meaningful answer emerging in front of 600 baying MPs. It's traded zingers on the issue of the day to try to get the soundbite or just maybe elicit a gaffe, and a taking of the temperature on whether the PM and LOTO have their troops enthused.
There is also a romantic view that it used to be much more serious. It wasn't, and never will be - it's pantomime.
PMQs was serious once, but the convention was that the Prime Minister would only deal with overall policy and would refer departmental questions to the appropriate minister. Mrs Thatcher changed that by answering all questions (in a Number 10 power grab). Constant heckling from the backbenches was another Thatcher innovation, designed to boost her against Jim Callaghan.
Then Tony Blair came along and decided being held to account twice in a week was infra dig so combined Tuesday and Thursday PMQs into one session on Wednesdays.
The final change (that I can think of atm) was that John Bercow as Speaker introduced stoppage time and called more pesky backbenchers, both of which infuriated the government.
Who you attach more blame to, the PO staff and management (aka overpromoted public sector bods) or the lawyers that advised them?
Which of these classes did the show demonise?
I don’t know enough about it, and I yield to the experts like Ms @Cyclefree
Certainly the show painted the PO management in a very bad light. But how could they not? The PO did some seriously bad shit
One good drama will reach people in a way that 100 well-researched articles can’t.
I don’t feel sorry for Pauline Vennels, even if she’s now the scapegoat. She willingly took this very well-paid position, and was completely indifferent to the way these people had suffered.
Yes, my calculations of her pay and bonus never had any shortfalls. Indeed my figures were almost always totally accurate.
Much younger, I did once spend a million pounds by mistake, and went into my manager’s office fully expecting the worst. But he was very forgiving and said that, probably, no-one would ever notice. And, remarkably, he was right.
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
This is an excellent 4 star hotel right in the centre with a rooftop bar overlooking the rivers Tonle Sap and Mekong, surrounded by bars and nightlife. With a great gym and infinity pool by the sky bar
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
For "formidable and doughty", read "shameless and dirty".
Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
I ration my comments about Starmer. I honestly don't make a habit of disliking people at all, let alone with such intensity, but I can stand neither the sight nor sound of him.
If I lived in the Baltics, I’d be a tad nervous about Putin’s next move
I don't think they have any reason to be nervous at all. The "Loudmouth Baltics" (as M. V. Zakharova calls them, LOL) are inside the EU and NATO not outside, knocking on the door with dog shit on their tattered shoes, like Ukraine. They don't have anything like the cultural and emotional heft that Donbas, Odessa, etc. have to Russia.
Also, the armed forces of the Russian Federation are advancing at the rate of one izba every four weeks. It's laughable to propose that they are any sort of conventional military threat to the LBs.
However, VVP doesn't follow his dreams, he follows his opportunties. If he got the chance to stir shit inside the LBs and foment social and political strife I have zero doubt that he'd do it.
Yes probably….
But whoever thought he’d actually invade Ukraine?!
None of the Russians I know expected it. They thought he was bluffing
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Massive human, physical and financial carnage sees Russia become a tiny bit bigger, its new western border unstable and not recognized, its long-term economic and geopolitical prospects in the toilet.
If this is a win I'd like to see what losing looks like.
A PBer (I think it's @Malmesbury: could be @JosiasJessop) is convinced that the British State is captured by and serves a small group of people. This group is referred to as The Nu10K. They are characterised by i) high-paid administrative positions, ii) rarely fired for incompetence, and iii) when fired for incompetence are rapidly reemployed at the same or higher wage.
I think he's right, btw
Were you asking for the names of specific people?
Not me; I think it was Malms.
I think there's something in it too.
Is Malmes due to be the first PBers credited with adding a new term to the English language?
“Lagershed”, surely
Also NU10K is an excellent concept - I entirely agree - but a horribly clumsy neologism. It sounds like it refers to Number 10 Downing Street. How do you even say it? The clever idea needs a better word
New Ten Kay
I'd suggest 'New10k' and 'New10k-er' are more readable. Nu makes me think of Nu-metal (which, it should be noted, had a hyphen - because 'numetal' would face the same issues of 'how do you say it'?)
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
Galloway's success was also at a time of Labour governing with a comfortable majority but declining support. The dynamics are very different now when the focus of most left of centre voters - and they're no more far left in Islington North than anywhere else in inner London - is on ensuring the Tories are kicked out.
The time for a JC-led insurgent party would be a few years into a Starmer government with the gloss having come off and complacency about the Tory threat creeping in.
Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
I ration my comments about Starmer. I honestly don't make a habit of disliking people at all, let alone with such intensity, but I can stand neither the sight nor sound of him.
Whilst not a fan of the curry-eater, I reserve my utter detestation for the odious and disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
The Leader is Too Decent is an old propaganda trope. Along with If Only The Tsar Knew.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
That raises a very important question which has not really been discussed. What is the point of an internal investigations team? What is it there to do? What is its remit?
I don't think the PO gave any real thought to this - not in the way it should have done.
It is something I have given a lot - and I mean a LOT - of thought to over the years. FWIW I do not think an internal investigations team should be investigating criminal offences. If something is a potential criminal offence where the investigating party is also a victim, then the matter should be handed over to the proper authorities. It is not just a question of competence etc. it is also because - as was blindingly obvious here (save to the Post Office, obviously) - there is an obvious conflict of interest.
The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies, breached the rights of the potential defendants, failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process to recover non-existent civil debts. There is no case now for them to have investigation and prosecution powers as if they were the police and CPS combined.
What they do need is a proper internal investigations team once they've cleared out the old team, most of the legal department, the Board and there is anything left standing after compensation has been paid.
I have seen the RSPB misuse their powers too in the past. There have been issues with the RSPCA too.
Starmer is having a shocking campaign to date whilst Rishi hasn't put a foot wrong since January 1st.
I ration my comments about Starmer. I honestly don't make a habit of disliking people at all, let alone with such intensity, but I can stand neither the sight nor sound of him.
Whilst not a fan of the curry-eater, I reserve my utter detestation for the odious disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
Galloway won Bradford West over a decade ago, and then promptly lost it again three years later. It was a protest vote against both main parties at a by-election, combined with shameless pandering to a religious / ethnic base ('pandering' might be being unfair: Galloway has held the prejudices he was playing up in the by-election for decades. All the same, his victory was a circumstance of time and place and wasn't repeatable even in the same place - though he didn't exactly help his own cause by misinterpreting what his victory meant; people still expected him to do the day job).
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Another question about the Post Office scandal is whether there is a single MP, Minister or senior Civil Servant who does not read Private Eye? Or newspaper editor, come to that.
There was the article in Computer Weekly nearly fifteen years ago. There have been occasional articles in the serious papers and a lot more in Private Eye, as well as local paper coverage of many of the individual cases. Bates’s campaign has been going for twenty years and both he and many of the affected individuals have lobbied their own MPs throughout that entire period. A handful of those MPs have been raising the matter in parliament for more than ten years. Bates’s campaign has lobbied every junior minister responsible for the PO since New Labour days, but only one was interested enough to meet him personally. There’s been a Panorama documentary, a twenty-part radio series on R4, and items on other media including commercial radio. And there’s a book available in both hardback and paperback that tells the whole story. And internet sites from the campaign and others; even, late in the story, some items on PB. And the statutory inquiry has been up and running since last year.
Yet it’s taken a bit of telly drama on ITV over the holiday period to have everyone running about in apparent surprise and shock…..
Yes, Sunak was talking at the weekend like he'd only just heard of it. Despicable. I used to have quite a bit of time for him, but I now hope he gets shafted at the next election, as he deserves.
How many questions has Starmer asked about it at PMQs?
Not enough.
PMQs doesn't work to hold the government to account, nor does it get to any answers. All that would zing back across the chamber is some pre-prepared barb about how it was all New Labour's fault in the first place.
Absolutely. People sometimes just totally misunderstand how PMQs has works.
Sunak is probably the apogee of not bothering in any way to answer questions (and actually Truss, in her very short time, was a rare case of making at least some attempt to do so). But it's never been a forum for forensic questioning on worthy, long term issues, as there is zero chance of a meaningful answer emerging in front of 600 baying MPs. It's traded zingers on the issue of the day to try to get the soundbite or just maybe elicit a gaffe, and a taking of the temperature on whether the PM and LOTO have their troops enthused.
There is also a romantic view that it used to be much more serious. It wasn't, and never will be - it's pantomime.
PMQs was serious once, but the convention was that the Prime Minister would only deal with overall policy and would refer departmental questions to the appropriate minister. Mrs Thatcher changed that by answering all questions (in a Number 10 power grab). Constant heckling from the backbenches was another Thatcher innovation, designed to boost her against Jim Callaghan.
Then Tony Blair came along and decided being held to account twice in a week was infra dig so combined Tuesday and Thursday PMQs into one session on Wednesdays.
The final change (that I can think of atm) was that John Bercow as Speaker introduced stoppage time and called more pesky backbenchers, both of which infuriated the government.
I think that's a slightly rose-tinted view of the past. It's true it has evolved, and partly depends on the characters of the principal players, but the bearpit atmosphere very much predated Thatcher - the Heath/Wilson clashes were absolutely brutal, played out with barely-concealed loathing on both sides.
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
The Leader is Too Decent is an old propaganda trope. Along with If Only The Tsar Knew.
"Over the weekend, the Lib Dems said Davey did eventually meet Bates in October 2010 - and that he was the first postal affairs minister to hold such a meeting since campaigners began pressing for talks in 2003."
So who was Post Office minister from 2003-2010?
Pat McFadden was one of Labour's Postal Affairs Ministers. I think I found 18 of them in total, since Horizon in 1999.
New Upper 10,000 refers to the old observation that countries were run by the aristocracies and their moderately distant relations.
The NU10K is a bit more diverse, but have adopted the sense of entitlement, arrogance, immunity from consequences* and general fuckwittery associated with the Old Upper 10,000.
A lot of John Wilkes journalism was about the OU10K
*An important part of the No Consequences thing is ensuring that No Consequences occur for other NU10Kers.
Note the importance of no consequences for other NU10k club members. You scratch their back, they’ll scratch yours if that time ever comes.
Who is in the NU10k club? All sorts of people. But generally, if you can leave your current job & expect to be parachuted into a nice sinecure as the Director of a non-profit org then you’re probably in the club. Note that the club is apolitical - party affiliation is not in and of itself relevant to whether you’re in the club or not. Some MPs are in the club whilst others are not, probably because they committed the cardinal sin of criticising club members at some point.
There’s probably a universal truth of human relations that an inchoate organisation like this forms in any country - with ill defined boundaries, no membership lists & no written rules. Somehow the members all know the rules even if they’re never quite sure whether they’re in the club or not.
They sound like a right bunch of f**kers to me. Whether they exist, I hope not, but I suspect so. The introduction of representative democracy hasn't really changed things all that much. Same old people in power doing the same old thing of running the country. Sometimes to the benefit of the country, but often probably not..............
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
Soon, that's how it will be. Any inquiry chair will be on the lookout for clear, simple eye-catching wins, and that one is obvious. It can be positioned as a sort of punishment for the organisation whilst in reality not affecting anyone that much
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
Galloway won Bradford West over a decade ago, and then promptly lost it again three years later. It was a protest vote against both main parties at a by-election, combined with shameless pandering to a religious / ethnic base ('pandering' might be being unfair: Galloway has held the prejudices he was playing up in the by-election for decades. All the same, his victory was a circumstance of time and place and wasn't repeatable even in the same place - though he didn't exactly help his own cause by misinterpreting what his victory meant; people still expected him to do the day job).
Galloway has allied himself to the reactionary right of Unionism in Scotland (and proved to be an utter electoral failure), hasn't he burnt his boats with the radical left? I'm sure he'd shamelessly try to reappropriate the clothes of a socialist firebrand but hasn't everyone heard it all before?
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
That's tosh.
For the best example, look back to his public Security Council meeting just before the invasion, in Feb 2022. Obviously this was stage-managed but even so, every one of his ministers, directors and generals going on the record did so from a position of more caution than him, even though they must have known the decision was taken for all intents and purposes.
That the Kremlin controls the media is hardly a secret. Why then does it allow the 'opposition' to come from hardliners rather than moderates? Two reasons.
Firstly, because the opposite is true. In Russia the majority of opposition actually lies on the doveish side. Putin can therefore be closer to the people than the expressed opposition, while also ensuring that no dangerous actual opposition can build up because there's a limit to the even-more-nutcase vote. (Some, like Medvedev, jumped on the war bandwagon later on; that's internal Kremlin politics, spotting gaps in the court debates)
And secondly, because it's handy in creating an external impression to foreigners that Putin is the voice of reason inside the Kremlin, rather than someone who has instigated multiple wars, staged terrorist atrocities within Russia and used chemical weapons on foreign soil, putting thousands at risk.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Remember that the PO Investigation Branch is the oldest and earliest organisation with statutory investigative powers in the world
They (MSM) are so deluded it’s incredible. They try and fit everything into their narratives. What their masters tell them.
Even in the face of the overwhelming support I have had on social media and in person, they attempt to give voice to the deniers. The minority in this case.
Why can you not accept that people just don’t want your ‘Woke’ agenda pushed on them.
People have had enough of your nonsense.
The more you push back, the worse the ramifications when you’re eventually toppled.
We don’t want your DEI, equality of outcome, affirmative action, BLM, victim card, your gaslighting won’t work.
We have our own brains. We have our own eyes and ears. We are able to think for ourselves.
You can’t brainwash people anymore. The game is up.
Up isn’t down and Down isn’t up. No matter how much you keep trying to tell us.
Meanwhile, if there's any truth in it, the biggest political news may be this:
Jeremy Corbyn has been tipped to decide in just “weeks” whether to launch a new political movement to rival Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
According to friends of the former Labour leader, Corbyn could launch a new party which could take voters dissatisfied with the current Labour Party away from Starmer.
People like us always assume a breakaway party can suddenly gain vast swathes of votes from upset voters of pre-existing parties.
They can't, and they won't. Bootle voters doesn't vote Labour because people love Labour, Peter Dowd, Keir Starmer. Bootle voters votes Labour because Dad told them to vote Labour.
Frank Field got less than 7,500 votes in 2019 in Birkenhead and Labour held the seat easily. As mentioned, outside of Islington North, this theoretical new party wouldn't win any other seats. They might act as a small spoiler for Labour but nothing more.
Galloway won Bradford West for Respect (find out what it means to me) but he strikes me as a more formidable and doughty campaigner than JC.
Galloway won Bradford West over a decade ago, and then promptly lost it again three years later. It was a protest vote against both main parties at a by-election, combined with shameless pandering to a religious / ethnic base ('pandering' might be being unfair: Galloway has held the prejudices he was playing up in the by-election for decades. All the same, his victory was a circumstance of time and place and wasn't repeatable even in the same place - though he didn't exactly help his own cause by misinterpreting what his victory meant; people still expected him to do the day job).
I'm keeping an eye on him for the possibility he'll reprise his last by-election fight on the much more favourable Dewsbury & Batley boundaries. His current WPB vehicle claim to want to stand 50 candidates at the GE (maybe Chris Williamson as well?). Purely on personal prejudice, I figure he is the kind of guy who falls out with local campaigners, so carries with him a zeroth time non-incumbency bonus, but he has won at both GEs and BEs for Respect.
I guess it will depend quite a bit on the level of salience of Israel/Gaza at the time of the GE.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
That raises a very important question which has not really been discussed. What is the point of an internal investigations team? What is it there to do? What is its remit?
I don't think the PO gave any real thought to this - not in the way it should have done.
It is something I have given a lot - and I mean a LOT - of thought to over the years. FWIW I do not think an internal investigations team should be investigating criminal offences. If something is a potential criminal offence where the investigating party is also a victim, then the matter should be handed over to the proper authorities. It is not just a question of competence etc. it is also because - as was blindingly obvious here (save to the Post Office, obviously) - there is an obvious conflict of interest.
The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies, breached the rights of the potential defendants, failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process to recover non-existent civil debts. There is no case now for them to have investigation and prosecution powers as if they were the police and CPS combined.
What they do need is a proper internal investigations team once they've cleared out the old team, most of the legal department, the Board and there is anything left standing after compensation has been paid.
I have seen the RSPB misuse their powers too in the past. There have been issues with the RSPCA too.
Another excellent post, but questions which are there for you to shoot down:
"The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies" - because they honestly believed money was stolen by the subpostmasters and/or their staff. Occam's Razor.
"breached the rights of the potential defendants" - who they believed were guilty
"failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process" - do these apply the same with a private prosecution by lawyers concerned with (and paid for) protecting their client?
"recover non-existent civil debts" - hindsight here - they didn't think they were non-existent
Interesting that they attack the messenger and never the message!
Not many failed footballers, failed managers, criminals, convicts, violent thugs that command this amount of publicity.
I’m that Black Sheep. That lone Wolf. The one who doesn’t need your money. That doesn’t need your influence. That doesn’t fear you. That you can’t cancel.
You will have to kill me.
I’m a week into the new year and I’ve got all of you, the Woke, the Race Hustlers, the Gender Hustlers, the Covid hustlers on fucking toast.
Keep watching and dancing to my tune, you fucking imbeciles.
P.s. thanks for all the free publicity. We are @Common_SensePod appreciate the support. 6:17 AM · Jan 8, 2024 · 1.1M Views
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
As much as I despise the man, I think VVP knows he's fucked up. He's now just trying to grind out a win (or even just some territorial concessions), and then hope everyone forgets what a shit he is and lifts sanctions. He dies with Russia an enlarged state, but has to leave it to his successor to finish off Ukraine/pick the next target ten years from now.
He isn't a nutter. He knows he's fucked up. Now how to make the best of a bad situation, along with constant attempts to destablise the West.
Also worth noting that the ITV postal drama was actually POSITIVE about one politician: the Tory MP James Arbuthnot
I actually found that quite refreshing. When “a Tory MP” hoved into view I thought, wearily, here we go, he’ll be another gammony, blazer wearing fox hunter who wants to buy all the post offices and turn them into sweat shops. But no. The scriptwriter avoided that and made him pleasant and sincere and hard working. Which added to the drama - merely by being unexpected
He deserves a little credit
The Mail's review was quite snooty that not enough credit had been given to, er, The Daily Mail. But they did get a mention in e.4. If I was Computer Weekly I'd be more aggrieved, given their consistent championing of this cause. But I'm sure they are delighted that it has been brought to a wider public consciousness.
Yes. Proper journalists on computer weekly it seems: well done them
There are some quiet heroes besides Alan Bates. But an awful lot of villains
I remember saying a year ago, as I was yawning (again, and wrongly) over the tediousness of this scandal, that what it needed was a STORY - a few human examples to make it vivid and emotional. That’s exactly what ITV did: well done them, too
It is pleasing that homemade TV drama can still do this - change an entire national conversation and for a righteous cause
Some other Pb-er noted that the scriptwriter used every single cliche in the book - from the pints at the pub table to the lovable cake making lady to the absurdly pretty house in snowdonia - but who cares. It really worked
Yes, but the story was always there. The original Computer Weekly article - which they held off publishing for a year for fear of the consequences - contained six case studies of individuals who had, at that stage, suffered hugely, including bankruptcy and prison. The interesting question is why a campaign group and a website and a radio series and magazine coverage and a book and a parliamentary hearing all failed to attract the scale of public attention that this clearly deserved. Usually we rely on the Guardian to champion such stuff, but even they don't appear to have twigged.
Sadly, I do suspect that the fact that all three parties have left fingerprints at the crime scene is a much bigger part of the explanation than we would like to admit. We'd like to think that there are lots of politicians motivated to champion injustice for moral, altruistic reasons - whereas the truth is that almost all of them have a filter that asks "what's in it for me?" and "what's in it for my party?".
That Arbuthnot was obscure, apparently unambitious, and on his way out (heading for the Lords, possibly already on that promise) as far as active party politics is concerned, is surely pertinent.
Difficult to remember, as I was always an Eye reader anyway, but a quick check confirms the Graun did feature the PO scandal quite early on, if its search function is right.
Now Laurence Fox joins in. So many people are shrinking violets when faced with opposition who will cancel you, smear you and destroy your livelihood. The woke mob would happily line people who don’t agree with them up against a wall and have them shot.
Far too many on the common sense side are frightened to punch back hard, thinking that if they keep feeding the crocodile it will eat them last.
It’s very refreshing to see someone go for the jugular. You can’t reason with woke. It is the religion of anti reason.
It takes all sorts to fight this war.
May 2024 be the year the tables turn and the war on woke begins to be won
It’s Sunday today. I was going to have a day of rest.
Some people seem to forget, I’ve been in this industry (football) over 20 years.
The players all talk. They’re like women in that regard. They tell each other everything. They brag about their conquests.
I know all those virtue signalling, ‘We’ve worked really hard for years to get to this position’ females are upset. Your knickers are in a twist. Unfortunately, I know where all your skeletons are buried. That’s your fault. You compromised yourself messing with the talent.
I don’t want to have to exhume some bodies. I also, don’t blame you using your sexuality to get an advantage. It’s a big tool and everyone should use all there tools wisely in the game of life.
We all know whose marriages you have violated. What info you got from the pillow talk to get ahead and who is in a desperate situation behind the scenes because of the #Metoo movement and the fear it’s put to certain organisations. Rightfully so, as well. Dirty pervs.
We all know some of you have multiple players on the same team on your body counts. I don’t judge you solely on that. But come on now, don’t expect me to take you seriously. Please.
Don’t take me for a fool. Lawyer up. Sue me. Get me cancelled. Pressure my employer’s, my sponsors.
Do what and as you please.
I’ve got plenty to fight you back with. I’ve deeper pockets than most.
Just remember, people who throw stones, shouldn’t live in glass houses.
I hope you’re whiter than white if you come for me. That includes some of the black community currently libelling themselves on my timeline. Don’t worry, I see you. I have the screenshots. Carry on your nonsense, I’ll delightfully part you from your money.
I don’t want a war. I never have. That also doesn’t mean, I will walk away if you start one. I never taken a backward step in my life.
It’s Sunday today. I was going to have a day of rest.
Some people seem to forget, I’ve been in this industry (football) over 20 years.
The players all talk. They’re like women in that regard. They tell each other everything. They brag about their conquests.
I know all those virtue signalling, ‘We’ve worked really hard for years to get to this position’ females are upset. Your knickers are in a twist. Unfortunately, I know where all your skeletons are buried. That’s your fault. You compromised yourself messing with the talent.
I don’t want to have to exhume some bodies. I also, don’t blame you using your sexuality to get an advantage. It’s a big tool and everyone should use all there tools wisely in the game of life.
We all know whose marriages you have violated. What info you got from the pillow talk to get ahead and who is in a desperate situation behind the scenes because of the #Metoo movement and the fear it’s put to certain organisations. Rightfully so, as well. Dirty pervs.
We all know some of you have multiple players on the same team on your body counts. I don’t judge you solely on that. But come on now, don’t expect me to take you seriously. Please.
Don’t take me for a fool. Lawyer up. Sue me. Get me cancelled. Pressure my employer’s, my sponsors.
Do what and as you please.
I’ve got plenty to fight you back with. I’ve deeper pockets than most.
Just remember, people who throw stones, shouldn’t live in glass houses.
I hope you’re whiter than white if you come for me. That includes some of the black community currently libelling themselves on my timeline. Don’t worry, I see you. I have the screenshots. Carry on your nonsense, I’ll delightfully part you from your money.
I don’t want a war. I never have. That also doesn’t mean, I will walk away if you start one. I never taken a backward step in my life.
They (MSM) are so deluded it’s incredible. They try and fit everything into their narratives. What their masters tell them.
Even in the face of the overwhelming support I have had on social media and in person, they attempt to give voice to the deniers. The minority in this case.
Why can you not accept that people just don’t want your ‘Woke’ agenda pushed on them.
People have had enough of your nonsense.
The more you push back, the worse the ramifications when you’re eventually toppled.
We don’t want your DEI, equality of outcome, affirmative action, BLM, victim card, your gaslighting won’t work.
We have our own brains. We have our own eyes and ears. We are able to think for ourselves.
You can’t brainwash people anymore. The game is up.
Up isn’t down and Down isn’t up. No matter how much you keep trying to tell us.
It’s Sunday today. I was going to have a day of rest.
Some people seem to forget, I’ve been in this industry (football) over 20 years.
The players all talk. They’re like women in that regard. They tell each other everything. They brag about their conquests.
I know all those virtue signalling, ‘We’ve worked really hard for years to get to this position’ females are upset. Your knickers are in a twist. Unfortunately, I know where all your skeletons are buried. That’s your fault. You compromised yourself messing with the talent.
I don’t want to have to exhume some bodies. I also, don’t blame you using your sexuality to get an advantage. It’s a big tool and everyone should use all there tools wisely in the game of life.
We all know whose marriages you have violated. What info you got from the pillow talk to get ahead and who is in a desperate situation behind the scenes because of the #Metoo movement and the fear it’s put to certain organisations. Rightfully so, as well. Dirty pervs.
We all know some of you have multiple players on the same team on your body counts. I don’t judge you solely on that. But come on now, don’t expect me to take you seriously. Please.
Don’t take me for a fool. Lawyer up. Sue me. Get me cancelled. Pressure my employer’s, my sponsors.
Do what and as you please.
I’ve got plenty to fight you back with. I’ve deeper pockets than most.
Just remember, people who throw stones, shouldn’t live in glass houses.
I hope you’re whiter than white if you come for me. That includes some of the black community currently libelling themselves on my timeline. Don’t worry, I see you. I have the screenshots. Carry on your nonsense, I’ll delightfully part you from your money.
I don’t want a war. I never have. That also doesn’t mean, I will walk away if you start one. I never taken a backward step in my life.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
That raises a very important question which has not really been discussed. What is the point of an internal investigations team? What is it there to do? What is its remit?
I don't think the PO gave any real thought to this - not in the way it should have done.
It is something I have given a lot - and I mean a LOT - of thought to over the years. FWIW I do not think an internal investigations team should be investigating criminal offences. If something is a potential criminal offence where the investigating party is also a victim, then the matter should be handed over to the proper authorities. It is not just a question of competence etc. it is also because - as was blindingly obvious here (save to the Post Office, obviously) - there is an obvious conflict of interest.
The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies, breached the rights of the potential defendants, failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process to recover non-existent civil debts. There is no case now for them to have investigation and prosecution powers as if they were the police and CPS combined.
What they do need is a proper internal investigations team once they've cleared out the old team, most of the legal department, the Board and there is anything left standing after compensation has been paid.
I have seen the RSPB misuse their powers too in the past. There have been issues with the RSPCA too.
Another excellent post, but questions which are there for you to shoot down:
"The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies" - because they honestly believed money was stolen by the subpostmasters and/or their staff. Occam's Razor.
"breached the rights of the potential defendants" - who they believed were guilty
"failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process" - do these apply the same with a private prosecution by lawyers concerned with (and paid for) protecting their client?
"recover non-existent civil debts" - hindsight here - they didn't think they were non-existent
1. Thinking you're essentially right means you suspect a discrepancy will probably have an innocent explanation. But that isn't a good enough excuse for not checking.
2. Your comment is very much the sort of thing that led the Police to extract forced confessions at one time.
3. Yes, the Criminal Procedure Rules apply to all lawyers involved in criminal cases, just as the Civil Procedure Rules apply to all in civil cases.
4. I agree to an extent but this is one problem with a company as prosecutor - it has financial skin in the game which can impair judgment on the separate criminal element. The CPS may have various flaws, but it doesn't have a financial interest tied up in outcomes.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Um, no! That would allow the state to ration prosecutions, which will invariably devolve to prevent agents of the state from being prosecuted, with obviously bad results.
I will never get over the fact that British people generally, and PB in particular, thinks that people should only do things if the state allows them to. This didn't used to be the case.
It’s Sunday today. I was going to have a day of rest.
Some people seem to forget, I’ve been in this industry (football) over 20 years.
The players all talk. They’re like women in that regard. They tell each other everything. They brag about their conquests.
I know all those virtue signalling, ‘We’ve worked really hard for years to get to this position’ females are upset. Your knickers are in a twist. Unfortunately, I know where all your skeletons are buried. That’s your fault. You compromised yourself messing with the talent.
I don’t want to have to exhume some bodies. I also, don’t blame you using your sexuality to get an advantage. It’s a big tool and everyone should use all there tools wisely in the game of life.
We all know whose marriages you have violated. What info you got from the pillow talk to get ahead and who is in a desperate situation behind the scenes because of the #Metoo movement and the fear it’s put to certain organisations. Rightfully so, as well. Dirty pervs.
We all know some of you have multiple players on the same team on your body counts. I don’t judge you solely on that. But come on now, don’t expect me to take you seriously. Please.
Don’t take me for a fool. Lawyer up. Sue me. Get me cancelled. Pressure my employer’s, my sponsors.
Do what and as you please.
I’ve got plenty to fight you back with. I’ve deeper pockets than most.
Just remember, people who throw stones, shouldn’t live in glass houses.
I hope you’re whiter than white if you come for me. That includes some of the black community currently libelling themselves on my timeline. Don’t worry, I see you. I have the screenshots. Carry on your nonsense, I’ll delightfully part you from your money.
I don’t want a war. I never have. That also doesn’t mean, I will walk away if you start one. I never taken a backward step in my life.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Um, no! That would allow the state to ration prosecutions, which will invariably devolve to prevent agents of the state from being prosecuted, with obviously bad results.
I will never get over the fact that British people generally, and PB in particular, thinks that people should only do things if the state allows them to. This didn't used to be the case.
Muscular liberalism is out of fashion to be sure, Viewcode.
Slightly on topic, were we too busy discussing less weighty matters on 2nd January to notice the LibDem's heartfelt plea for the darts final to be free-to-air?
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
Yes, comrade, whatever you say.
For the record, I don't think I've said Putin's a 'fucking psychopath'. I have said he's an evil dictator running an imperialistic, fascistic government, but that's a rather different thing.
You guys discuss the boring post office scandal whilst you have quite happily poisoned your own kids with corrupt medics like foxy complicit.
If Russian trolls want to undermine the West, they would be better employed ensuring the re-election of Trump and Johnson rather than banging on about vaccination misinformation.
You guys discuss the boring post office scandal whilst you have quite happily poisoned your own kids with corrupt medics like foxy complicit.
Indeed. If only we stopped using our eyes and ears to look at the things around us, and instead listen to bots like you!
Did you know that voting Labour could give you cancer? Did you know that toxins from the nanobots in the Rishi Moderna vaccine is what is causing the 100 day cough that so many are suffering with?
No? Damn - the Putinbots aren't doing their job properly.
Woke Aliens with AI spaceships threaten our children!
You guys discuss the boring post office scandal whilst you have quite happily poisoned your own kids with corrupt medics like foxy complicit.
If Russian trolls want to undermine the West, they would be better employed ensuring the re-election of Trump and Johnson rather than banging on about vaccination misinformation.
I'm amazed they even bother now. My brother was on the nutjob vaccine-will-kill-you bandwagon. In February 2021 he told me not to take it. I'd be dead by September.....
I reminded him of it about a year ago. He denied ever saying it now.
The goalposts get moved until its pointless. "You'll be dead within 6 month of taking the vaccine....." "I meant a year...." "Two, at most..." "Look, just accept it. Within 100 years of taking the Covid vaccine, you'll be dead, just mark my words."
Must be something to do with today being the equivalent of Boxing Day in Russia.
Gotta ask, given the Julian calendar is slowly drifting from the Gregorian one, 10,000 years from now will Orthodox Christains celebrate Christmas in the middle of March (or whenever it will be then)?
Is it Saturday morning already? I didn't realise Joey Barton, Lozza and Leon had a following in Vladivostok.
There is no way this one is Russian. They are normally Nigerian or Ghanaian but this one looks like a native speaker with a Leaver level of education.
Russia are probably picking up the bill somewhere along the way. When pondering why do "Russian" trolls do X or don't do Y remember that they are a privatised function of a corrupt government. Imagine if the British government, less corrupt than the Russians through lack of expertise rather than inclination, got Capita to organise Russian language trolls on stavkinapolitku.ru and then imagine how shit and disorganised the result would be. That's exactly what we are seeing here.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Um, no! That would allow the state to ration prosecutions, which will invariably devolve to prevent agents of the state from being prosecuted, with obviously bad results.
I will never get over the fact that British people generally, and PB in particular, thinks that people should only do things if the state allows them to. This didn't used to be the case.
The Post Office is a bit different to the classic form of private prosecution you're talking about.
It's something of an oddity that the Post Office routinely deals with prosecutions in this one area, when the CPS is better equipped, and it may very well be that this scandal was contributed to by incompetence, lack of supervision, and commercial pressure on those involved.
In relation to the more "classic" private prosecution, I tend to agree. Although CPS has long been able to take over such prosecutions, often with a view to taking them over and closing the file. They can be useful, initially, but very often cross from prosecution of someone who there is a reasonably good chance of convicting based on the evidence, to persecution of someone about whom there is suspicion but insufficient evidence to make conviction likely.
The private prosecution in the Stephen Lawrence case shows some of the pros and cons of it. You can argue quite cogently that the failed private prosecution was positive in ultimately getting some justice. But it also made it harder to bring to justice some people who probably should have been (Jamie Acourt in particular).
Sky have also announced a three part behind-the-scenes programme that followed many of the players during the tournament, which the Telegraph describes as “Drive To Survive: Wetherspoon’s Edition”.
Must be something to do with today being the equivalent of Boxing Day in Russia.
Gotta ask, given the Julian calendar is slowly drifting from the Gregorian one, 10,000 years from now will Orthodox Christains celebrate Christmas in the middle of March (or whenever it will be then)?
Yes. It drifts 3 days every 400 years, so in 10,000 years’ time it will be about 75 days later than today.
Must be something to do with today being the equivalent of Boxing Day in Russia.
Gotta ask, given the Julian calendar is slowly drifting from the Gregorian one, 10,000 years from now will Orthodox Christains celebrate Christmas in the middle of March (or whenever it will be then)?
Australia already has Christmas in the middle of summer.
Is it Saturday morning already? I didn't realise Joey Barton, Lozza and Leon had a following in Vladivostok.
There is no way this one is Russian. They are normally Nigerian or Ghanaian but this one looks like a native speaker with a Leaver level of education.
Russia are probably picking up the bill somewhere along the way. When pondering why do "Russian" trolls do X or don't do Y remember that they are a privatised function of a corrupt government. Imagine if the British government, less corrupt than the Russians through lack of expertise rather than inclination, got Capita to organise Russian language trolls on stavkinapolitku.ru and then imagine how shit and disorganised the result would be. That's exactly what we are seeing here.
"There is no way this one is Russian. They are normally Nigerian or Ghanaian but this one looks like a native speaker with a Leaver level of education."
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
Because its several orders of magnitude more difficult and risky than the thing he is already making look like very hard work.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
The Leader is Too Decent is an old propaganda trope. Along with If Only The Tsar Knew.
See also (and I find this astonishing) 'If only Hitler knew, he'd put a stop to it"...
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
That raises a very important question which has not really been discussed. What is the point of an internal investigations team? What is it there to do? What is its remit?
I don't think the PO gave any real thought to this - not in the way it should have done.
It is something I have given a lot - and I mean a LOT - of thought to over the years. FWIW I do not think an internal investigations team should be investigating criminal offences. If something is a potential criminal offence where the investigating party is also a victim, then the matter should be handed over to the proper authorities. It is not just a question of competence etc. it is also because - as was blindingly obvious here (save to the Post Office, obviously) - there is an obvious conflict of interest.
The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies, breached the rights of the potential defendants, failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process to recover non-existent civil debts. There is no case now for them to have investigation and prosecution powers as if they were the police and CPS combined.
What they do need is a proper internal investigations team once they've cleared out the old team, most of the legal department, the Board and there is anything left standing after compensation has been paid.
I have seen the RSPB misuse their powers too in the past. There have been issues with the RSPCA too.
Another excellent post, but questions which are there for you to shoot down:
"The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies" - because they honestly believed money was stolen by the subpostmasters and/or their staff. Occam's Razor.
"breached the rights of the potential defendants" - who they believed were guilty
"failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process" - do these apply the same with a private prosecution by lawyers concerned with (and paid for) protecting their client?
"recover non-existent civil debts" - hindsight here - they didn't think they were non-existent
Right let me answer.
1. Until you investigate why and how the discrepancies arise you cannot have any sort of honest belief that any theft has occurred.
2. Defendants have rights regardless of your belief in their guilt.
3. The rules apply to private prosecutors.
4. See 1 above.
The fundamental point here is that there was no investigation here. Assumptions were made. Assumptions are not investigations let alone facts.
The fact that the Post Office lied about subpostmasters being the only ones proves that they knew there was a problem. You lie when you are trying to cover something up. That lie - long before the disclosure lies - shows to me that the PO knew there was or might be a problem but did not want know this for sure so refused to ask and look, instead abusing its power and lying.
Is there any reason to allow anyone other than the CPS to prosecute? The post office, RSPCA etc. could retain investigatory powers, and hand over a file to the CPS, just like the police do. Or of course, we could scrap the investigatory powers too.
I had no idea that such private criminal prosecutions could be bought. It does need to be stopped.
Um, no! That would allow the state to ration prosecutions, which will invariably devolve to prevent agents of the state from being prosecuted, with obviously bad results.
I will never get over the fact that British people generally, and PB in particular, thinks that people should only do things if the state allows them to. This didn't used to be the case.
Totally agree. It’s for people with such responsibility to be more responsible.
The first time I heard of it, my first reaction was, did they really believe so many of their staff were stealing? The sheer scale of it just looks suspicious, does it not.
So the explanation given is that they naturally presumed the computer couldn’t be wrong. No. I don’t believe that. They could simply have double checked some other way here and there if money totals were indeed different pointing to theft, and got to bottom of what was really wrong, rather than show trust to person or machine.
I’m sure what happened is just like in Michael Clayton - there’s only one moment to admit you’ve made the wrong call, to fess up, and once you passed that moment you know the actual truth, but you are trapped inside cover up and head in sand mode, and your culpability spirals out of control from there.
No - these people weren’t so stupid or vindictive that they trusted the computer, they had already passed that only point they felt they had, to be able to fess up. Not prejudice, but pride. For what other reason would governments always take so long to pay out compensation for injustices? Can’t admit mistakes can they? Boris and Rishi Sunak at the other enquiry, covid, proves this.
Is it Saturday morning already? I didn't realise Joey Barton, Lozza and Leon had a following in Vladivostok.
There is no way this one is Russian. They are normally Nigerian or Ghanaian but this one looks like a native speaker with a Leaver level of education.
Russia are probably picking up the bill somewhere along the way. When pondering why do "Russian" trolls do X or don't do Y remember that they are a privatised function of a corrupt government. Imagine if the British government, less corrupt than the Russians through lack of expertise rather than inclination, got Capita to organise Russian language trolls on stavkinapolitku.ru and then imagine how shit and disorganised the result would be. That's exactly what we are seeing here.
It was a very astute observation, that the trolls appear to be mostly of African origin. As you say, the speech patterns between English as spoken in Africa, SE Asia, and the CIS, are all quite different.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
Too many posters on this board on the happy pills like cookie to have good discussions methinks.
I know it's not relevant, and too late now, but I am curious about what he means here? My principal contribution this morning has been a photograph of a massive decapitated Father Christmas. I don't see how this equates to 'on the happy pills'.
Though, as it happens, I am reasonably happy. While all good things (like two weeks of relaxation) come to an end, life is still pretty good compared to 98% of people in the world and 99.9% of people in history.
EDIT: also, you can't 'have a good discussion' if everyone is furious. It just doesn't work. I know I'm arguing with the empty space left after someone has been ushered off the premises, but I was having my lunch while this episode happened and I don't want to miss my chance to chip in, however pointlessly.
Also worth noting that the ITV postal drama was actually POSITIVE about one politician: the Tory MP James Arbuthnot
I actually found that quite refreshing. When “a Tory MP” hoved into view I thought, wearily, here we go, he’ll be another gammony, blazer wearing fox hunter who wants to buy all the post offices and turn them into sweat shops. But no. The scriptwriter avoided that and made him pleasant and sincere and hard working. Which added to the drama - merely by being unexpected
He deserves a little credit
Having known him personally a little, at least in the past, I hope that he's sent ITV a fine case of wine, since he was extraordinarily lucky with his portrayal. Which isn't to detract from the difference he's made with the campaign.
I wonder who among the reasonably broad cast of campaigners can take the credit for getting ITV interested in a drama, on what at first glance must have seemed a challenging topic. Wallis, perhaps?
On the flip side, I feel slightly sorry for Ms Vennels, who is now probably the most hated person in the country, taking over from whoever chopped down the sycamore gap sycamore
She might well be an evil bitch, on the other hand she might be an averagely decent person who made idiotic mistakes and really stupid decisions. We need to know
The ITV drama, however, made it absolutely clear she is an evil bitch, right down to the casting of a sharp nosed woman who looked a bit like a well dressed witch
Arbuthnot expressed the hope in a recent radio interview that he hoped there would not be too much of an obsession with Vennells. There are plenty of others who need to be nailed too.
On-topic, switching for Cooper at this stage risks a repeat of Swinson. While Daisy Cooper is a smart and tough cookie, she has plenty of time to build experience and profile. Much of the coming election will be about reassurance and Davey does well here. No surprise the Tories are going for him over the Post Office issues but the responsibility really lies with Fujitsu and the PO itself and the Lib Dems should say so.
It's an interesting, almost philosophical question, at what level in a hierarchy does responsibility peter out and the 'lied to by underlings' defence kicks in?
Comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/
Anyone contacting you on LinkedIn, and then wanting to use WhatsApp (because its encrypted and messages are easy to delete) will inevitably end up asking you for a 'fee' in due course.
But whoever thought he’d actually invade Ukraine?!
None of the Russians I know expected it. They thought he was bluffing
If he gets some kind of “win” in Ukraine I can see him moving on to a new target. Why stop when you’re on a roll?
I don’t feel sorry for Pauline Vennels, even if she’s now the scapegoat. She willingly took this very well-paid position, and was completely indifferent to the way these people had suffered.
Amidst all of the predictions for this year (and I can't wait for a breakdown of entries from @Benpointer ) somebody asked what the 'Black Swan' of this year would be. I don't believe in there being a single 'Black Swan'; rather, there are events that overtake the normal course of things and I think we've already had one. Other than @Cyclefree , who else could have predicted that a dramatisation of the Horizon/Post Office scandal would be it? It's dominated the agenda in the past week and a bit and has the potential to bring down a party leader. It's a sad state of affairs, however, that it takes a drama to highlight the issue to the public when other outlets (Panorama, Radio 4, Computer World, etc.) have been discussing it for years.
As a side note... don't be surprised if the scandal doesn't become a broader story about Post Office IT provision. In the mid-90s my brother worked for Royal & Sun Alliance. At the time, the Post Office was launching new financial services (home insurance, travel insurance, etc.) and his team were tasked with testing the integration between the brand new Post Office system and the R&SA system. Rather like the Titanic, the developers claimed it was foolproof and unbreakable. The team my brother worked with broke it multiple times - premiums were calculated incorrectly and fees were wrong. The Post Office was adamant that it wasn't breakable and that they were wrong.
https://www.freepressseries.co.uk/news/national/24034066.strip-post-office-prosecution-powers-horizon-scandal---starmer/
The 'up next' was Tim Farron. I'm actually nostalgic for Tim Farron now!
Then Tony Blair came along and decided being held to account twice in a week was infra dig so combined Tuesday and Thursday PMQs into one session on Wednesdays.
The final change (that I can think of atm) was that John Bercow as Speaker introduced stoppage time and called more pesky backbenchers, both of which infuriated the government.
ETA put this book on your Christmas list:-
Punch & Judy Politics An Insiders' Guide to Prime Minister’s Questions
By Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton
https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/punch-and-judy-politics
Much younger, I did once spend a million pounds by mistake, and went into my manager’s office fully expecting the worst. But he was very forgiving and said that, probably, no-one would ever notice. And, remarkably, he was right.
There is a prevalent view among the pb.com Russophobes (Jessopious, Malmesborey, etc.) that VVP is a fucking psychopath who makes madly irrational decisions. That's not true and the perception is a result of trying to analyse his motives through a purely occidental worldview.
Always remember, the principal strands of opposition to VVP inside Russia chide him for being too pragmatic and cautious; an excessively legalistic bureaucrat.
Honestly my new favourite city
This is an excellent 4 star hotel right in the centre with a rooftop bar overlooking the rivers Tonle Sap and Mekong, surrounded by bars and nightlife. With a great gym and infinity pool by the sky bar
£50 a night
If this is a win I'd like to see what losing looks like.
The time for a JC-led insurgent party would be a few years into a Starmer government with the gloss having come off and complacency about the Tory threat creeping in.
I don't think the PO gave any real thought to this - not in the way it should have done.
It is something I have given a lot - and I mean a LOT - of thought to over the years. FWIW I do not think an internal investigations team should be investigating criminal offences. If something is a potential criminal offence where the investigating party is also a victim, then the matter should be handed over to the proper authorities. It is not just a question of competence etc. it is also because - as was blindingly obvious here (save to the Post Office, obviously) - there is an obvious conflict of interest.
The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies, breached the rights of the potential defendants, failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process to recover non-existent civil debts. There is no case now for them to have investigation and prosecution powers as if they were the police and CPS combined.
What they do need is a proper internal investigations team once they've cleared out the old team, most of the legal department, the Board and there is anything left standing after compensation has been paid.
I have seen the RSPB misuse their powers too in the past. There have been issues with the RSPCA too.
can’t believe they put a table there because manlet PM’s feet don’t touch the floor
https://twitter.com/Gaylussite/status/1743924850975019501
The introduction of representative democracy hasn't really changed things all that much. Same old people in power doing the same old thing of running the country. Sometimes to the benefit of the country, but often probably not..............
Edit - messed up blockquotes somehow.
For the best example, look back to his public Security Council meeting just before the invasion, in Feb 2022. Obviously this was stage-managed but even so, every one of his ministers, directors and generals going on the record did so from a position of more caution than him, even though they must have known the decision was taken for all intents and purposes.
That the Kremlin controls the media is hardly a secret. Why then does it allow the 'opposition' to come from hardliners rather than moderates? Two reasons.
Firstly, because the opposite is true. In Russia the majority of opposition actually lies on the doveish side. Putin can therefore be closer to the people than the expressed opposition, while also ensuring that no dangerous actual opposition can build up because there's a limit to the even-more-nutcase vote. (Some, like Medvedev, jumped on the war bandwagon later on; that's internal Kremlin politics, spotting gaps in the court debates)
And secondly, because it's handy in creating an external impression to foreigners that Putin is the voice of reason inside the Kremlin, rather than someone who has instigated multiple wars, staged terrorist atrocities within Russia and used chemical weapons on foreign soil, putting thousands at risk.
They (MSM) are so deluded it’s incredible. They try and fit everything into their narratives. What their masters tell them.
Even in the face of the overwhelming support I have had on social media and in person, they attempt to give voice to the deniers. The minority in this case.
Why can you not accept that people just don’t want your ‘Woke’ agenda pushed on them.
People have had enough of your nonsense.
The more you push back, the worse the ramifications when you’re eventually toppled.
We don’t want your DEI, equality of outcome, affirmative action, BLM, victim card, your gaslighting won’t work.
We have our own brains. We have our own eyes and ears. We are able to think for ourselves.
You can’t brainwash people anymore. The game is up.
Up isn’t down and Down isn’t up. No matter how much you keep trying to tell us.
I was a moderate before. I’m not anymore.
See you on the battlefield.
https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1744247417606959192?s=20
I guess it will depend quite a bit on the level of salience of Israel/Gaza at the time of the GE.
"The Post Office failed to investigate the discrepancies" - because they honestly believed money was stolen by the subpostmasters and/or their staff. Occam's Razor.
"breached the rights of the potential defendants" - who they believed were guilty
"failed to comply with the criminal disclosure rules and abused the criminal process" - do these apply the same with a private prosecution by lawyers concerned with (and paid for) protecting their client?
"recover non-existent civil debts" - hindsight here - they didn't think they were non-existent
Interesting that they attack the messenger and never the message!
Not many failed footballers, failed managers, criminals, convicts, violent thugs that command this amount of publicity.
I’m that Black Sheep. That lone Wolf. The one who doesn’t need your money. That doesn’t need your influence. That doesn’t fear you. That you can’t cancel.
You will have to kill me.
I’m a week into the new year and I’ve got all of you, the Woke, the Race Hustlers, the Gender Hustlers, the Covid hustlers on fucking toast.
Keep watching and dancing to my tune, you fucking imbeciles.
P.s. thanks for all the free publicity. We are
@Common_SensePod
appreciate the support.
6:17 AM · Jan 8, 2024
·
1.1M
Views
https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1744241781376729586?s=20
He's now just trying to grind out a win (or even just some territorial concessions), and then hope everyone forgets what a shit he is and lifts sanctions. He dies with Russia an enlarged state, but has to leave it to his successor to finish off Ukraine/pick the next target ten years from now.
He isn't a nutter. He knows he's fucked up. Now how to make the best of a bad situation, along with constant attempts to destablise the West.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/post-office-horizon-scandal?page=4
Edit: but that, of course, confirms your point about the anomaly.
So many people are shrinking violets when faced with opposition who will cancel you, smear you and destroy your livelihood. The woke mob would happily line people who don’t agree with them up against a wall and have them shot.
Far too many on the common sense side are frightened to punch back hard, thinking that if they keep feeding the crocodile it will eat them last.
It’s very refreshing to see someone go for the jugular. You can’t reason with woke. It is the religion of anti reason.
It takes all sorts to fight this war.
May 2024 be the year the tables turn and the war on woke begins to be won
https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1743945495792271613?s=20
Do you support Joey Barton
It’s Sunday today. I was going to have a day of rest.
Some people seem to forget, I’ve been in this industry (football) over 20 years.
The players all talk. They’re like women in that regard. They tell each other everything. They brag about their conquests.
I know all those virtue signalling, ‘We’ve worked really hard for years to get to this position’ females are upset. Your knickers are in a twist. Unfortunately, I know where all your skeletons are buried. That’s your fault. You compromised yourself messing with the talent.
I don’t want to have to exhume some bodies. I also, don’t blame you using your sexuality to get an advantage. It’s a big tool and everyone should use all there tools wisely in the game of life.
We all know whose marriages you have violated. What info you got from the pillow talk to get ahead and who is in a desperate situation behind the scenes because of the #Metoo movement and the fear it’s put to certain organisations. Rightfully so, as well. Dirty pervs.
We all know some of you have multiple players on the same team on your body counts. I don’t judge you solely on that. But come on now, don’t expect me to take you seriously. Please.
Don’t take me for a fool. Lawyer up. Sue me. Get me cancelled. Pressure my employer’s, my sponsors.
Do what and as you please.
I’ve got plenty to fight you back with. I’ve deeper pockets than most.
Just remember, people who throw stones, shouldn’t live in glass houses.
I hope you’re whiter than white if you come for me. That includes some of the black community currently libelling themselves on my timeline. Don’t worry, I see you. I have the screenshots. Carry on your nonsense, I’ll delightfully part you from your money.
I don’t want a war. I never have. That also doesn’t mean, I will walk away if you start one. I never taken a backward step in my life.
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
May your God’s shine favourably on you.
#Namaste
Last edited
5:55 AM · Jan 7, 2024
·https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743873969030312404?s=20
- Yes, absolutely, this is a great tragedy of history, it's of that proportion.
@TuckerCarlson
speaks with
@BretWeinstein
@SeanPlunket
@theplatform_nz
@stkirsch
@DrAseemMalhotra
@DowdEdward
https://x.com/c_plushie/status/1743483540233425324?s=20
Heard of ANOTHER two men in their early 40’s who are facing life changing heart surgery just this very day.
The clot shots are poison. Especially for young men.
Crime against humanity.
https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1743712707201704063?s=20
It's fascinating how "engage Leon" always seems to be on the crib sheet.
2. Your comment is very much the sort of thing that led the Police to extract forced confessions at one time.
3. Yes, the Criminal Procedure Rules apply to all lawyers involved in criminal cases, just as the Civil Procedure Rules apply to all in civil cases.
4. I agree to an extent but this is one problem with a company as prosecutor - it has financial skin in the game which can impair judgment on the separate criminal element. The CPS may have various flaws, but it doesn't have a financial interest tied up in outcomes.
I will never get over the fact that British people generally, and PB in particular, thinks that people should only do things if the state allows them to. This didn't used to be the case.
Dr John Campbell describes it as an unfolding tragedy:
‘The pattern now is one of persistent excess deaths which are most prominent in relative terms in middle aged and younger adults.’
The silent pandemic that they refuse to investigate.
https://x.com/SaiKate108/status/1743066084763484484?s=20
For the record, I don't think I've said Putin's a 'fucking psychopath'. I have said he's an evil dictator running an imperialistic, fascistic government, but that's a rather different thing.
Do you disagree?
Did you know that voting Labour could give you cancer? Did you know that toxins from the nanobots in the Rishi Moderna vaccine is what is causing the 100 day cough that so many are suffering with?
No? Damn - the Putinbots aren't doing their job properly.
Woke Aliens with AI spaceships threaten our children!
My brother was on the nutjob vaccine-will-kill-you bandwagon.
In February 2021 he told me not to take it. I'd be dead by September.....
I reminded him of it about a year ago. He denied ever saying it now.
The goalposts get moved until its pointless.
"You'll be dead within 6 month of taking the vaccine....."
"I meant a year...."
"Two, at most..."
"Look, just accept it. Within 100 years of taking the Covid vaccine, you'll be dead, just mark my words."
DOMESTIC (44.1%): $636,228,022
INTERNATIONAL (55.9%): $805,600,000
TOTAL WORLDWIDE: $1,441,828,022
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl1077904129/
(PS in US cinema parlance I think "Domestic" means US and Canada?)
Russia are probably picking up the bill somewhere along the way. When pondering why do "Russian" trolls do X or don't do Y remember that they are a privatised function of a corrupt government. Imagine if the British government, less corrupt than the Russians through lack of expertise rather than inclination, got Capita to organise Russian language trolls on stavkinapolitku.ru and then imagine how shit and disorganised the result would be. That's exactly what we are seeing here.
It's something of an oddity that the Post Office routinely deals with prosecutions in this one area, when the CPS is better equipped, and it may very well be that this scandal was contributed to by incompetence, lack of supervision, and commercial pressure on those involved.
In relation to the more "classic" private prosecution, I tend to agree. Although CPS has long been able to take over such prosecutions, often with a view to taking them over and closing the file. They can be useful, initially, but very often cross from prosecution of someone who there is a reasonably good chance of convicting based on the evidence, to persecution of someone about whom there is suspicion but insufficient evidence to make conviction likely.
The private prosecution in the Stephen Lawrence case shows some of the pros and cons of it. You can argue quite cogently that the failed private prosecution was positive in ultimately getting some justice. But it also made it harder to bring to justice some people who probably should have been (Jamie Acourt in particular).
https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/uk-top-40-singles-chart/19811004/750140/
(I hope to goodness you get that reference otherwise it's not funny...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/darts/2024/01/08/darts-documentary-world-championship-luke-littler-hearn/
Sky have also announced a three part behind-the-scenes programme that followed many of the players during the tournament, which the Telegraph describes as “Drive To Survive: Wetherspoon’s Edition”.
Don't they realise that has zero traction in the UK?
Isn't that Leon's modus operandi?
https://twitter.com/kelvmackenzie/status/1744260184728289752?t=ENERdKXGZt2dtQRD7MI-OA&s=19
1. Until you investigate why and how the discrepancies arise you cannot have any sort of honest belief that any theft has occurred.
2. Defendants have rights regardless of your belief in their guilt.
3. The rules apply to private prosecutors.
4. See 1 above.
The fundamental point here is that there was no investigation here. Assumptions were made. Assumptions are not investigations let alone facts.
The fact that the Post Office lied about subpostmasters being the only ones proves that they knew there was a problem. You lie when you are trying to cover something up. That lie - long before the disclosure lies - shows to me that the PO knew there was or might be a problem but did not want know this for sure so refused to ask and look, instead abusing its power and lying.
It’s for people with such responsibility to be more responsible.
The first time I heard of it, my first reaction was, did they really believe so many of their staff were stealing? The sheer scale of it just looks suspicious, does it not.
So the explanation given is that they naturally presumed the computer couldn’t be wrong. No. I don’t believe that. They could simply have double checked some other way here and there if money totals were indeed different pointing to theft, and got to bottom of what was really wrong, rather than show trust to person or machine.
I’m sure what happened is just like in Michael Clayton - there’s only one moment to admit you’ve made the wrong call, to fess up, and once you passed that moment you know the actual truth, but you are trapped inside cover up and head in sand mode, and your culpability spirals out of control from there.
No - these people weren’t so stupid or vindictive that they trusted the computer, they had already passed that only point they felt they had, to be able to fess up. Not prejudice, but pride. For what other reason would governments always take so long to pay out compensation for injustices? Can’t admit mistakes can they? Boris and Rishi Sunak at the other enquiry, covid, proves this.
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/solicitor-for-victims-says-lawyers-should-be-targeted-in-post-office-fallout/5118334.article?utm_source=gazette_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PO+lawyers+'should+be+targeted'+|+Axiom+Ince:+compensation+cap+call+|+Rozenberg_01/08/2024
Though, as it happens, I am reasonably happy. While all good things (like two weeks of relaxation) come to an end, life is still pretty good compared to 98% of people in the world and 99.9% of people in history.
EDIT: also, you can't 'have a good discussion' if everyone is furious. It just doesn't work. I know I'm arguing with the empty space left after someone has been ushered off the premises, but I was having my lunch while this episode happened and I don't want to miss my chance to chip in, however pointlessly.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1744297950182793638?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
It would close off one more diversionary strategy deployed by incompetent politicians to avoid taking action on substantive issues.