Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
Unless the Conservatives merge with Reform, no
Isn't that possibly Farage's game at this stage, though? Cripple the Tories so much that effectively a reverse takeover becomes viable?
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.
I thought the picture was good cookie. It did scream “January” at us.
I’m off to spend more time with my sheep. They are more normal and less weird than PBers. 🐑
Make sure they are nice and warm. It’s snowing steadily now, even down here by the sea.
And I need to be checking sure they are getting their proteins and minerals and especially big fat wet ones not fallen over and can’t get up.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
What an idiotic thing to say!
It seems to be absolutely standard here to dismiss opinions one disagrees with as "idiotic" or "nonsensical".
I suppose actually explaining why you hold a different opinion might be a bit too taxing.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
Didn't we have a header in the last 3 days that demonstrated that attempts to characterise the political spectrum into just three categories are bunk?
That was different.
As it happens, one of the methodologies I rather like. The political compass.
Probably because when I do the simple questionnaire I come out exactly where I would expect to on the grid.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
No.
Not EVER.
He's been fun-washed. The Red Wall love him.
So says people who've never been to or lived in the Red Wall.
To borrow from a parallel sub-thread - a few of the Red Wall.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
There isn't a cigarette paper between Sunak and Farage on (proposed) economic policy, on social policy and now immigration policy. I can't really think of a single reason why Farage doesn't rate him. Oh wait, yes I can.
Australian Labor PM scraps proposed referendum on becoming a republic, after conceding his government cannot afford to lose another referendum on constitutional reform.
It will be good news for the King and Queen ahead of their visit to Australia later this year
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
Hm - this smacks a little of 'when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean'.
Nigel Farage doesn't appear to be a Tory' using the common understanding of the work 'Tory' as 'member of the Conservative Party', or in its narrower sense of 'supporter of the monarchy and (probably) the interests of the landowning classes and (probably) the Anglican church', and certainly not its original sense of 'member of a specific brand of Irish brigands' (I think?). You might be using Tory in a colloquial sense of 'broadly conservative', but it's hard to see how someone whose political raison detre was the biggest constutional upheaval of my lifetime can really be described as 'Conservative'. You might argue that his dress sense is 'Tory', but I wouldn't say this is the most important thing about him.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
As Alan Bates said, he wrote to his MP in 2003 or 2004, as a result of which the Minister did refer it to the Post Office who found nothing wrong.
Rather than try to push the scandal back in time so you can blame Labour, why not accept that it properly started in 2009 when, as it happens, the SoS was Peter Mandelson who is still around now advising Keir Starmer?
While some on here seem to want to agonise over the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats, how about this damning indictment of the last nearly 14 years of Conservative Government from that well-known leftwinger Danny Kruger:
He added: “Some things have been done right and well. The free school movement that Michael Gove oversaw, and universal credit – and Brexit, even though it was in the teeth of the Tory party hierarchy itself, and mismanaged – nevertheless Brexit will be the great standing achievement of our time in office.
“These things are significant, but, overall I’m afraid, if we leave office next year, we would have left the country sadder, less united and less conservative than when we found it.”'
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
There’s already a £600,000 ‘no quibble’ offer on the table for some of them. But, understandably, that is as final settlement. The problem is that there are three separate compensation schemes, with people in different circumstances, and the list of people potentially eligible is expanding quickly, now.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
Just gaze into your crystal ball. Is that Tory PM Farage?
Unless the Conservatives merge with Reform, no
Isn't that possibly Farage's game at this stage, though? Cripple the Tories so much that effectively a reverse takeover becomes viable?
Unless Reform overtakes the Tories on votes and seats, as the Canadian Reform overtook the Canadian Tories in 1993 leading to their eventual merger to form today's Conservative Party of Canada, it is not happening
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
We paid £350m/week* to the EU. Why not give it to the subpostmasters instead?
Puts it in context. And much of it could presumably be recovered by giving Fujitsu a good spanking (complete ban on future public sector contracts until they cough up, even before you get into legal cases against them). Probably an oversimplification, but too much delay and even more of those affected will be dead before there's any compensation.
While some on here seem to want to agonise over the future leadership of the Liberal Democrats, how about this damning indictment of the last nearly 14 years of Conservative Government from that well-known leftwinger Danny Kruger:
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
Hm - this smacks a little of 'when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean'.
Nigel Farage doesn't appear to be a Tory' using the common understanding of the work 'Tory' as 'member of the Conservative Party', or in its narrower sense of 'supporter of the monarchy and (probably) the interests of the landowning classes and (probably) the Anglican church', and certainly not its original sense of 'member of a specific brand of Irish brigands' (I think?). You might be using Tory in a colloquial sense of 'broadly conservative', but it's hard to see how someone whose political raison detre was the biggest constutional upheaval of my lifetime can really be described as 'Conservative'. You might argue that his dress sense is 'Tory', but I wouldn't say this is the most important thing about him.
Look, obviously when I say Farage is a Tory, I obviously don't mean he is a member of the Conservative Party (or, a fortiori, any "narrower" definition).
If you think he can't be a Tory because he supported Brexit, well, I can only wonder whether you have been over the last eight years.
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.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
This is precisely the kind of Lib Dem nonsense I was meaning earlier.
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
Aren't you asking what is the point of a smaller party? A centrist party might be one of the larger parties. It is in Ireland and France, for example.
No. A centrist party (other than in systems where it can expect to win outright, which does include France), will have to do deals to enter government or to get policies enacted. That's the case whether it's large, and needs to do deals with smaller parties, when putting coalitions together, or when small and choosing between larger parties.
Reform could only realistically do a deal with the Tories; the Greens (in England) could only do one with Labour. Both are small but under PR would have a meaningful number of MPs. The Lib Dems, by contrast, as a centrist party which advocates PR and the sort of consensus pragmatist politics they believe (rightly or wrongly) it would bring, have to be willing to deal with both larger parties - in principle anyway: there'll be times, as now, when one or other is beyond the pale.
When 'Lib Dems' talk about "flush[ing] away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government", what they're really doing is wanting to avoid government altogether. It's politics as sport: beating the Tories but not picking up any responsibility afterwards.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
"us on PB" is doing a lot of work there.
OK, a few of us
Seriously, what's driving you? I thought you were left-leaning, have I got that wrong?
If I am right, have you changed? joined BJO's Tooting Popular Front faction? or are you playing a huge piss-take game?
Genuinely interested.
A plague on all their houses.
Ah, the Pagan2 school of thinking.
Remarkable that a site ostensibly devoted to politics and political betting has quite a few political nihilists among its regular posters.
I have a Tory majority at 12/1 if that helps.
I was Labour Party activist until just after I mistakenly voted for Ed in the Party Leadership Election. After Corbyn and Brexit I lost interest in the lot of them.
P.B. nonetheless makes a compelling case against Starmer.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
Hm - this smacks a little of 'when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean'.
Nigel Farage doesn't appear to be a Tory' using the common understanding of the work 'Tory' as 'member of the Conservative Party', or in its narrower sense of 'supporter of the monarchy and (probably) the interests of the landowning classes and (probably) the Anglican church', and certainly not its original sense of 'member of a specific brand of Irish brigands' (I think?). You might be using Tory in a colloquial sense of 'broadly conservative', but it's hard to see how someone whose political raison detre was the biggest constutional upheaval of my lifetime can really be described as 'Conservative'. You might argue that his dress sense is 'Tory', but I wouldn't say this is the most important thing about him.
Look, obviously when I say Farage is a Tory, I obviously don't mean he is a member of the Conservative Party (or, a fortiori, any "narrower" definition).
If you think he can't be a Tory because he supported Brexit, well, I can only wonder whether you have been over the last eight years.
But I'm wondering in what sense he is a Tory then? Because he doesn't seem to fit into any of the definitions of Tory that I've suggested. Apart from, as I said, his dress sense.
After a few hours of steadily falling graupel, it’s gone sunny again here. But I suspect there may be a decent amount of snow heading for southern England overnight.
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
Right now people are arguing for that, I will bet.
And being told that “it would undermine responsible government”, “cast aspersions on the top management of the post office”, “obstruct the police investigation”
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.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
This is precisely the kind of Lib Dem nonsense I was meaning earlier.
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
Aren't you asking what is the point of a smaller party? A centrist party might be one of the larger parties. It is in Ireland and France, for example.
No. A centrist party (other than in systems where it can expect to win outright, which does include France), will have to do deals to enter government or to get policies enacted. That's the case whether it's large, and needs to do deals with smaller parties, when putting coalitions together, or when small and choosing between larger parties.
Reform could only realistically do a deal with the Tories; the Greens (in England) could only do one with Labour. Both are small but under PR would have a meaningful number of MPs. The Lib Dems, by contrast, as a centrist party which advocates PR and the sort of consensus pragmatist politics they believe (rightly or wrongly) it would bring, have to be willing to deal with both larger parties - in principle anyway: there'll be times, as now, when one or other is beyond the pale.
When 'Lib Dems' talk about "flush[ing] away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government", what they're really doing is wanting to avoid government altogether. It's politics as sport: beating the Tories but not picking up any responsibility afterwards.
You were always far too insightful to stick with the Tories. Especially the poundshop version currently on offer.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
Hm - this smacks a little of 'when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean'.
Nigel Farage doesn't appear to be a Tory' using the common understanding of the work 'Tory' as 'member of the Conservative Party', or in its narrower sense of 'supporter of the monarchy and (probably) the interests of the landowning classes and (probably) the Anglican church', and certainly not its original sense of 'member of a specific brand of Irish brigands' (I think?). You might be using Tory in a colloquial sense of 'broadly conservative', but it's hard to see how someone whose political raison detre was the biggest constutional upheaval of my lifetime can really be described as 'Conservative'. You might argue that his dress sense is 'Tory', but I wouldn't say this is the most important thing about him.
Look, obviously when I say Farage is a Tory, I obviously don't mean he is a member of the Conservative Party (or, a fortiori, any "narrower" definition).
If you think he can't be a Tory because he supported Brexit, well, I can only wonder whether you have been over the last eight years.
But I'm wondering in what sense he is a Tory then? Because he doesn't seem to fit into any of the definitions of Tory that I've suggested. Apart from, as I said, his dress sense.
He was an active member of the Conservative party for 14 years.
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
There’s already a £600,000 ‘no quibble’ offer on the table for some of them. But, understandably, that is as final settlement. The problem is that there are three separate compensation schemes, with people in different circumstances, and the list of people potentially eligible is expanding quickly, now.
Fine. But no reason not to pay £500k on account right now to everybody who hasn't taken the £600k.
And if anyone has signed "final settlement", that is revoked.
I'm sorry this has gone beyond complications and excuses. Every single person who has been convicted should have £500k minimum in their bank account.
And payments should be made tomorrow.
No ifs, no buts. If ID is required, take ID, bank statement, proof of conviction to Department of Trade at 9am tomorrow morning.
Probably just repeating what has been said on here ad-infinitum, but the ITV post office drama has really stole the next political cycle. And I can see why.
I have followed the scandal in Private Eye for years (as well as the articles and comments on here), and I watched the panorama episode years ago. I have even watched - or had half an eye on - some of the inquiry sessions. But, my partner isn’t interested in that sort of stuff. And you can see why it is a scandal built on reconciliation errors.
I series linked the ITV series with a view to watching it at some point - I am well down the pecking order on TV rights in my household. There was nothing on Saturday night that we fancied watching so the partner suggested watching Mr Bates v PO - her view was that Toby Jones isn’t in too many bad things. Well we watched it and my partner couldn’t stop watching it. She binged through all four episodes (we saved the documentary for Sunday night). In turns we were both angry, upset, incredulous. So Bravo ITV and all involved.
I appreciate they laid it on thick. But, why not? It just goes to show the power of great storytelling (obviously it helps if you have a good story to begin with - but as we know this a dense and complicated issue, boiling it down to something so immediate and impactful is an excellent achievement).
It is superb telly, some of the best I have seen in the last year. Only the Rolling Stones documentaries comes close.
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.
As someone who used to be a committed Lib Dem but who found Clegg and his "Tory-Lite" ideas utterly repellent, I should be encouraged to vote Lib Dem tactically if the party could bring itself to flush away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government.
This is precisely the kind of Lib Dem nonsense I was meaning earlier.
What is the point of a centrist party if it is not willing to do deals - on the right terms - with both larger parties?
Aren't you asking what is the point of a smaller party? A centrist party might be one of the larger parties. It is in Ireland and France, for example.
No. A centrist party (other than in systems where it can expect to win outright, which does include France), will have to do deals to enter government or to get policies enacted. That's the case whether it's large, and needs to do deals with smaller parties, when putting coalitions together, or when small and choosing between larger parties.
Reform could only realistically do a deal with the Tories; the Greens (in England) could only do one with Labour. Both are small but under PR would have a meaningful number of MPs. The Lib Dems, by contrast, as a centrist party which advocates PR and the sort of consensus pragmatist politics they believe (rightly or wrongly) it would bring, have to be willing to deal with both larger parties - in principle anyway: there'll be times, as now, when one or other is beyond the pale.
When 'Lib Dems' talk about "flush[ing] away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government", what they're really doing is wanting to avoid government altogether. It's politics as sport: beating the Tories but not picking up any responsibility afterwards.
Sheer drivel.
If you read the post you were replying to, it might have been a clue to you that I haven't been a Lib Dem for about 15 years.
But are you really incapable of understanding that the role of the Lib Dems in the Coalition government could be subject to criticism, without thoughtlessly condemning the critics in the ridiculous terms you are now using? I really thought you were brighter than that.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
I did read it 'carefully', thanks. And that doesn't change my point, does it?
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
Right now people are arguing for that, I will bet.
And being told that “it would undermine responsible government”, “cast aspersions on the top management of the post office”, “obstruct the police investigation”
Remember - only NU10K deserve 6 figure pay days.
If it's on account it has no implications for anything else.
The really crazy thing is this would get more votes than anything else Sunak does this year - because it's easy to understand and something the public are interested in.
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
Yes, I feel some sympathy too. This is part of the witch hunt I warned against yesterday.
Last night I watched the whole of the ITV programme.
1) The show explicitly states that some scenes are imagined; Vennels may have been treated very unfairly and I wonder whether she is considering legal action for defamation 2) I have more disdain for the scumbag lawyers who were behind the POs actions and have retained anonymity 3) How can it be right that a £58m court win be reduced to £12m due to lawyers and other costs 4) Correct me if I'm wrong but a key hero, the journalist Nick Wallis, was not mentioned in the show.
The show was good - but it was a show and it is unfortunate to say the least, and possibly unfair to some and lenient on others, that the public will take their knowledge of this scandal from this show ahead of Wallis's far superior and thorough podcast series.
Re question 3 - the reason the lawyers fees were so enormous was because the Post Office aggressively fought every single point, no matter how minor or stupid, repeatedly in a determined effort to wear down the SPMs and outspend them. The Post Office was severely criticised in court for its tactics and strategy.
It ignored the judge. Indeed, after it received the judgment in March 2019 its reaction was to try and get rid of the judge, an application which was dismissed scathingly by the Court of Appeal as wholly misconceived. The CEO at this time was no longer Ms Vennells but Nick Read, the current CEO, under whose stewardship the Post Office has repeatedly obstructed the Williams Inquiry, especially over disclosure.
The playbook, in other words, is the same.
Bear in mind that litigation like that will have been expensive and the money being spent will surely have been approved by Ministers. You can see who they are by looking at my headers on this. Greg Clark and Andrea Leadsom. Oh and Tim Cook, the Post Office's part-time Chair.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
I did read it 'carefully', thanks. And that doesn't change my point, does it?
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
They are not blameless.
Yes, it does change your point. You said Bates's MP was palmed off by Timms. The whole letter makes it clear that Timms is investigating even though he could have taken the get-out clause.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
Yes. My (1990) copy of the OED defines populist (and, relatedly, populism), as "a member or adherent of a political party seeking support mainly from the ordinary people", which I'd say is a very inadequate definition.
So what do populists look like? I'd suggest: - application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; - a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to complex problems; - a refusal to accept expert analysis pointing out problems with the proposals; - an inclination to conspiracy theory.
These all interlink in a sense where 'the people' are being cheated or taken advantage of by an elite or outsiders (or both), who use nefarious means to sustain their power despite their lack of numbers.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
I did read it 'carefully', thanks. And that doesn't change my point, does it?
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
They are not blameless.
For sure.
But the Tories’ and Murdoch press’s attempt to pin the blame onto a sequence of short-tenure LibDem junior ministers post-2010, when both Labour ministers prior and Tory ministers since have done equally nothing to address this scandal and its fallout, and the majority Tory governments since 2015 have simply hoped it would all go away, is shameful.
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
There’s already a £600,000 ‘no quibble’ offer on the table for some of them. But, understandably, that is as final settlement. The problem is that there are three separate compensation schemes, with people in different circumstances, and the list of people potentially eligible is expanding quickly, now.
Yes because you also need to compensate everyone who was forced to “correct the till” using their own money even if they weren’t prosecuted (because they paid up the difference themselves).
Equally this won’t win Rishi votes - my viewpoint is that it’s an IT screwup and my company spends £400 a year getting professional indemnity insurance to protect myself if I make mistakes - so Fujitsu or their insurance provider should be paying this
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
It's all very well to have that attitude if the PO were just a private organisation, but it was acting as an arm of the state by prosecuting people unilaterally.
Something went badly wrong at a philosophical level with the 'third way' approach to public services.
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
There’s already a £600,000 ‘no quibble’ offer on the table for some of them. But, understandably, that is as final settlement. The problem is that there are three separate compensation schemes, with people in different circumstances, and the list of people potentially eligible is expanding quickly, now.
Yes because you also need to compensate everyone who was forced to “correct the till” using their own money
And what about the people who avoided prosecution by
The challenge from a legal point of view is that there is a spectrum of people from those who pleaded innocent but were convicted and had their lives ruined, some went to prison and some didn’t, through those who pleaded guilty (for perfectly understandable reasons) and ditto, through those who weren’t convicted but still went through hell, through those who put their own money in to cover off the computer-generated shortfalls. And probably a few who are now claiming they did the same but didn’t.
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
Indeed. Post Office employees had already been prosecuted for about 12 years when Paula Vennells took over.
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
Yes, I feel some sympathy too. This is part of the witch hunt I warned against yesterday.
Last night I watched the whole of the ITV programme.
1) The show explicitly states that some scenes are imagined; Vennels may have been treated very unfairly and I wonder whether she is considering legal action for defamation 2) I have more disdain for the scumbag lawyers who were behind the POs actions and have retained anonymity 3) How can it be right that a £58m court win be reduced to £12m due to lawyers and other costs 4) Correct me if I'm wrong but a key hero, the journalist Nick Wallis, was not mentioned in the show.
The show was good - but it was a show and it is unfortunate to say the least, and possibly unfair to some and lenient on others, that the public will take their knowledge of this scandal from this show ahead of Wallis's far superior and thorough podcast series.
Re question 3 - the reason the lawyers fees were so enormous was because the Post Office aggressively fought every single point, no matter how minor or stupid, repeatedly in a determined effort to wear down the SPMs and outspend them. The Post Office was severely criticised in court for its tactics and strategy.
It ignored the judge. Indeed, after it received the judgment in March 2019 its reaction was to try and get rid of the judge, an application which was dismissed scathingly by the Court of Appeal as wholly misconceived. The CEO at this time was no longer Ms Vennells but Nick Read, the current CEO, under whose stewardship the Post Office has repeatedly obstructed the Williams Inquiry, especially over disclosure.
The playbook, in other words, is the same.
Bear in mind that litigation like that will have been expensive and the money being spent will surely have been approved by Ministers. You can see who they are by looking at my headers on this. Greg Clark and Andrea Leadsom. Oh and Tim Cook, the Post Office's part-time Chair.
As you yourself have identified - the idea that this whole scandal could be made to go away by playing dirty and maximising the legal costs until the other side ran out of money - will have originated from the legal profession. That Vennells went along with it is shameful, but it will have been qualified lawyers who devised, advocated and implemented that strategy.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
I think the definition you refer to is pretty helpful. I'd say that there are other features including simple answers to complex problems.
The establishment is an interesting concept. Possibly - but someone can correct me here if I'm wrong - less seriously and impartially analysed as a phenomenon than almost anything else in politics. Every discussion or analysis of "the establishment" I can think of comes at it from the perspective that the establishment is a. a bad thing and something we need to rail against, and b. it's "them" where we are "us".
There's a fascinating potential book in this for someone who is prepared to write it: "The Establishment: what is it, how does it operate, is it a force for good or bad, and does it actually exist?" Beginning with answering the question as to whether we can put our hands around a tangible thing called the establishment in the first place. It's a slippery organism. Is there one establishment, or are there multiple establishments? Is it a meaningful term or does it simply mean any people or organisations in a position of incumbency?
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers 2) Make payments
Right now people are arguing for that, I will bet.
And being told that “it would undermine responsible government”, “cast aspersions on the top management of the post office”, “obstruct the police investigation”
Remember - only NU10K deserve 6 figure pay days.
If it's on account it has no implications for anything else.
The really crazy thing is this would get more votes than anything else Sunak does this year - because it's easy to understand and something the public are interested in.
The excuses are bullshit - it is now about stopping/delaying things getting to the point of real punishment for the guilty.
My understanding is that the PO is desperately holding out - to tie compensation to an undertaking to give up all further legal action and even a gagging clause.
Once big payments are made to the SPMs, without gagging clauses and terms ending legal process, then there is nothing between the managerial types and their deserved doom.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
It's all very well to have that attitude if the PO were just a private organisation, but it was acting as an arm of the state by prosecuting people unilaterally.
Something went badly wrong at a philosophical level with the 'third way' approach to public services.
Yes.
There are multiple factors that contributed to this tragedy, of different sorts. There are these background factors. The set up of the relationship between government and the PO was done badly, a failure of Third Way politics. The decision that computer evidence should be considered sacrosanct was another part of the context. These perhaps matter most in the long term, but aren't the failings of individuals.
There are numerous failures internally (within Fujitsu, within the PO, among lawyers) to acknowledge the problem, which segued way into actively concealing failures. These seem the worst to me at the personal level.
There are failures of oversight from higher-ups (highers-up?) to react sufficiently to reports of problems. Culpability here increases with the passage of time and more and more coming out. So I'd heap more far more blame on, say, Kemi Badenoch than Ed Davey.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
I did read it 'carefully', thanks. And that doesn't change my point, does it?
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
They are not blameless.
Yes, it does change your point. You said Bates's MP was palmed off by Timms. The whole letter makes it clear that Timms is investigating even though he could have taken the get-out clause.
???? The letter *says* he is investigating. Obviously, he must have investigated it really well and deeply, because the scandal stopped back in 2003. Oh, it didn't? Perhaps the 'investigation' was just a boozy lunch with a mate from the PO - if that.
R4 WATO going in hard on Davey, Swindon and Cable. Cable on now
So ultimately Clegg is to blame for this one?
Clegg has enough to worry about in the day job at the moment. He’ll have to earn his seven figures this year, with 4bn people voting in elections and his company being by far the biggest source of political untruth.
I’m don’t think he has to deliver all that political truth personally though…
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
Yes. My (1990) copy of the OED defines populist (and, relatedly, populism), as "a member or adherent of a political party seeking support mainly from the ordinary people", which I'd say is a very inadequate definition.
So what do populists look like? I'd suggest: - application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; - a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to complex problems; - a refusal to accept expert analysis pointing out problems with the proposals; - an inclination to conspiracy theory.
These all interlink in a sense where 'the people' are being cheated or taken advantage of by an elite or outsiders (or both), who use nefarious means to sustain their power despite their lack of numbers.
I'm not 100% happy with this (and I am just throwing ideas around here, and accept that to a large extent you are too). I can see what you mean, and I agree that in practice populism often looks like that - and I'm not totally unhappy with your final paragraph. But I'd like a definition of populism which wasn't inherently pejorative i.e. which we can described by what it prioritises and what it sets out to achieve, rather than what it does wrong.
BUT - all I can come up with is 'not internationalist'. I would also suggest that a populist would expect to prioritise small business and consumer over big business and producer (and state). But I think there is more to it than that!
Indeed. It explodes in the decorator's van instead?
F&B purchasers being, themselves, too posh to paint
lol. F&B purchasers (who can’t afford decorators) certainly have to paint, since it requires so many coats to achieve a decent finish.
Heh, that's me. We have some in a downstairs bathroom, but only due to liking the colour (over the other brands' testers) and for the area to be painted it not being worth getting the colour mixed from other paint. It was fine, FWIW, and gave a nice finish, but I wouldn't rate it over other branded paint, particularly.
I've never experienced exploding paint, but I don't think I've ever shifted one on a journey of more than 10-15 minutes and always in the boot which, I guess, stays reasonably cold, at least on those timescales.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
Hm - this smacks a little of 'when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean'.
Nigel Farage doesn't appear to be a Tory' using the common understanding of the work 'Tory' as 'member of the Conservative Party', or in its narrower sense of 'supporter of the monarchy and (probably) the interests of the landowning classes and (probably) the Anglican church', and certainly not its original sense of 'member of a specific brand of Irish brigands' (I think?). You might be using Tory in a colloquial sense of 'broadly conservative', but it's hard to see how someone whose political raison detre was the biggest constutional upheaval of my lifetime can really be described as 'Conservative'. You might argue that his dress sense is 'Tory', but I wouldn't say this is the most important thing about him.
Look, obviously when I say Farage is a Tory, I obviously don't mean he is a member of the Conservative Party (or, a fortiori, any "narrower" definition).
If you think he can't be a Tory because he supported Brexit, well, I can only wonder whether you have been over the last eight years.
But I'm wondering in what sense he is a Tory then? Because he doesn't seem to fit into any of the definitions of Tory that I've suggested. Apart from, as I said, his dress sense.
He was an active member of the Conservative party for 14 years.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
It would make an excellent Spectator article. Hopefully no one will steal it
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
I did read it 'carefully', thanks. And that doesn't change my point, does it?
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
They are not blameless.
Yes, it does change your point. You said Bates's MP was palmed off by Timms. The whole letter makes it clear that Timms is investigating even though he could have taken the get-out clause.
???? The letter *says* he is investigating. Obviously, he must have investigated it really well and deeply, because the scandal stopped back in 2003. Oh, it didn't? Perhaps the 'investigation' was just a boozy lunch with a mate from the PO - if that.
That letter was a classic plam-off.
Timms referred it to the Post Office who investigated and found nothing wrong. This is also confirmed by the CW timeline.
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
Yes, I feel some sympathy too. This is part of the witch hunt I warned against yesterday.
Last night I watched the whole of the ITV programme.
1) The show explicitly states that some scenes are imagined; Vennels may have been treated very unfairly and I wonder whether she is considering legal action for defamation 2) I have more disdain for the scumbag lawyers who were behind the POs actions and have retained anonymity 3) How can it be right that a £58m court win be reduced to £12m due to lawyers and other costs 4) Correct me if I'm wrong but a key hero, the journalist Nick Wallis, was not mentioned in the show.
The show was good - but it was a show and it is unfortunate to say the least, and possibly unfair to some and lenient on others, that the public will take their knowledge of this scandal from this show ahead of Wallis's far superior and thorough podcast series.
Re question 3 - the reason the lawyers fees were so enormous was because the Post Office aggressively fought every single point, no matter how minor or stupid, repeatedly in a determined effort to wear down the SPMs and outspend them. The Post Office was severely criticised in court for its tactics and strategy.
It ignored the judge. Indeed, after it received the judgment in March 2019 its reaction was to try and get rid of the judge, an application which was dismissed scathingly by the Court of Appeal as wholly misconceived. The CEO at this time was no longer Ms Vennells but Nick Read, the current CEO, under whose stewardship the Post Office has repeatedly obstructed the Williams Inquiry, especially over disclosure.
The playbook, in other words, is the same.
Bear in mind that litigation like that will have been expensive and the money being spent will surely have been approved by Ministers. You can see who they are by looking at my headers on this. Greg Clark and Andrea Leadsom. Oh and Tim Cook, the Post Office's part-time Chair.
As you yourself have identified - the idea that this whole scandal could be made to go away by playing dirty and maximising the legal costs until the other side ran out of money - will have originated from the legal profession. That Vennells went along with it is shameful, but it will have been qualified lawyers who devised, advocated and implemented that strategy.
Would that strategy necessarily have originated from the legal profession? It may have done, but the fact pursuing a legal action is expensive, and that stringing it out might be in your interests if the adversary is less well resourced, isn't knowledge that is unique to the legal profession.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
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
Yes, I feel some sympathy too. This is part of the witch hunt I warned against yesterday.
Last night I watched the whole of the ITV programme.
1) The show explicitly states that some scenes are imagined; Vennels may have been treated very unfairly and I wonder whether she is considering legal action for defamation 2) I have more disdain for the scumbag lawyers who were behind the POs actions and have retained anonymity 3) How can it be right that a £58m court win be reduced to £12m due to lawyers and other costs 4) Correct me if I'm wrong but a key hero, the journalist Nick Wallis, was not mentioned in the show.
The show was good - but it was a show and it is unfortunate to say the least, and possibly unfair to some and lenient on others, that the public will take their knowledge of this scandal from this show ahead of Wallis's far superior and thorough podcast series.
Re question 3 - the reason the lawyers fees were so enormous was because the Post Office aggressively fought every single point, no matter how minor or stupid, repeatedly in a determined effort to wear down the SPMs and outspend them. The Post Office was severely criticised in court for its tactics and strategy.
It ignored the judge. Indeed, after it received the judgment in March 2019 its reaction was to try and get rid of the judge, an application which was dismissed scathingly by the Court of Appeal as wholly misconceived. The CEO at this time was no longer Ms Vennells but Nick Read, the current CEO, under whose stewardship the Post Office has repeatedly obstructed the Williams Inquiry, especially over disclosure.
The playbook, in other words, is the same.
Bear in mind that litigation like that will have been expensive and the money being spent will surely have been approved by Ministers. You can see who they are by looking at my headers on this. Greg Clark and Andrea Leadsom. Oh and Tim Cook, the Post Office's part-time Chair.
You make a very good case that they are all an absolute bunch of tossers
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
Farage is, as usual, talking through his arse. Starmer has done nothing wrong here. Other Labour Ministers 1997 - 2010: yes. But not him.
Seriously, I don't follow why you consider that the failings go back to 1997 at a ministerial level. Maybe in terms of procurement failings, but not in terms of anything that could be described as a scandal.
The key point is that the Post Office tried to isolate individuals, so that they thought that the problems they were raising were unique, and for a long time they succeeded.
Alan Bates apparently wrote to the relevant minister alleging problems back in 2003, asking for a meeting. But one person making allegations is never going to get very far, let alone secure a ministerial meeting. Consider that his allegations flew in the face of every other source of information available to a minister, generated by an organisation intent on lying through its teeth to everyone (including politicians) to effect a complete cover up and with what it fed civil service advisers no doubt being passed on to ministers.
Computer Weekly likewise did nothing when contacted by Alan Bates in 2004, again an isolated allegation seemed not to count for much. They say it was when only when they were contacted by Lee Castleton in 2008 with a similar story that they started an investigation.
To me, 2009 not 1997 appears to be the relevant date when ministers should have sat up. The Computer Weekly investigation generated a published article that drew attention to the possibility of systemic problems on the basis of seven case studies of problems with the Horizon system. According to Computer Weekly it "revealed to subpostmasters who were having Horizon problems that they were not alone and that the Post Office was lying to them." On the back of that article, MPs James Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones started a parliamentary campaign. Secondly, the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance was formed and gave a collective voice to what prior to then had been isolated actions by individuals unaware of each others' plight.
Aside from an important fact: when a new system is rolled out on a large scale, you expect there to be issues. Therefore the ministers back in the early days should have been much more suspicious of the new system, and open to complaints about it. The PO could brush away comments later on with sh*t like: "The system's been running for years now, and it's already uncovered hundreds of cases of fraud..."
The early days are the ones where you should be most suspicious. But I wonder if everyone was just relieved that the system had finally been completed and rolled out...
I've definitely experienced similar in my days rolling out IT systems. Senior execs really don't want to hear bad news about a system that's gone in after a long development.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
Agree more should have been done post-2010, but disagree about ministers earlier on.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
If you read it more carefully, you will see Stephen Timms' handwritten note on that letter, that "I am trying to find out what the dispute is here".
I did read it 'carefully', thanks. And that doesn't change my point, does it?
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
They are not blameless.
Yes, it does change your point. You said Bates's MP was palmed off by Timms. The whole letter makes it clear that Timms is investigating even though he could have taken the get-out clause.
???? The letter *says* he is investigating. Obviously, he must have investigated it really well and deeply, because the scandal stopped back in 2003. Oh, it didn't? Perhaps the 'investigation' was just a boozy lunch with a mate from the PO - if that.
That letter was a classic plam-off.
Even as a humble local councillor for thirty continuous years now, whilst you are always alive to a genuine issue that you can either try and put right, or use for your own political interests, I confess that much of the stuff you receive from constituents has you thinking first about how you can best get it out of your intray with the minimum of hassle. Such is the way of politics, I’m afraid, in an age when people can send you all sorts of stuff at the mere click of an email. The less conscientious (like my current MP) just ignore the stuff they don’t like or can’t help with, and don’t bother to reply at all.
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
"us on PB" is doing a lot of work there.
OK, a few of us
Seriously, what's driving you? I thought you were left-leaning, have I got that wrong?
If I am right, have you changed? joined BJO's Tooting Popular Front faction? or are you playing a huge piss-take game?
Genuinely interested.
A plague on all their houses.
Ah, the Pagan2 school of thinking.
Remarkable that a site ostensibly devoted to politics and political betting has quite a few political nihilists among its regular posters.
I don't consider myself a political nihilist. I merely consider all the current parties we have to be unfit for the purpose of running the country for the good of the country and not for what suits them. If a party arises which actually does seem to be looking at what is best for the country then they will get my vote
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
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
Indeed. Post Office employees had already been prosecuted for about 12 years when Paula Vennells took over.
They weren’t employees, and prosecutions for fraud had been going on, at a low level, for ever.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
NU = new upper, so you can't replace it. As in Upper 10,000 was a pre-existing meme.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
Yes. My (1990) copy of the OED defines populist (and, relatedly, populism), as "a member or adherent of a political party seeking support mainly from the ordinary people", which I'd say is a very inadequate definition.
So what do populists look like? I'd suggest: - application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; - a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to complex problems; - a refusal to accept expert analysis pointing out problems with the proposals; - an inclination to conspiracy theory.
These all interlink in a sense where 'the people' are being cheated or taken advantage of by an elite or outsiders (or both), who use nefarious means to sustain their power despite their lack of numbers.
I'm not 100% happy with this (and I am just throwing ideas around here, and accept that to a large extent you are too). I can see what you mean, and I agree that in practice populism often looks like that - and I'm not totally unhappy with your final paragraph. But I'd like a definition of populism which wasn't inherently pejorative i.e. which we can described by what it prioritises and what it sets out to achieve, rather than what it does wrong.
BUT - all I can come up with is 'not internationalist'. I would also suggest that a populist would expect to prioritise small business and consumer over big business and producer (and state). But I think there is more to it than that!
A more neutral variation on that list might be:
- application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; [this is already neutral enough] - a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to national problems motivated by a belief that complexity is an excuse for obfuscation and inaction; - significant scepticism towards expert analysis pointing out problems with proposals; - a belief that national or global elites have a vested interest in resisting change
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
Yes, I feel some sympathy too. This is part of the witch hunt I warned against yesterday.
Last night I watched the whole of the ITV programme.
1) The show explicitly states that some scenes are imagined; Vennels may have been treated very unfairly and I wonder whether she is considering legal action for defamation 2) I have more disdain for the scumbag lawyers who were behind the POs actions and have retained anonymity 3) How can it be right that a £58m court win be reduced to £12m due to lawyers and other costs 4) Correct me if I'm wrong but a key hero, the journalist Nick Wallis, was not mentioned in the show.
The show was good - but it was a show and it is unfortunate to say the least, and possibly unfair to some and lenient on others, that the public will take their knowledge of this scandal from this show ahead of Wallis's far superior and thorough podcast series.
Re question 3 - the reason the lawyers fees were so enormous was because the Post Office aggressively fought every single point, no matter how minor or stupid, repeatedly in a determined effort to wear down the SPMs and outspend them. The Post Office was severely criticised in court for its tactics and strategy.
It ignored the judge. Indeed, after it received the judgment in March 2019 its reaction was to try and get rid of the judge, an application which was dismissed scathingly by the Court of Appeal as wholly misconceived. The CEO at this time was no longer Ms Vennells but Nick Read, the current CEO, under whose stewardship the Post Office has repeatedly obstructed the Williams Inquiry, especially over disclosure.
The playbook, in other words, is the same.
Bear in mind that litigation like that will have been expensive and the money being spent will surely have been approved by Ministers. You can see who they are by looking at my headers on this. Greg Clark and Andrea Leadsom. Oh and Tim Cook, the Post Office's part-time Chair.
As you yourself have identified - the idea that this whole scandal could be made to go away by playing dirty and maximising the legal costs until the other side ran out of money - will have originated from the legal profession. That Vennells went along with it is shameful, but it will have been qualified lawyers who devised, advocated and implemented that strategy.
Would that strategy necessarily have originated from the legal profession? It may have done, but the fact pursuing a legal action is expensive, and that stringing it out might be in your interests if the adversary is less well resourced, isn't knowledge that is unique to the legal profession.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
NU = new upper, so you can't replace it. As in Upper 10,000 was a pre-existing meme.
Ah yes. My main issue is about pronunciation. Perhaps if we retain the NU, we add a hyphen (like in nu-metal)? As in NU-10k? Again, only a suggestion.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
It would make an excellent Spectator article. Hopefully no one will steal it
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
"us on PB" is doing a lot of work there.
OK, a few of us
Seriously, what's driving you? I thought you were left-leaning, have I got that wrong?
If I am right, have you changed? joined BJO's Tooting Popular Front faction? or are you playing a huge piss-take game?
Genuinely interested.
A plague on all their houses.
Ah, the Pagan2 school of thinking.
Remarkable that a site ostensibly devoted to politics and political betting has quite a few political nihilists among its regular posters.
I don't consider myself a political nihilist. I merely consider all the current parties we have to be unfit for the purpose of running the country for the good of the country and not for what suits them. If a party arises which actually does seem to be looking at what is best for the country then they will get my vote
Applying my tax residence analogy from yesterday then, you are neither resident nor domiciled in any party's territory. An unusual position and different from those who are instinctively domiciled somewhere but currently politically homeless. You live most of the time in international waters but would be prepared to call into a port and spend a while on land from time to time if the moorings look favourable.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
NU = new upper, so you can't replace it. As in Upper 10,000 was a pre-existing meme.
Ah yes. My main issue is about pronunciation. Perhaps if we retain the NU, we add a hyphen (like in nu-metal)? As in NU-10k? Again, only a suggestion.
But even then you dunno if it is pronounced NOO or NEW
If any Spectator journos are reading this, to steal the idea, they should call it “the New10K”, as you suggest, the “upper” is otiose
Nige is up to a million plus views in a few hours. Should Starmer be concerned?
Rishi, Clever Jimmy, Alex Chalk, Isaac Levido where are you?
No. But it's potentially good news for Davey. Let social media, politicos and journalists waste energy on obviously fruitless attacks on Starmer that would otherwise be zoning in on him.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
NU = new upper, so you can't replace it. As in Upper 10,000 was a pre-existing meme.
Ah yes. My main issue is about pronunciation. Perhaps if we retain the NU, we add a hyphen (like in nu-metal)? As in NU-10k? Again, only a suggestion.
My complaint would be it looks like one of those new-fangled abbreviations with numbers, so a word beginning Nu, ending in k, with 10 letters in the middle.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
Ironic that it is you who are complaining about false accusations and yet you do this.
As well as calling an intelligent poster “stupid” for daring to disagree with you
Great opportunity for Rishi. Both Starmer and Davey's scalps would be a game changer.
"us on PB" is doing a lot of work there.
OK, a few of us
Seriously, what's driving you? I thought you were left-leaning, have I got that wrong?
If I am right, have you changed? joined BJO's Tooting Popular Front faction? or are you playing a huge piss-take game?
Genuinely interested.
A plague on all their houses.
Ah, the Pagan2 school of thinking.
Remarkable that a site ostensibly devoted to politics and political betting has quite a few political nihilists among its regular posters.
I don't consider myself a political nihilist. I merely consider all the current parties we have to be unfit for the purpose of running the country for the good of the country and not for what suits them. If a party arises which actually does seem to be looking at what is best for the country then they will get my vote
Applying my tax residence analogy from yesterday then, you are neither resident nor domiciled in any party's territory. An unusual position and different from those who are instinctively domiciled somewhere but currently politically homeless. You live most of the time in international waters but would be prepared to call into a port and spend a while on land from time to time if the moorings look favourable.
I doubt any political party going forward will ever match the criteria of doing what is best for the country, politics has been spiralling downwards for too long. I think the only solution is to rip down the edifice entirely and rebuild a better one. Still who know's maybe some politicians will come along and surprise on the upside however I consider it less likely that a herd of flying pigs nesting in my tree
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
No - it stands for
“New Upper 10,000”
NU10K
It refers to the old adage that countries were run by the aristocracy and their relations - see the Squirearchy. The vicar was 3rd cousin to Lord X who held the manor etc.
The point is that while the source of the NU10K is different and more diverse than the bastard offspring of Charles II, they are no more accountable, competent or likeable.
That NU is slang for “new” is just a coincidence - if useful here.
Nige is up to a million plus views in a few hours. Should Starmer be concerned?
Rishi, Clever Jimmy, Alex Chalk, Isaac Levido where are you?
No. But it's potentially good news for Davey. Let social media, politicos and journalists waste energy on obviously fruitless attacks on Starmer that would otherwise be zoning in on him.
That's what I have been thinking.
I have forwarded Nigel's tweet to Lee Anderson. Let's see how quickly 30p Lee latches on to this!
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
Yes. My (1990) copy of the OED defines populist (and, relatedly, populism), as "a member or adherent of a political party seeking support mainly from the ordinary people", which I'd say is a very inadequate definition.
So what do populists look like? I'd suggest: - application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; - a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to complex problems; - a refusal to accept expert analysis pointing out problems with the proposals; - an inclination to conspiracy theory.
These all interlink in a sense where 'the people' are being cheated or taken advantage of by an elite or outsiders (or both), who use nefarious means to sustain their power despite their lack of numbers.
I'm not 100% happy with this (and I am just throwing ideas around here, and accept that to a large extent you are too). I can see what you mean, and I agree that in practice populism often looks like that - and I'm not totally unhappy with your final paragraph. But I'd like a definition of populism which wasn't inherently pejorative i.e. which we can described by what it prioritises and what it sets out to achieve, rather than what it does wrong.
BUT - all I can come up with is 'not internationalist'. I would also suggest that a populist would expect to prioritise small business and consumer over big business and producer (and state). But I think there is more to it than that!
Think of it this way.
Imagine you are about to make love to a beautiful woman and you have unwrapped the condom when the lumpen hordes shout - "No you don't want to do that - that's what those fucking experts say you should do" and then Farage pops up and says "they are right you know, don't put that on your old todge it'll be fine without, have a pint". So you allow yourself to be ruled by the ignorant and the results are fine and dandy. Or not.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
It would make an excellent Spectator article. Hopefully no one will steal it
Damn. My next scheduled one is political parties but I'll see if I can rattle one off to the mods quickly
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Thanks. What does NU10K stand for? The something something ten thousand presumably.
Nu = new. I have put in a request to rename it as 'new10k' as more obvious how you pronounce - but it's up to @Malmesbury, it's his term!
NU = new upper, so you can't replace it. As in Upper 10,000 was a pre-existing meme.
Ah yes. My main issue is about pronunciation. Perhaps if we retain the NU, we add a hyphen (like in nu-metal)? As in NU-10k? Again, only a suggestion.
My complaint would be it looks like one of those new-fangled abbreviations with numbers, so a word beginning Nu, ending in k, with 10 letters in the middle.
Ah yes, the numeronym, or n7m as we all like to call them?
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
He may not be a Conservative but he's certainly a conservative.
Not really. My MP Simon Hoare, he's a conservative; Farage is a populist pure and simple.
I think that populism can be associated with different ideologies, left and right, rather than it being a political ideology in itself.
Of the three ideologies - conservatism, liberalism and collectivism - I'd put Farage in the first camp.
That's a category error. Populism is a campaigning style, not a philosophically based movement.
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
I'm not sure we have an agreed definition of populism. We kind of know it when we see it, but attempts to pin it down are elusive. ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
Yes. My (1990) copy of the OED defines populist (and, relatedly, populism), as "a member or adherent of a political party seeking support mainly from the ordinary people", which I'd say is a very inadequate definition.
So what do populists look like? I'd suggest: - application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; - a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to complex problems; - a refusal to accept expert analysis pointing out problems with the proposals; - an inclination to conspiracy theory.
These all interlink in a sense where 'the people' are being cheated or taken advantage of by an elite or outsiders (or both), who use nefarious means to sustain their power despite their lack of numbers.
I'm not 100% happy with this (and I am just throwing ideas around here, and accept that to a large extent you are too). I can see what you mean, and I agree that in practice populism often looks like that - and I'm not totally unhappy with your final paragraph. But I'd like a definition of populism which wasn't inherently pejorative i.e. which we can described by what it prioritises and what it sets out to achieve, rather than what it does wrong.
BUT - all I can come up with is 'not internationalist'. I would also suggest that a populist would expect to prioritise small business and consumer over big business and producer (and state). But I think there is more to it than that!
Think of it this way.
Imagine you are about to make love to a beautiful woman and you have unwrapped the condom when the lumpen hordes shout - "No you don't want to do that - that's what those fucking experts say you should do" and then Farage pops up and says "they are right you know, don't put that on your old todge it'll be fine without, have a pint". So you allow yourself to ruled by the ignorant and the results are fine and dandy. Or not.
I always wondered what happened to Swiss Toni. Now we know.
A PBer (now identified as @Malmesbury) 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?
Does power often concentrate in particular groups, who are interested in outcomes that benefit them? Yes. But talking about how the state "is captured by and serves a small group of people" is conspiracy theory territory.
Farage has accused Sir Keir of not doing anything as DPP about the Post Office prosecutions… at first glance this just seems an ill informed and he has been community noted for it on X, but…
Sir Keir has now come out and said the Post Office shouldn’t be able to prosecute people, presumably to draw attention to the fact it was nothing to do with him as DPP. A potential problem for him is that he has been parading around depicting his time as DPP as a Sheriff of Justice, riding into town righting any wrongs that unscrupulous corporations and politicians committed… even though he was unable to do anything about it, I think the public might see his Uncle Albert “When I was DPP…” white knight act differently, and maybe that what Farage was getting at
Or maybe Farage just messed up
Or maybe Tories these days are so desperate that they have no shame.
Since when was Farage a Tory? Been a while I reckon....
That which we call a Tory by any other name would smell as ...
There is a far wider gulf between Farage and Sunak than there is between Corbyn and the guy who was prepared to sit in his Shadow Cabinet for years as anti-semitism raged in the Labour Party...
Sorry, but I know what I mean by "Tory", whether inside or outside the Conservative Party. And Farage is a Tory to his roots.
What an idiotic thing to say!
It seems to be absolutely standard here to dismiss opinions one disagrees with as "idiotic" or "nonsensical".
I suppose actually explaining why you hold a different opinion might be a bit too taxing.
That’s better than “you are stupid” which is your approach.
Tory is a specific proper noun referring to members of the Tory party. Farage is not a member of the Tory party. Therefore Farage is not a Tory.
Comments
Ducking the question, trying to point the finger at others, typically politician
I suppose actually explaining why you hold a different opinion might be a bit too taxing.
As it happens, one of the methodologies I rather like. The political compass.
Probably because when I do the simple questionnaire I come out exactly where I would expect to on the grid.
However, I think ministers do have the right to expect the senior execs of a publicly owned corporation to be honest. If they are told the new system is performing ok how are they to judge differently? One SPM complaining out of 35,000 isn't really going to cut it.
I've no wish to defend ministers but until the late 2000s I am not sure they be seen as culpable; the PO execs from that time are at fault.
The ministers from 2010 though, including Davey, could and should have done more imo.
It will be good news for the King and Queen ahead of their visit to Australia later this year
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anthony-albanese-vote-australia-republic-monarchy-king-queen-visit-5xcxkv62f
Nigel Farage doesn't appear to be a Tory' using the common understanding of the work 'Tory' as 'member of the Conservative Party', or in its narrower sense of 'supporter of the monarchy and (probably) the interests of the landowning classes and (probably) the Anglican church', and certainly not its original sense of 'member of a specific brand of Irish brigands' (I think?). You might be using Tory in a colloquial sense of 'broadly conservative', but it's hard to see how someone whose political raison detre was the biggest constutional upheaval of my lifetime can really be described as 'Conservative'.
You might argue that his dress sense is 'Tory', but I wouldn't say this is the most important thing about him.
Remarkable that a site ostensibly devoted to politics and political betting has quite a few political nihilists among its regular posters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqWzh0DfMD0
Populists often use some form of ideological cover, partly because it gives a degree of credibility and partly because populists need to rally potential supporters against whoever it is they want to blame, and usually that will align with a more grounded ideology ('blame the rich': socialist populism; 'blame foreigners': nationalist populism; blame change: 'conservative populism' etc). But in truth, the common factor is in finding scapegoats rather than fixing problems. Of course, often the scapegoats do deserve some blame and are part of the problem - but not the whole problem and they're rarely wholly malign.
Why doesn't the Govt just pay either £500k or £1m into everyone of them's bank account tomorrow.
It could be done on account - ie no need for postmasters to accept it as final settlement.
And I mean literally tomorrow. No waffling, no mucking around, just do it.
If they need bank account numbers I'm sure postmasters would supply them on the spot.
The trouble with this country is that every single thing takes an interminable amount of time to happen.
And the thing is that if Sunak did this it would gain him more votes than anything else he might try.
So why not just do it? No meetings required. No consultations required. Just do it. Two simple steps:
1) Get bank account numbers
2) Make payments
What is the right level of experience for the leader of the Lib Dems?
Looking at previous leaders we have the following length of time between first becoming a MP and then leader of the party.
Davey 22 years
Swinson 14 years
Cable 20 years
Farron 10 years
Clegg 2 1/2 years
Campbell 19 years
Kennedy 16 years
Ashdown 5 years
(Ducks)
Rather than try to push the scandal back in time so you can blame Labour, why not accept that it properly started in 2009 when, as it happens, the SoS was Peter Mandelson who is still around now advising Keir Starmer?
https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know
Puts it in context. And much of it could presumably be recovered by giving Fujitsu a good spanking (complete ban on future public sector contracts until they cough up, even before you get into legal cases against them). Probably an oversimplification, but too much delay and even more of those affected will be dead before there's any compensation.
*we didn't of course, but still.
If you think he can't be a Tory because he supported Brexit, well, I can only wonder whether you have been over the last eight years.
Reform could only realistically do a deal with the Tories; the Greens (in England) could only do one with Labour. Both are small but under PR would have a meaningful number of MPs. The Lib Dems, by contrast, as a centrist party which advocates PR and the sort of consensus pragmatist politics they believe (rightly or wrongly) it would bring, have to be willing to deal with both larger parties - in principle anyway: there'll be times, as now, when one or other is beyond the pale.
When 'Lib Dems' talk about "flush[ing] away the last remnants of complicity in the Cameron government", what they're really doing is wanting to avoid government altogether. It's politics as sport: beating the Tories but not picking up any responsibility afterwards.
ISTR a definition on here a while back that it was about siding with the interests of the people against those of a (real or perceived) elite - but that definition would include the Labour Party of the 1980s, which I don't think it would intend to and which I don't think most people who use the term 'populist' would intend to include.
Is it about tastes rather than policy positions perhaps?
I was Labour Party activist until just after I mistakenly voted for Ed in the Party Leadership Election. After Corbyn and Brexit I lost interest in the lot of them.
P.B. nonetheless makes a compelling case against Starmer.
If you read the twitter thread @bondegezou linked to below, Stephen Timms was ignoring concerns with "conflicts are contractual matters for PO" as early as 2003.
And being told that “it would undermine responsible government”, “cast aspersions on the top management of the post office”, “obstruct the police investigation”
Remember - only NU10K deserve 6 figure pay days.
And if anyone has signed "final settlement", that is revoked.
I'm sorry this has gone beyond complications and excuses. Every single person who has been convicted should have £500k minimum in their bank account.
And payments should be made tomorrow.
No ifs, no buts. If ID is required, take ID, bank statement, proof of conviction to Department of Trade at 9am tomorrow morning.
If you read the post you were replying to, it might have been a clue to you that I haven't been a Lib Dem for about 15 years.
But are you really incapable of understanding that the role of the Lib Dems in the Coalition government could be subject to criticism, without thoughtlessly condemning the critics in the ridiculous terms you are now using? I really thought you were brighter than that.
Ministers had the capability of stopping this mess all the way from the late 1990s onwards. The longer it went on, the greater the weight of evidence that something was wrong; but there were signs earlier on that ministers ignored.
They are not blameless.
The really crazy thing is this would get more votes than anything else Sunak does this year - because it's easy to understand and something the public are interested in.
It ignored the judge. Indeed, after it received the judgment in March 2019 its reaction was to try and get rid of the judge, an application which was dismissed scathingly by the Court of Appeal as wholly misconceived. The CEO at this time was no longer Ms Vennells but Nick Read, the current CEO, under whose stewardship the Post Office has repeatedly obstructed the Williams Inquiry, especially over disclosure.
The playbook, in other words, is the same.
Bear in mind that litigation like that will have been expensive and the money being spent will surely have been approved by Ministers. You can see who they are by looking at my headers on this. Greg Clark and Andrea Leadsom. Oh and Tim Cook, the Post Office's part-time Chair.
So what do populists look like? I'd suggest:
- application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems;
- a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to complex problems;
- a refusal to accept expert analysis pointing out problems with the proposals;
- an inclination to conspiracy theory.
These all interlink in a sense where 'the people' are being cheated or taken advantage of by an elite or outsiders (or both), who use nefarious means to sustain their power despite their lack of numbers.
But the Tories’ and Murdoch press’s attempt to pin the blame onto a sequence of short-tenure LibDem junior ministers post-2010, when both Labour ministers prior and Tory ministers since have done equally nothing to address this scandal and its fallout, and the majority Tory governments since 2015 have simply hoped it would all go away, is shameful.
Equally this won’t win Rishi votes - my viewpoint is that it’s an IT screwup and my company spends £400 a year getting professional indemnity insurance to protect myself if I make mistakes - so Fujitsu or their insurance provider should be paying this
Something went badly wrong at a philosophical level with the 'third way' approach to public services.
F&B purchasers being, themselves, too posh to paint
The establishment is an interesting concept. Possibly - but someone can correct me here if I'm wrong - less seriously and impartially analysed as a phenomenon than almost anything else in politics. Every discussion or analysis of "the establishment" I can think of comes at it from the perspective that the establishment is a. a bad thing and something we need to rail against, and b. it's "them" where we are "us".
There's a fascinating potential book in this for someone who is prepared to write it: "The Establishment: what is it, how does it operate, is it a force for good or bad, and does it actually exist?" Beginning with answering the question as to whether we can put our hands around a tangible thing called the establishment in the first place. It's a slippery organism. Is there one establishment, or are there multiple establishments? Is it a meaningful term or does it simply mean any people or organisations in a position of incumbency?
My understanding is that the PO is desperately holding out - to tie compensation to an undertaking to give up all further legal action and even a gagging clause.
Once big payments are made to the SPMs, without gagging clauses and terms ending legal process, then there is nothing between the managerial types and their deserved doom.
There are multiple factors that contributed to this tragedy, of different sorts. There are these background factors. The set up of the relationship between government and the PO was done badly, a failure of Third Way politics. The decision that computer evidence should be considered sacrosanct was another part of the context. These perhaps matter most in the long term, but aren't the failings of individuals.
There are numerous failures internally (within Fujitsu, within the PO, among lawyers) to acknowledge the problem, which segued way into actively concealing failures. These seem the worst to me at the personal level.
There are failures of oversight from higher-ups (highers-up?) to react sufficiently to reports of problems. Culpability here increases with the passage of time and more and more coming out. So I'd heap more far more blame on, say, Kemi Badenoch than Ed Davey.
That letter was a classic plam-off.
I'd take paint over that.
BUT - all I can come up with is 'not internationalist'. I would also suggest that a populist would expect to prioritise small business and consumer over big business and producer (and state). But I think there is more to it than that!
2009 then!
I've never experienced exploding paint, but I don't think I've ever shifted one on a journey of more than 10-15 minutes and always in the boot which, I guess, stays reasonably cold, at least on those timescales.
I think he's right, btw
Were you asking for the names of specific people?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67915696
Cat saves dog fro coyotes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtoyvufL-Fo
- application of blame to particular groups or institutions, for national failings or problems; [this is already neutral enough]
- a preference for simple, often sweeping policies as solutions to national problems motivated by a belief that complexity is an excuse for obfuscation and inaction;
- significant scepticism towards expert analysis pointing out problems with proposals;
- a belief that national or global elites have a vested interest in resisting change
Nige is up to a million plus views in a few hours. Should Starmer be concerned?
Rishi, Clever Jimmy, Alex Chalk, Isaac Levido where are you?
If any Spectator journos are reading this, to steal the idea, they should call it “the New10K”, as you suggest, the “upper” is otiose
As well as calling an intelligent poster “stupid” for daring to disagree with you
“New Upper 10,000”
NU10K
It refers to the old adage that countries were run by the aristocracy and their relations - see the Squirearchy. The vicar was 3rd cousin to Lord X who held the manor etc.
The point is that while the source of the NU10K is different and more diverse than the bastard offspring of Charles II, they are no more accountable, competent or likeable.
That NU is slang for “new” is just a coincidence - if useful here.
I have forwarded Nigel's tweet to Lee Anderson. Let's see how quickly 30p Lee latches on to this!
Imagine you are about to make love to a beautiful woman and you have unwrapped the condom when the lumpen hordes shout - "No you don't want to do that - that's what those fucking experts say you should do" and then Farage pops up and says "they are right you know, don't put that on your old todge it'll be fine without, have a pint". So you allow yourself to be ruled by the ignorant and the results are fine and dandy. Or not.
Tory is a specific proper noun referring to members of the Tory party. Farage is not a member of the Tory party. Therefore Farage is not a Tory.
Sometimes it really is that simple