Wrong: the point of out-sourcing is very obviously not to get the best value for taxpayers money, it's to maximise the amount of money directed to tory party members, their friends and donours. None of them give a single crap, and never have, about how much public money is embezzled and / or wasted through corruption and incompetence.
It took a TV drama for this to become well known. I think if more people had been aware before, then there would have been a public outcry much earlier. The MSM and MPs should have been blowing the whistle long ago.
When asked about Fujitsu's excessive involvement in UK government why does he conspicuously fail to mention it was the BRITISH company ICL which was given preferential treatment by UK governments long before this fiasco. Fujitsu is just the company who ending up owning ICL.
Also, did anyone ask - if these people where stealing it - where did it go? How come it wasn't in their accounts and why wasn't there any evidence of them spending it?
I worked a few feet away from a woman who defrauded our large multinational company of a very significant amount of money. She was always BEAUTIFULLY dressed, wore stupidly expensive shoes, was VERY generous to everyone. We thought it was because her husband was a bank manager on big bucks! No, she had a smooth little skimming scheme worked out - and it was a 'humble' bank teller who asked questions that brought it all tumbling down. You are so right - maybe the odd fraudster amongst so many might have carefully hidden the ill-gotten gains, but not such a large group. Many signs would have been apparent - flashy spending, gambling, high end dining, money transfers overseas..........people can't help themselves. And this on top of SO many emphatically saying they did nothing wrong - few people are really good liars. I really want to see heads roll and this will reverberate world-wide. Cheers from Oz!!
"The most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history" -- really in all of the UK's history? Ofc what happened with the post office was terrible, but the British state has done much worse to people in times past.
The ultimate irony … people went to jail and lost their businesses for sums as low as £10,000 because of a fake process (bad coding) while those who awarded a multibillion pound contract had no process of records at all From day 1 this was corrupt fraud and everyone that touched it should go to prison - what’s good for the goose We can say sorry in 20 years
20 years later 🙄 Recompense & ACCOUNTABILITY! The Post Office Horizon Fujitsu Michael Keegan Gillian Keegan Nick Reed Paula Vennells Morrisons Church of England Angela Van Bogerd Adam Crozier Alice Perkins Centerprise NOT from the Public Purse!!!
Royal mail are just as bad ,Simon Thompson CEO of Royal mail lied on oath to parliament about Tracked items not being prioritised over letters, shameful and left with a 700,000 pounds pay off 😢
as someone who had direct family who were held prisoner by the post office for over decades - every government from 2005 knew about this in some way shape or form. The real lesson is that the government did NOTHING to correct the injustice. Another lesson is, Rishi and Akshata are huge stakeholders in Fujitsu!
As a historian who studies comparative democracies, a rather stark difference between the US and UK is: in the UK, the total dependence on government inquiries alone - sometimes, years after the offense - to attempt to address miscarriages of justice. To observers, it seems no one working or serving in UK government need fear serving time in prison for grievous misdeeds; and hence, a startling lack of accountability. While it may be a impossible to sue institutions outright, there ought to be legal avenues - beyond mere ombudsmen - for individuals at those institutions to be held more accountable in a Court of Criminal or Civil Law (depending on the nature of the wrong) at some point. While the UK probably and rightly takes pride in "preaching" to the World a brand of civility that eschews litigation in general (vis-a-vis, say, in the US), there is nothing civil about these kinds of blatant injustice; it is just cruelty to fellow-citizens. And... on one other note, if Fujitsu had done this in America, they would have been banned from bidding on any procurement contracts for some length of time - measured in years. Looking at the faces of all those postmasters wronged, I sense they are not seeking exoneration; but rather, vindication.
I appreciate that comment. Obtaining full and proper accountability from government institutes and large organisations for even the most self-evident wrongs appears to be a real problem. I've become immensely cynical watching public inquiries that seem begrudgingly initiated, take years to run and give nebulous conclusions about systemic failures. I suspect the Grenfell inquiry will do this.
The issue of accurate accounting in granting Govt. contracts is well made. It troubles me to think that the drive to outsource all these major projects and builds leads to a willing institutional blindness to under estimates of the costs.
I blame the judges. Their casual attitude to the fundamental rules of evidence and disclosure is frankly appalling. The fundamental check of an independent judiciary is demonstrable nonsense when incompetent judges effectively coloured with power. These judges should be put to work full time without pay to setasside all their own judgements when Horizon was allowed as evidence. This should be done in next few weeks. No need for legislation. And there must be scores of judges who have convicted 1700 people. And what about making Fujitsu do a full scale forensic recalculation of all the data back to 1999 to ensure everyone , regardless of conviction, has 100% of the money stolen from them identified and returned plus a large fine in proportion to the theft. A suitable fine would be about 10x what was stolen.
I have really only just started watching your channel and it has lead me to take more of an interest in politics may be a tad too late but nevertheless an interest. So thank you for this. I and many.of my friends and colleagues are wanting a change in leadership. I am a frontline Paramedic and see from the sharp end the waiting, the under staffing due to poor pay. The lack of hospital beds. I have also worked in primary care, where GP's have ten minute slots to see patients, eating lunch at their desks, doing a myriad of different roles just to keep the health system going. What my question is if you get the chance to put to the health ministers, is what is their no bullshit answers to these problems. But most important of all is the direction of euthanasia recently brought back into the news. As majority of people I meet would want this as a choice. As I hear, you wouldn't treat an animal like that.
Oh dear, well settled caselaw establishes that parliament is NOT the highest court, and not even a court. That's why this proposal for blanket exoneration is an issue to be faced, but is also really the only way to do such a massive correction of unsafe convictions.
Yes, I was rather taken aback to hear in this podcast that parliament is the highest court. It most certainly is not! It is sovereign and can change, initiate and abolish laws, but it cannot interpret them. That's the business of the courts.
One other point to consider on why governments outsource, specifically for the public service, is that it allows them to shift blame away from the government to a third party. As highlighted in this talk, there is a lot of discussion of blame, and as long as that is the talk that causes people in public service to be worried about been blamed (and usually losing their job) so if they can outsource that, and say it wasn't me, all the better for them.
This isn't a uniquely governmental problem. I know of spectacularly bad procurement decisions for critical IT systems made in a range of sectors, including the financial and the non-profit. Staff at all levels can become very invested in maintaining those systems, typically in the belief that it is the basis of their job security. For that reason if you do choose to call things out you will probably be ignored, marginalized or sacked.
Why are the critical IT systems of our government and public organisations outsourced to foreign companies though? That’s just asking for trouble. It should’ve all been developed and maintained in-house.
At the end of the day, the real issue stems from the Post Office management (mismanagement). They oversaw the installation of the software, based on information that they provided to Fujitsu. Clearly due diligence was not carried out. That gels well with my experience of working for the Post Office throughout the 1980s. That was in Brighton. The managers were incompetent loons as the management structure was based entirely on length of service and seniority, not on ability. Is it any wonder that the entire back office functions were relocated to Hastings in 1990 and Brighton Head Post Office was empty offices for years before being turned into a restaurant! I expect that managerial posts within the Post Office are still highly paid sinecures. The structure of the Post Office needs to be totally overhauled and that dinosaur totally privatised.
Have Fujitsubeeninvolved in competitive tendering for this number of massive ongoing contracts. How can you. Be sure you are getting best value for money. Then to carry on and on with the same company because the systems are embedded. Thus making the whole thing far more extensive and far more open to corruption. Against the whole concept of competitive testing of costs.
The horrible thing in this mess it was not one person ,it was vennels, her staff,the law ,ALLpolitical parties, ,to a lesser state ,journalism and media ,not one of thousands of people stood up and came forward as they new it was horizon who in fact was the largest criminal factor
Contracts between commercial enterprises are better written than the contracts between government departments and commercial companies. One reason is to avoid lock-in. The failure of the Thatcher privatization is that civil servants don’t know how to write these contracts.
20 years later!! Recompense & ACCOUNTABILITY! The Post Office Horizon Fujitsu Michael Keegan Gillian Keegan Nick Reed Paula Vennells Morrisons Church of England Angela Van Bogerd Adam Crozier Alice Perkins Centerprise NOT from the Public Purse!!!
Could companies like Fujitsu and the American company that sold software to the NHS be classed as corporate racketeering? If not, then there needs to be a reform of the outsourcing process in the UK government, clearly too much money is being wasted and contracts are being awarded to the wrong companies.
Regardless of the amount of compensation decided by Gov. All the SPM that used their own money to try to resolve the matter should be reimbursed with interest from the salaries of those who made the accusations and followed them through very harshly even when knowing it was computer errors. Let them feel it in their own pockets. That would be only fair. Nothing will ever make up for what these poor people suffered for years.
For the UK we should only vote for independent candidates. Do not vote for any candidate that belongs to any political party. No existing political party has come out with any policies on any of the several current major issues concerning lies by business and government. Government does not consider it their responsibility to intervene when it is obvious that ordinary honest people are being wrongfully imprisoned on trumped up charges by a government owned business. A government that cannot protect people from such injustice is not fit to govern and must not be tolerated. Even listing some of the other issues here will lead to this post being censored.
Justice? Private prosecution by government agency in effect on basis of guilty until proven innocent? Parliament can surely differentiate on this test.
There is something noone seems to be talking about. That is who pays the compensation? In almost every case it seems it is the tax payer, us, and that wrong. Their are two very clear culprits, though individual names are unclear, and that is The Post Office with its prosecutions and Fujitsu in supplying such a faulty and untested product. If your washing machine doesn't work, you expect it to be fixed at the suppliers expense but computer software we accept as faulty. Fujitsu provide a faulty product and we pay them to fix it, or we scrap it with no penalty to them. It seems straight forward to me that government contracts must include a compensation clause requiring the supplier to compensate us for non performance. At least then suppliers will take a more realistic measure of the risks and costs of the scheme. Then they can quote more realistically and more truthfully show the risks and costs of out sourcing projects. On the subject of the Post Office prosecutions, anyone knowingly allowing innocent people to suffer penalties like this should themselves face at least equal penalty.
They may be later in the year when the inquiry concludes. It may be Senior Civil Servants played a role in the injustice too. The Government had a representative on the PO Board . Question who on earth tried to get Justice Fraser recused and at what expense.
Again though just as in the banking crisis, the water company scandal the narcissists at the top will walk away free (oh sorry one of them has to give back a meaningless title) and the good old tax payers will foot the bill not the disgusting individuals that perpetrated this crime.
Who was paying for the offices that were monitoring and accessing horizon terminals 24/7. Denied it was going on yet there must be a money tail. as the costs would be very high. Yet another giveaway on who knew what.
In the investigation why are the not looking higher up than just calling the investigator in. With this company. As he appears to not know many things about how this company and the engineering with this company works.
There has been over decades so much easy mockery of leftists who say that the justice system is always an agent of the upper class. Yesterday the universally affluent class of judges and prosecutors weighed in, saying that any direct remediation must be a one off, and is deeply concerning because the judiciary must be independent - in this case, independent enough to affirm convictions known to be by definition unsound.. That is a direct admission that the power relationship matters more than the stated goal of the institution. And all of hs after the farces of Blair's unpunished lies and Boris' blatant corruption. The truth is right in front of us... the justice system is designed to protect the rich. Call that observation of demonstrated fact whatever you want, marxist, communist, radical left. Doesn't matter anymore... we can all see that only the rich are granted a voice and safety from persecution.
I wonder if TV licensing will be the next big scandal to break. The way investigations and prosecutions are carried out is very similar, with the same adversarial and threatening approach…and poorly trained and bonus driven ‘inspectors’.
Failing to put in regulations for a decade even though the fire service and others said it was necessary, whilst taking money for property developers....
You asked why government contracts were awarded to Fujitsu . Do you think it could be because Gillian Keegan is in the Cabinet and her husband , Michael Keegan , used to be a big wheel in the Fujitsu company ? Could there possibly be a connection ?
when the computer programme makes decisions, and the humans believe the computer totally. The human becomes a criminal - because computers are never wrong.
How have you glossed over Ed Davey was hired by Herbert Smith Freehills until 2021 the very law firm whom was used by the Post Office to prosecute... He got in this time over £200K from this company for 6 hours a month to give "political advice"... But surely given Ed Davey Government role in the Post Office scandal.. that at best was a conflict of interest and worse flagging yet more corruption by government. I find it disappointing in your NS how you let your political opinions shape good journalism.
Wrong: the point of out-sourcing is very obviously not to get the best value for taxpayers money, it's to maximise the amount of money directed to tory party members, their friends and donours. None of them give a single crap, and never have, about how much public money is embezzled and / or wasted through corruption and incompetence.
This is an overwhelming miscarriage of justice, How they screwed up this bad is mind blowing
It's sadder that it takes a damn TV show for people in this country to ask for any form of justice.
You mean it took a TV drama to get the mainstream media interested. The inquiry was already running.
It took a TV drama for this to become well known. I think if more people had been aware before, then there would have been a public outcry much earlier. The MSM and MPs should have been blowing the whistle long ago.
When asked about Fujitsu's excessive involvement in UK government why does he conspicuously fail to mention it was the BRITISH company ICL which was given preferential treatment by UK governments long before this fiasco. Fujitsu is just the company who ending up owning ICL.
Also, did anyone ask - if these people where stealing it - where did it go? How come it wasn't in their accounts and why wasn't there any evidence of them spending it?
Agreed! Where was the "money trail"?
I worked a few feet away from a woman who defrauded our large multinational company of a very significant amount of money. She was always BEAUTIFULLY dressed, wore stupidly expensive shoes, was VERY generous to everyone. We thought it was because her husband was a bank manager on big bucks! No, she had a smooth little skimming scheme worked out - and it was a 'humble' bank teller who asked questions that brought it all tumbling down. You are so right - maybe the odd fraudster amongst so many might have carefully hidden the ill-gotten gains, but not such a large group. Many signs would have been apparent - flashy spending, gambling, high end dining, money transfers overseas..........people can't help themselves. And this on top of SO many emphatically saying they did nothing wrong - few people are really good liars. I really want to see heads roll and this will reverberate world-wide. Cheers from Oz!!
they put it into their profits it seems
Nothing will be learned. Those at the top will continue to cover up - typically through "inquiries" which take decades to conclude.
"The most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history" -- really in all of the UK's history? Ofc what happened with the post office was terrible, but the British state has done much worse to people in times past.
The ultimate irony … people went to jail and lost their businesses for sums as low as £10,000 because of a fake process (bad coding) while those who awarded a multibillion pound contract had no process of records at all
From day 1 this was corrupt fraud and everyone that touched it should go to prison - what’s good for the goose
We can say sorry in 20 years
20 years later 🙄
Recompense & ACCOUNTABILITY!
The Post Office
Horizon
Fujitsu
Michael Keegan
Gillian Keegan
Nick Reed
Paula Vennells
Morrisons
Church of England
Angela Van Bogerd
Adam Crozier
Alice Perkins
Centerprise
NOT from the Public Purse!!!
Royal mail are just as bad ,Simon Thompson CEO of Royal mail lied on oath to parliament about Tracked items not being prioritised over letters, shameful and left with a 700,000 pounds pay off 😢
as someone who had direct family who were held prisoner by the post office for over decades - every government from 2005 knew about this in some way shape or form. The real lesson is that the government did NOTHING to correct the injustice. Another lesson is, Rishi and Akshata are huge stakeholders in Fujitsu!
Absolutely shameful. All the politicians involved need to be held accountable.
As a historian who studies comparative democracies, a rather stark difference between the US and UK is: in the UK, the total dependence on government inquiries alone - sometimes, years after the offense - to attempt to address miscarriages of justice. To observers, it seems no one working or serving in UK government need fear serving time in prison for grievous misdeeds; and hence, a startling lack of accountability. While it may be a impossible to sue institutions outright, there ought to be legal avenues - beyond mere ombudsmen - for individuals at those institutions to be held more accountable in a Court of Criminal or Civil Law (depending on the nature of the wrong) at some point. While the UK probably and rightly takes pride in "preaching" to the World a brand of civility that eschews litigation in general (vis-a-vis, say, in the US), there is nothing civil about these kinds of blatant injustice; it is just cruelty to fellow-citizens. And... on one other note, if Fujitsu had done this in America, they would have been banned from bidding on any procurement contracts for some length of time - measured in years. Looking at the faces of all those postmasters wronged, I sense they are not seeking exoneration; but rather, vindication.
I appreciate that comment. Obtaining full and proper accountability from government institutes and large organisations for even the most self-evident wrongs appears to be a real problem. I've become immensely cynical watching public inquiries that seem begrudgingly initiated, take years to run and give nebulous conclusions about systemic failures. I suspect the Grenfell inquiry will do this.
Freddy - get some collar stays for your shirt😂!
The issue of accurate accounting in granting Govt. contracts is well made. It troubles me to think that the drive to outsource all these major projects and builds leads to a willing institutional blindness to under estimates of the costs.
I blame the judges. Their casual attitude to the fundamental rules of evidence and disclosure is frankly appalling. The fundamental check of an independent judiciary is demonstrable nonsense when incompetent judges effectively coloured with power. These judges should be put to work full time without pay to setasside all their own judgements when Horizon was allowed as evidence. This should be done in next few weeks. No need for legislation. And there must be scores of judges who have convicted 1700 people.
And what about making Fujitsu do a full scale forensic recalculation of all the data back to 1999 to ensure everyone , regardless of conviction, has 100% of the money stolen from them identified and returned plus a large fine in proportion to the theft. A suitable fine would be about 10x what was stolen.
Totally agree, the judges should be required to unravel the injustice they have enabled for no pay.
One of them asked for an IT specialist to check horizon. And the case was thrown out. Why didn't they all do that ?
I have really only just started watching your channel and it has lead me to take more of an interest in politics may be a tad too late but nevertheless an interest. So thank you for this. I and many.of my friends and colleagues are wanting a change in leadership. I am a frontline Paramedic and see from the sharp end the waiting, the under staffing due to poor pay. The lack of hospital beds. I have also worked in primary care, where GP's have ten minute slots to see patients, eating lunch at their desks, doing a myriad of different roles just to keep the health system going. What my question is if you get the chance to put to the health ministers, is what is their no bullshit answers to these problems. But most important of all is the direction of euthanasia recently brought back into the news. As majority of people I meet would want this as a choice. As I hear, you wouldn't treat an animal like that.
Oh dear, well settled caselaw establishes that parliament is NOT the highest court, and not even a court. That's why this proposal for blanket exoneration is an issue to be faced, but is also really the only way to do such a massive correction of unsafe convictions.
Yes, I was rather taken aback to hear in this podcast that parliament is the highest court. It most certainly is not! It is sovereign and can change, initiate and abolish laws, but it cannot interpret them. That's the business of the courts.
One other point to consider on why governments outsource, specifically for the public service, is that it allows them to shift blame away from the government to a third party. As highlighted in this talk, there is a lot of discussion of blame, and as long as that is the talk that causes people in public service to be worried about been blamed (and usually losing their job) so if they can outsource that, and say it wasn't me, all the better for them.
It is a transfer of our taxes to private company shareholders.
It’s a return to 18th century tax farming.
This isn't a uniquely governmental problem. I know of spectacularly bad procurement decisions for critical IT systems made in a range of sectors, including the financial and the non-profit. Staff at all levels can become very invested in maintaining those systems, typically in the belief that it is the basis of their job security. For that reason if you do choose to call things out you will probably be ignored, marginalized or sacked.
Why are the critical IT systems of our government and public organisations outsourced to foreign companies though? That’s just asking for trouble. It should’ve all been developed and maintained in-house.
Outsourcing, the scourge of previously State owned entities. Outsourcing has its place but on a much smaller scale.
At the end of the day, the real issue stems from the Post Office management (mismanagement). They oversaw the installation of the software, based on information that they provided to Fujitsu. Clearly due diligence was not carried out. That gels well with my experience of working for the Post Office throughout the 1980s. That was in Brighton. The managers were incompetent loons as the management structure was based entirely on length of service and seniority, not on ability. Is it any wonder that the entire back office functions were relocated to Hastings in 1990 and Brighton Head Post Office was empty offices for years before being turned into a restaurant! I expect that managerial posts within the Post Office are still highly paid sinecures. The structure of the Post Office needs to be totally overhauled and that dinosaur totally privatised.
Have Fujitsubeeninvolved in competitive tendering for this number of massive ongoing contracts. How can you. Be sure you are getting best value for money. Then to carry on and on with the same company because the systems are embedded. Thus making the whole thing far more extensive and far more open to corruption. Against the whole concept of competitive testing of costs.
The horrible thing in this mess it was not one person ,it was vennels, her staff,the law ,ALLpolitical parties, ,to a lesser state ,journalism and media ,not one of thousands of people stood up and came forward as they new it was horizon who in fact was the largest criminal factor
Contracts between commercial enterprises are better written than the contracts between government departments and commercial companies. One reason is to avoid lock-in. The failure of the Thatcher privatization is that civil servants don’t know how to write these contracts.
20 years later!!
Recompense & ACCOUNTABILITY!
The Post Office
Horizon
Fujitsu
Michael Keegan
Gillian Keegan
Nick Reed
Paula Vennells
Morrisons
Church of England
Angela Van Bogerd
Adam Crozier
Alice Perkins
Centerprise
NOT from the Public Purse!!!
Could companies like Fujitsu and the American company that sold software to the NHS be classed as corporate racketeering? If not, then there needs to be a reform of the outsourcing process in the UK government, clearly too much money is being wasted and contracts are being awarded to the wrong companies.
Regardless of the amount of compensation decided by Gov. All the SPM that used their own money to try to resolve the matter should be reimbursed with interest from the salaries of those who made the accusations and followed them through very harshly even when knowing it was computer errors. Let them feel it in their own pockets. That would be only fair. Nothing will ever make up for what these poor people suffered for years.
For the UK we should only vote for independent candidates. Do not vote for any candidate that belongs to any political party. No existing political party has come out with any policies on any of the several current major issues concerning lies by business and government. Government does not consider it their responsibility to intervene when it is obvious that ordinary honest people are being wrongfully imprisoned on trumped up charges by a government owned business. A government that cannot protect people from such injustice is not fit to govern and must not be tolerated. Even listing some of the other issues here will lead to this post being censored.
Justice? Private prosecution by government agency in effect on basis of guilty until proven innocent? Parliament can surely differentiate on this test.
Were this taking place in the US some of these folks would be sent down, will never happen in the UK.
There is something noone seems to be talking about. That is who pays the compensation? In almost every case it seems it is the tax payer, us, and that wrong. Their are two very clear culprits, though individual names are unclear, and that is The Post Office with its prosecutions and Fujitsu in supplying such a faulty and untested product.
If your washing machine doesn't work, you expect it to be fixed at the suppliers expense but computer software we accept as faulty. Fujitsu provide a faulty product and we pay them to fix it, or we scrap it with no penalty to them.
It seems straight forward to me that government contracts must include a compensation clause requiring the supplier to compensate us for non performance.
At least then suppliers will take a more realistic measure of the risks and costs of the scheme. Then they can quote more realistically and more truthfully show the risks and costs of out sourcing projects.
On the subject of the Post Office prosecutions, anyone knowingly allowing innocent people to suffer penalties like this should themselves face at least equal penalty.
As an accountant find it interesting that not only is the webpage for Horizon archived on the Fujitsu website but also its replacement. 🧐
Why aren’t the senior management, directors and chairman in the dock ?
They may be later in the year when the inquiry concludes. It may be Senior Civil Servants played a role in the injustice too. The Government had a representative on the PO Board . Question who on earth tried to get Justice Fraser recused and at what expense.
Again though just as in the banking crisis, the water company scandal the narcissists at the top will walk away free (oh sorry one of them has to give back a meaningless title) and the good old tax payers will foot the bill not the disgusting individuals that perpetrated this crime.
Who was paying for the offices that were monitoring and accessing horizon terminals 24/7. Denied it was going on yet there must be a money tail. as the costs would be very high. Yet another giveaway on who knew what.
forget about MP's, why is nobody investigating the system, look at the civil servants, they knew nothing?
In the investigation why are the not looking higher up than just calling the investigator in. With this company. As he appears to not know many things about how this company and the engineering with this company works.
There has been over decades so much easy mockery of leftists who say that the justice system is always an agent of the upper class. Yesterday the universally affluent class of judges and prosecutors weighed in, saying that any direct remediation must be a one off, and is deeply concerning because the judiciary must be independent - in this case, independent enough to affirm convictions known to be by definition unsound..
That is a direct admission that the power relationship matters more than the stated goal of the institution. And all of hs after the farces of Blair's unpunished lies and Boris' blatant corruption.
The truth is right in front of us... the justice system is designed to protect the rich. Call that observation of demonstrated fact whatever you want, marxist, communist, radical left. Doesn't matter anymore... we can all see that only the rich are granted a voice and safety from persecution.
A good example is the loopholes in our tax system for the wealthy elites.
I wonder if TV licensing will be the next big scandal to break. The way investigations and prosecutions are carried out is very similar, with the same adversarial and threatening approach…and poorly trained and bonus driven ‘inspectors’.
So, is this the new Golden Age, Rishi is promising us? Makes me shudder.
How about cladding scandal? Touching too many conservative donors ? Letting people die in an unsafe building is not a criminal act?
Failing to put in regulations for a decade even though the fire service and others said it was necessary, whilst taking money for property developers....
You asked why government contracts were awarded to Fujitsu . Do you think it could be because Gillian Keegan is in the Cabinet and her husband , Michael Keegan , used to be a big wheel in the Fujitsu company ? Could there possibly be a connection ?
Not sure he was there when the contracts were made. But I did hear that the Japanese government interfered to push the Fujitsu contract on us.
You didn’t mention ICL, that’s the reason Fujitsu are all over the UK government!!
Where was the New Statesman cutting edge journalists in all those years?
Dont blame ed davey , he blamed 34 mps should resign with less information than he had,whats good for the goose is good for the gander
Their own common sense should have told them that never mind the public outcry
The system is designed to protect itself.
Does Freddie have a court date?
I hope he wasn't going for a job interview
when the computer programme makes decisions, and the humans believe the computer totally. The human becomes a criminal - because computers are never wrong.
Sunak does not care. He just makes up a law. This will be as smart as his Rwanda law.
Corrupt practices then
What about the 3,500 suicides down to the DWP?
All talk and very slow action.. typical of a politician
Government machinery is working exactly as it's intended to and cannot be fixed only destroyed
Oh, well, that's very helpful. /s Who do you expect to clean the streets and run the hospitals then?
Freddie looks funny in a suit
Gestapo tactics.
How have you glossed over Ed Davey was hired by Herbert Smith Freehills until 2021 the very law firm whom was used by the Post Office to prosecute... He got in this time over £200K from this company for 6 hours a month to give "political advice"... But surely given Ed Davey Government role in the Post Office scandal.. that at best was a conflict of interest and worse flagging yet more corruption by government. I find it disappointing in your NS how you let your political opinions shape good journalism.
It does make it a tad more fishy-looking than if he had gone to work elsewhere.