British Post Office Scandal

[Guest]

1 hour ago, El Cid said:

On 1 April 2012, Post Office Limited became independent of Royal Mail Group, and was reorganised to become a subsidiary of Royal Mail Holdings.

 

Whith such a massive company and Parliament ultimately responsible, its difficult to pin blame on one person.

The ITV proman has singled out Paula Vennells, I dont know if that is justified.

 

50 minutes ago, Mister M said:

It appears that Michael Keegan, husband of Tory Education Minister Gillian Keegan, was the UK Chief Executive & Chair of Fujitsu, the firm behind the Horizon computer system during the Post Office Scandal. He also sits on the advisory board of the Prince's Trust and is a non-executive director of an IT firm called Centerprise, which recently won a £1 million contract linked to the schools rebuilding programme.

 

No one to blame but the British public who seem quite content to let bent politicians do as they please.

Whilst they all work together with their rich friends,  to fill their pockets and to cream off taxpayers hard earned money in their direction,  it will always continue.

Politicians and big business will always laugh at the little Alan Bates's of this world. and sneer at the stupidity of a public who knows and still doesn't care.

After all,  we openly allow MP's and government ministers to take bribes and to lie to the public, the media and to parliament itself.      We should expect no less than a gentler mafiosi in charge.

 

[Delbow]

13 hours ago, altus said:

Worse than that, they are still being awarded new contracts - Fujitsu bags £430m government contracts despite rising cost of Post Office Horizon scandal.

i.e. Since the Horizon scandal came to light.

As with all these outsourcing companies, there are only a few that actually have the capacity to bid for the contracts, and they just take turns to rotate between them. There's no real competition and no incentive to do a proper job because as one door closes, another opens. It's corporatocracy, as mentioned in another thread - government has become just a means of passing tax payer money to corporations, regardless of what we get in return.

 

[Tipstaff]

14 hours ago, El Cid said:

On 1 April 2012, Post Office Limited became independent of Royal Mail Group, and was reorganised to become a subsidiary of Royal Mail Holdings.

 

Whith such a massive company and Parliament ultimately responsible, its difficult to pin blame on one person.

The ITV proman has singled out Paula Vennells, I dont know if that is justified.

I think the justification comes from  the fact that she was CEO and as such, is responsible for the company in its entirety.  A bit like a Chief Constable being responsible for a police force or a Chairperson of a Banking Corporation.  That's why they are paid the large salaries.  It may well be that senior or junior officers below them in rank or status have caused the failures to happen, but as head of the organisation they are answerable.

[hackey lad]

13 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

 

No one to blame but the British public who seem quite content to let bent politicians do as they please.

Whilst they all work together with their rich friends,  to fill their pockets and to cream off taxpayers hard earned money in their direction,  it will always continue.

Politicians and big business will always laugh at the little Alan Bates's of this world. and sneer at the stupidity of a public who knows and still doesn't care.

After all,  we openly allow MP's and government ministers to take bribes and to lie to the public, the media and to parliament itself.      We should expect no less than a gentler mafiosi in charge.

 

Sorry, it’s my fault. 

[Tipstaff]

13 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

 

No one to blame but the British public who seem quite content to let bent politicians do as they please.

Whilst they all work together with their rich friends,  to fill their pockets and to cream off taxpayers hard earned money in their direction,  it will always continue.

Politicians and big business will always laugh at the little Alan Bates's of this world. and sneer at the stupidity of a public who knows and still doesn't care.

After all,  we openly allow MP's and government ministers to take bribes and to lie to the public, the media and to parliament itself.      We should expect no less than a gentler mafiosi in charge.

 

There may be evidence of 'jobs for the boys' and perhaps some nepotism along the way, but we can hardly blame anyone other than those in charge at the Post Office (ably assisted by the incompetency at Fujitsu) for this scandal and gross injustice, surely?

[pfifes]

17 hours ago, Organgrinder said:

 

No one to blame but the British public who seem quite content to let bent politicians do as they please.

Whilst they all work together with their rich friends,  to fill their pockets and to cream off taxpayers hard earned money in their direction,  it will always continue.

Politicians and big business will always laugh at the little Alan Bates's of this world. and sneer at the stupidity of a public who knows and still doesn't care.

After all,  we openly allow MP's and government ministers to take bribes and to lie to the public, the media and to parliament itself.      We should expect no less than a gentler mafiosi in charge.

 

OK, it’s all our fault.  Shall we have a whip round to compensate those poor postmasters and promise never to do it again?

Seriously, I agree that the general public are too tolerant of corrupt politicians but blaming the Post Office/Horizon on the general public isn’t going to do any good.  However, the TV drama on this case has been extremely powerful in raising awareness and perhaps changing attitudes.

[El Cid]

5 hours ago, hackey lad said:

Sorry, it’s my fault. 

Are you just confessing now, because Sunak is on the case?

[spilldig]

2 hours ago, pfifes said:

OK, it’s all our fault.  Shall we have a whip round to compensate those poor postmasters and promise never to do it again?

Seriously, I agree that the general public are too tolerant of corrupt politicians but blaming the Post Office/Horizon on the general public isn’t going to do any good.  However, the TV drama on this case has been extremely powerful in raising awareness and perhaps changing attitudes.

A bit unfair I think.  I mean I fume at how corrupt politicians are but what can the general public do about it?   It's no good saying vote them out.  As you say politicians and as far as I'm concerned that covers all parties.

[pfifes]

2 minutes ago, spilldig said:

A bit unfair I think.  I mean I fume at how corrupt politicians are but what can the general public do about it?   It's no good saying vote them out.  As you say politicians and as far as I'm concerned that covers all parties.

I think the moral of the story is that the little people can be powerful if we stick together to stand up for what is right.  The postmasters were told time and again they were the ‘the only one’.  There’s a reason for that, just as certain politicians continue to use the old  ‘divide and conquer’ technique successfully time and again,  Just maybe things are starting to change. It’s taken a TV drama to get us where we are today with the post office situation.  Politicians have acted more decisively now due to public outcry.  That is what ‘we can do about it’.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, pfifes said:

OK, it’s all our fault.  Shall we have a whip round to compensate those poor postmasters and promise never to do it again?

Seriously, I agree that the general public are too tolerant of corrupt politicians but blaming the Post Office/Horizon on the general public isn’t going to do any good.  However, the TV drama on this case has been extremely powerful in raising awareness and perhaps changing attitudes.

Not at all.  The ones at fault were the ones who developed the computers and the software .

Fujitsu are totally responsible for the failures of the system which ruined so many lives and they should be the ones who pay full compensation for their appalling mistakes and lying..

 

You seem to miss the point that, when something so serious goes wrong,  we should be able to investigate it,  start putting things right,  and releasing people illegally locked up in prison.

All this is down to ministers / agents of the government who are not there to simply pick up their salary and ignore whatever happens.  WHAT DO WE HAVE MINISTERS FOR. ?

Why are Fujitsu still being awarded government contracts when a major investigation is needed into their business practises and their illegal back door into supposedly  "secure" computers.

 

There's very little mention of the CEO of Fujitsu being the husband of a government minister  -  is that why the government is looking the other way.

There is serious blame in many different places and this needs dealing with and ensuring that it cannot ever happen again.    We've all heard   "Lessons will be learned"  many times before.