Thursday 11 January: Communities felt the pain when sub-postmasters were falsely accused

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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518 thoughts on “Thursday 11 January: Communities felt the pain when sub-postmasters were falsely accused”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story (next Tuesday 16th, The Joke Book dies)

    THE PHONE
    A young man wanted to get his beautiful blonde wife something nice for their first wedding anniversary. So, he decided to buy her a cell phone. He showed her the phone and explained to her all of its features.
    Meg was excited to receive the gift and simply adored her new phone.
    The next day Meg went shopping. Her phone rang and, to her astonishment, it was her husband on the other end.
    “Hi Meg,” he said, “how do you like your new phone?”
    Meg replied, “I just love it! It’s so small and your voice is clear as a bell, but there’s one thing I don’t understand though.”
    “What’s that, sweetie?” asked her husband.
    “How did you know I was at Wal-Mart?”

    2. Good morning, Sir Jasper. Another good one. And seeing that you posted it 6 hours ago, I now see that Geoff opened this page at 1 am! Now look here Geoff, I’m already Confused of Colchester without you making matters worse. Lol.

    3. I don’t get it. If the husband didn’t know the wife was at Wal mart why is that funny? Why would she think he did know?

  4. Good morning folks;

    Consequences:

    Anne Smith
    12 HRS AGO
    I’ve posted under another article over this malfeasance by gvt; I referred to the distress caused to entire families about this terrible catalogue of theft and corruption.
    Then one starts to understand the sheer cumulative effect to every family involved and the financial implications. Unable to get decent employment, ruined standard of living, declared bankrupt, unable to give financial help to sons, daughters or grand-children through lack of money. And – very important – unable to SAVE FOR RETIREMENT, unable to have a decent pension pot, unable to take out a mortgage so unable to own their own home… and the appalling stress and strain leading to both mental and physical health problems.
    Think long and hard about what was inflicted on the innocent people – their families – and the long term financial hardship forced upon them.
    There is no punishment harsh enough for those who inflicted this cruelty.
    I have moved on from despising any gvt, never trusting any gvt, loathing any gvt
    – now I just H–E what ALL gvts over the last 20 years allowed to happen – AND all the politicians.
    Turned from loathing into H–E and UTTER CONTEMPT.
    We NEED a thorough CLEAR OUT – the HoL, the HoC, the Quangos – the civil service
    – the whole corrupt, contemptible lot of them.
    Wonder what their husbands/wives/partners/families really think about any member of their family who was involved in this ? Should be a lot of divorces/separations soon – or is it a case of take the money, close your eyes to any corruption ?
    Sadly no amount of compensation can restore what was taken from these people – hopes, ambitions, plans, health.
    And for that anyone involved in this should go to jail for at least 20 years – because they are the ones who inflicted a living hell on innocent people.

    2. Last night we watched an interview on TV of an aged sub-postmaster.

      It was a long rambling interview with an old man who had been completely worn down by events, but basically the

      facts were that one of his weekly returns was £275,000 short.

      NO one in the PO queried this amount suddenly missing from a minor post office in one week.

      NO one checked the figures.

      There was NO evidence of any money disappearing from the till. NO evidence of any change in the sub-postmaster’s lifestyle.

      NO one in the Proceeds of Crime department tried to discover where the money went.

      The only theme that was constant was the anxiety of the post office inspectors to prosecute so as

      to get their bonuses [PS Paula Vennells also got a bonus for every prosecution].

      And just to finish, NO effort has been made by the post office to retrieve those bonuses either from

      the post office inspectors or Paula Vennells.

      We think that the whole episode stinks. If you think so as well please give us an uptick.

      1. PS: A quote from one of the inspectors in the Daily Mail

        “Long-serving employee Gary Thomas told the Post Office Horizon inquiry an incentive scheme including ‘bonus objectives’ had influenced his behaviour as an investigator”.

      2. What i find interesting is that the first action of the Post Office wasn’t to hire a forensic accountant to say ‘what went in, where did it go. They didn’t have to investigate each one, just a small number. Get a completely third party to check income and outgoings and compare that to the facts.

        Yet the blind acceptance that horizon was infallible persisted. Why? Software is full of bugs, even the best sort. Why was it trusted so completely? Why when someone said ‘it’s changing before my eyes’ did no one flag this? Were they so desperate to avoid admitting failure?

        1. Very good comment Wibbling. Thank you.

          However as you can see in today’s Press, the attitudes of post office employees were biased by the bonuses paid for prosecutions.

          ….and as Ms Paula Vennells was also rewarded by bonuses for every prosecution one can truly say that this appalling scandal went right to the top.

          However all is not lost.

          It would appear that the Government is unwilling to reclaim the bonuses dishonestly claimed, but will use taxpayers’ funds to compensate the innocent.

    3. Yes, we do. The entire edifice is corrupt. I imagine ministers and civil servants, quangocrats were appointed on the basis of a couple of meetings a week, 80,000 a year salary bonus and were simply utterly uninterested in doing any work – certainly didn’t expect to do any.

      As a consequence of this no effort pocketing of tax payers cash they did absolutely nothing at every step to make their lives as easy as possible and completely ignored/were ignorant of the horizon scandal.

      They knew the statist Left would protect them, that the edifice of big government would shield them and Sunak is now happily enforcing that confidence.

  5. He can’t help himself, can he. From one idiocy to the next, he sinks lower and lower.

    Prince Harry to be inducted alongside Apollo 11 heroes Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as Legends of Aviation at glitzy Beverly Hills ceremony hosted by John Travolta – with the Duke being recognised ahead of the youngest person to walk on the moon

    By MATT STRUDWICK
    PUBLISHED: 01:27, 11 January 2024 | UPDATED: 01:38, 11 January 2024

    Prince Harry is to be inducted alongside Apollo 11 hero Buzz Aldrin as a ‘living legend’ of aviation at a glitzy Beverly Hills ceremony hosted by John Travolta.

    The Duke of Sussex, 39, has been recognised ahead of Charles Duke – who became the youngest person to walk on the moon in 1972 when he was aged 36.

    The decorated event will be hosted by John Travolta and has been previously been dubbed by actor Morgan Freeman as the Oscars of aviation.

    It is understood that his work with setting up the Invictus Games Foundation will also be celebrated, according to the awards. It is not clear whether Harry, or his wife Meghan Markle, will attend the ceremony.

    Harry being named on the list of inductees has raised eyebrows on social media with some left confused and questioning why he was included.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/11/00/79858955-12949471-Prince_Harry_s_work_as_a_British_Army_veteran_and_pilot_will_be_-a-91_1704934088417.jpg

    One person wrote on X, formerly Twitter: ‘I look forward to every other military pilot in the world being given the same award based on his accomplishments in that field.’

    Another added: ‘Is this a joke? What is the legendary stuff that he has done? I am asking seriously! What the heck has he done?’
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12949471/prince-harry-legends-aviation-beverly-hills-ceremony.html

    1. “If you prick me am I not a bleeder”

      (With Apols to the late Mr Shakespeare)

      Morning Michael.

  6. QUENTIN LETTS: Usually eager for a slot at PMQs, Sir Ed today gave the Commons a swerve – unavoidably detained elsewhere, possibly under a blanket with his fingers in his ears

    Sir Edward Davey was absent. The Lib Dem leader, who as you will know is one of the western world’s leading moralisers, had been offered a slot at PMQs.

    He gets one every couple of months and normally gobbles them down like a terrier with a gravy bone. This time he gave the Commons a swerve. Unavoidably detained elsewhere, it seemed. Possibly under a blanket with his fingers in his ears.

    The great ethicist therefore missed a question from Conservative rottweiler Lee Anderson (Ashfield) who referred to Sir Ed’s entanglement in the Post Office Horizon computer scandal.

    Mr Anderson, with his customary delicacy, thought Sir Ed should ‘clear his desk, clear his diary and clear off’.

    he moment he mentioned Sir Ed, MPs cried ‘where is he?’

    The small contingent of Lib Dems looked tearful. As Mr Anderson resumed his seat there was an unprecedented reaction from Labour benches: cheers. Normally they dislike big Lee intensely. Pleasure at seeing priggish Sir Edward coming a cropper trumped that.

    Sir Keir Starmer, whose dabs are also on the Post Office scandal, moved swiftly to another subject. Mrs Mussolini at a dinner party changing the subject after someone clumsily uttered the name of Signora Sarfatti.

    Rishi Sunak’s opening remarks had announced emergency legislation to exonerate Horizon scandal victims and give them financial redress.

    Sir Keir skated through a couple of sentences, saying what a rotten business it had all been. He then proceeded, at far greater length, to ask Mr Sunak about the small-boats Rwanda scheme.
    *
    *
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12947625/QUENTIN-LETTS-PMQs-Sir-Ed-Davey-Commons-absent-postmasters-post-office.html

    1. What a disgraceful example of a lack of leadership from Davey. A wannabee Prime Minister – I know, I know – has to be capable of handling tough questions with candour. Sadly, we’re still waiting for someone, wannabee or actual who meets that criterion, to turn up.

        1. Good morning, Elsie. I hope that you’re in fine fettle. I’ve cleared my bug but the cough is ongoing and has become a nuisance.

    2. With my cynics hat on I think Sunak is pushing this through to keep the entire thing under wraps. He’s hoping if he chucks the sub post masters a few hundred grand on the tax payer that the entire kitchen will survive the chaos it deserves.

      He wants to protect the statist Left, keep all the civil servants in their jobs and prevent any backlash that might uncover the corruption, incompetence nepotism, deceit and back handers. He doesn’t want to see personal accountability for fraud or malfeasance. He’s desperate to protect the state from embarrassment, same as all the other windbag wasters polluting that disgusting edifice.

  8. Poland Mini-Coup: Police Enter Presidential Palace to Arrest Former Government Ministers

    Police entered the Presidential Palace of Poland to arrest politicians of the recently dethroned right-wing government, after a fresh ruling by a court friendly to the new government.

    Former Polish Home Affairs Minister Mariusz Kamiński and deputy Maciej Wąsik were arrested by police on Tuesday, apparently part of a push to tie up loose ends by the newly installed globalist-centrist Donald Tusk government. The pair were taken by officers at the Presidential Palace after President Andrej Duda himself had left the building to attend a meeting.

    Duda has expressed his outrage at the “brutal” arrest of politicians at the official building, saying “I won’t rest until Minister Mariusz Kamiński and his colleagues are free people again, as they should be, until they are released from prison”. The President says the arrests were illegal.

    Poland’s recently unseated Prime Minister Mateusz Morawicki also spoke out against the arrests, praising his country’s post-Cold War achievements of ending political persecution, saying in the 35 years since the end of the Soviet Union “no one was persecuted in our country because of their political views, and no political prisoners were held”. This has now changed, he said, continuing: “For the first time since the dark days of totalitarian rule we have political prisoners in Poland. They are the former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński and deputy Maciej Wąsik.
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/01/10/poland-mini-coup-police-enter-presidential-palace-to-arrest-former-government-ministers/

    1. They go on and on about how Putin treats the opposition and as usual the Left are guilty of what they accuse him of. The only surprise is they didn’t do it in the middle of the night by balaclava clad men in unmarked vans.

  9. Gavin Mortimer
    France is suffering from Brexit derangement syndrome
    10 January 2024, 12:06pm

    The French media has been busy marking the third anniversary of Britain’s official departure from the EU by gleefully reporting the sorry state of perfidious Albion. ‘The shipwreck of Brexit’ was the headline in Le Figaro, while France’s business paper, Les Echos, declared that the majority of Britons believe leaving the EU has been a ‘failure’. A radio station broadcast a segment on ‘Bregret’, hearing from disenchanted Britons about how wretched life was without Brussels. ‘With Brexit, the country was supposed to slow down immigration, which is now at record levels,’ the broadcaster stated. ‘Public health services are short of money and manpower, despite being promised unprecedented resources.’

    There is a of course a small flaw in all this Gallic Schadenfreude, which is the state of the 27 countries still in the EU. As one leading economic advisor told Reuters in November: ‘The European economy has been flat on its back for a year (and) the monetary and fiscal policy plans for 2024 seem to accept the high probability of another lost year.’

    The year has started badly for the German economy with figures released this week showing that industrial output continues to decline.

    As for France, it too is experiencing huge levels of immigration and its once enviable health system is in crisis. Its economy is also in trouble, with downturn in growth forecast for 2024, which is expected to result in a rise in unemployment this quarter from 7.4 to 7.6 per cent. There is still some way to go before Emmanuel Macron achieves his aim of reducing unemployment to 5 per cent.

    One way the president plans to do this is by reforming the rights of the unemployed, including a restriction of their benefit payments. It would be a surprise if this shake-up wasn’t met with massive street protests, similar to those France experienced one year ago when Macron pushed through his pension reform.

    The man tasked with leading France through another turbulent year is Gabriel Attal, who replaced Elisabeth Borne as prime minister on Tuesday. Although the country is glad to see the back of the bloodless Borne, Attal does not inspire; one opinion poll reported that 52 per cent have no confidence in him.

    Perhaps it is Attal’s youth – he’s just 34 – or maybe it’s the fact that people see in Attal all the traits that make them despise Macron: too much entitlement and too few convictions. In other words, just another paid up member of the Parisian elite (at least unlike the provincial Macron, Attal hails from the capital, having grown up in a well-to-do neighbourhood).

    The other trait that Attal shares with his boss is a Europhilia that borders on the obsessional. Like Macron, Attal has a long track record of rubbishing Brexit and anyone who voted for this act of unspeakable heresy.

    Campaigning for the 2019 European elections, Attal called on the young to vote in order to avoid the fate of their British peers. ‘The young British didn’t want Brexit and today they are in the street opposing it,’ he tweeted.

    When a fishing dispute erupted between Britain and France in autumn 2021 Attal, by now the government’s spokesman, described Britain’s decision to grant a limited number of fishing permits to French boats in the Channel as ‘totally unacceptable and inadmissible’; this from a government that six months earlier had threatened to cut off the electricity to Jersey if it didn’t get its way.

    A few weeks later it was a different kind of boat angering Attal, the ones transporting illegal immigrants to England from France. When Boris Johnson made the public the contents of a letter he had sent Macron, in which he set out five measures to stem the small boats, Attal described it as ‘lacking in substance and inappropriate in form’. He added that his government have ‘had enough of double talk… of the constant externalisation’ of British problems to the EU in the wake of Brexit.

    Brexit has created problems for Britain, some of its own making and some caused by the EU, often egged on by Macron who, even before he came to power in 2017, had called Brexit ‘a crime’ and promised that in the event he was elected president he would make life tough for Britain in their brave new world.

    It’s hard to take issue with the French media’s assessment of Britain as a country creaking at the seams, but they’re wrong to blame it on Brexit. It’s poor leadership from a generation of mediocre politicians who lack intellectual gravitas and have little experience of life in the real world.

    The same applies to the French political class, and the German, and most of the other EU nations. That explains why a growing number of EU electorates are rejecting mainstream parties for those once considered on the fringe of European politics.

    History may well judge Macron and his protegee, Gabriel Attal, as the last of a dying French breed: fanatical Europhiles who are prepared to do whatever it takes to please Brussels.

    *********************************

    Tom Armstrong
    17 hours ago
    I’m an ardent Brexiteer and would vote Leave again. But the woeful state of the EU-occupied states gives me no pleasure. I hope they all see sense and skeddadle soonest.

    However, I accept that Brexit has been, if not a failure, not exactly successful – and for that the blame falls wholly on our mendacious, anti-British woke globalist ruling establishment, currently represented in office by the treacherous Tories. Nothing will change until that collection of conniving cnuts are consigned to oblivion.

    1. Matthew Lynn
      The EU is paying a high price for its Brexit pettiness
      10 January 2024, 11:46am

      It has formidable negotiating skills, at least according to its cheerleaders. It has huge economic clout. And it can impose its will on companies and rival governments. Given that we have heard so much over the last few years about the immense influence of the European Union you might have thought that a small matter like renting out an office block in London would be simple. But hold on. It turns out the EU will be stuck with a bill for hundreds of millions of euros for the buildings it abandoned in the UK – and its own pettiness is entirely to blame.

      According to reports this week, the EU faces charges of up to €450 million (£387 million) after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) quit its headquarters in Canary Wharf. The building was originally sub-let to the shared office space giant WeWork, but now that it has gone bankrupt it is back on the market. The trouble is, office space in Canary Wharf is about as popular as the former Post Office boss Paula Vennells right now. With the rise of working from home, the big banks and law firms are handing back their keys and moving to offices that are smaller, cheaper, and closer to the centre of town. The chances of the EMA finding a new tenant are close to zero.

      The result? It is now on the hook for €30 million (£26 million) a year in rent and bills, and since the lease runs until 2039 the total bill could be 15 times higher. It is, in other words, a lot of money, and is likely to blow a big hole in the budget of the medicines agency. And yet, this is a mess entirely of the EU’s own making. When the UK voted to leave, the EU could have decided that it was fine for the Medicines Agency to remain in London, at least until the EMA could either find a new long-term tenant, or else haggle out a compromise with the landlord that allowed it to leave a little earlier.

      Instead, it stalked off in a huff, determined that it was impossible for its staff to carry on working in a ‘traitor country’. The bill for that kind of pettiness is now falling due, and it is a very large one. The UK did not win many victories in the Brexit process, and ended up paying far more than it probably should have done to get out of the Union. Still, the €30 million a year collected on an empty office building in Canary Wharf is a small win – and one that can only be blamed on the small-mindedness of the EU officials that decided to abandon it.

      https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-eu-is-paying-a-high-price-for-its-brexit-pettiness/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMoni

      1. G’day, Auntie Elsie.

        We voted to leave the EU in June 2016, but the actual date of leaving was 31st January 2020. This means that, in three weeks’ time, we shall celebrate the fourth anniversary of leaving.

        1. Given that we have still not fully left, it will the the fourth anniversary of NOT leaving.

      2. We voted to leave. Three years ago, the government gave us Brino and pretended it was what we voted for.

    3. Brexit has not been a success simply because the state ensured it wouldn’t be. The hatred and spite the statist have for Brexit is boundless and they’ve spent every minute since fighting it. High taxes, uncontrolled gimmigration, welfare expansion, pursuing EU energy and water policy, company taxation – you name it, big government has done it, all to spite Brexit.

      1. Equity. What an appalling term. Hell, diversity is an appalling term, as for inclusion simply for the hell of it… no.

        Bugger off. When you can compete on a level playing field then we can talk. Until then, if you can’t do it, you shouldn’t be doing it.

    4. Nothing in this to get steamed up about. She google’d it and probably got a generic answer. Circuit patterns and short approach techniques vary from aircraft type to aircraft type and depend on aircraft weight, power and performance. It may be that at the airfield in question there is a published ATC procedure for short approaches for airspace reasons such as prohibitions on over-flying the hospital, mink farm or local billionaire’s villa, for example. Ignore.

  11. Good grief, Geoff, you must have posted today’s page a little early today because there are already (at the time of writing) 14 posts I can see. Anyhow, a warm Good Morning to and to all my chums on here. Enjoy your day. I’m out for my monthly curry meal with five friends later this evening which I am looking forward to.

  12. Wordle 936 5/6

    Five today:

    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
    🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Four for me. Should have got it in 3 – the 2nd attempt was a waste of time!
      Wordle 936 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  14. Good morning all.
    Another chilly but dry start, a mere ½°C above freezing and it’s still somewhat dark outside.

  15. Good morning. The news from Twitt…

    Omid Scobie
    @scobie
    Prince Harry is to be inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation hall of fame, joining other aviators who have made “significant contributions in the aerospace industry”, including Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. A ceremony will take place in Beverly Hills, CA on January 19.

    Shotover
    @ColonelShotover
    His service to the private jet industry ought to be recognised.

  16. Starmer to place nanny state at heart of Labour’s child reforms. 11 January 2024.

    Labour has vowed to “fight for the nanny state” to protect Britain’s children, under a raft of reforms.
    Children will be jabbed at home in a bid to boost vaccination rates under plans involving thousands more health visitors being trained and given expanded roles, The Telegraph can reveal.

    Sir Keir Starmer will announce the measures on Thursday as part of a Child Health Action Plan, which will also promise breakfast clubs for every primary school, supervised toothbrushing, a 9pm watershed for junk food adverts and a ban on vape adverts aimed at children.

    We have to face facts. Though the Political Elites of both parties are now totally unhinged, the coming Labour government will be even worse than the present. There’s really no hope. The West is finished. I am curious about one thing however. Did all the previous civilisations suffer the same fate? We know about the overt examples, the corruption, the orgies, the sexual perversions, the horse as Senator but was it wider and more insidious than that? There is of course no Nottl stele in Babylon or Rome. The peasant’s voices are silent. I suspect, that like the present, they unwillingly supported the decadent forces above them and suffered the same fate awaiting ourselves.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/11/keir-starmer-place-nanny-state-heart-labour-child-reforms/

    1. Here’s an idea. End child benefit so families stop having children they cannot afford. Radically cut taxes so parents can afford to properly raise their children. Stop offering ‘free’ anything, as the tax payer foots the bill for someone else’s poor life choices.

      It is up to a parent what their child watches, not the state.

      The problem is this isn’t just Labour. It’s Tories as well. They wanted Chocolate moved away from the checkouts and made hard to find. It’s an abomination of interference, spite and stupidity that doesn’t address the root cause: massive uncontrolled gimmigration, welfare and idleness.

  18. 381688+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 11 January: Communities felt the pain when sub-postmasters were falsely accused

    Thursday 11 January: Communities felt the pain when sub-postmasters were falsely accused, but four / five top league
    matches will erode the memory bank come the best of the worst selection time, it will be ” didn’t we have some issues with the post office hierarchy some time back” ?

    IMHO It is a very serious domestic issue being used as deflection material, taking the accusing eye from the worldwide issue and our part in the covid inquiry.

    Why the delay until after the General Election, is it so the governing parties names involved will not be tarnished,
    ( macabre laughter) the only reason I can see is
    delay = Electoral memory lapse.

    1. 381688+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Realistically the post office odious issue has, in time an ending, whereas the covid odious issue, incurs injuries / premature deaths that will be with us from GE to GE, ongoing.

  19. Corruption kər-up’shən, n the main synonym for politics.

    At every level, in every country.

    1. The proof? The number of politicians from average family backgrounds who become multi-millionaires through public office which yields a relatively modest salary compared to business and the ‘professions’,

  20. Good morning, all. Grey but dry outside.

    Fifty-nine years ago today, I became a solicitor. Not many people know that!

    1. Only about 120 people and possibly the entire 77th Brigade!!

      Good morning M. Thomas & Congratulations.

    3. Good morning and congratulations, Uncle Bill. PS – I think you are really Maurice Micklewhite and I claim my 5 bob postal order.

    4. Yo Mr T,

      Happy 59th anniversary

      Did you make much money soliciting?

      I understand some of the female species made small fortunes doing it

      2. He used to work part time for Mi6 as well! Courier into Eastern Europe. The guy in Tinker, Tailor etc. is based on Bill!

  21. Good morning all,

    A lovely dawn again at McPhee Towers. Frosty, wind in the North-East, -2℃ but expected to warm up to 4℃ today.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ed0d0c1aa29cfe648ab029456f64a7a8430dc021118aa6f9752c1a5011e892e.png

    Stella Currie tells the truth about modern Britain. Nobody cares about anything until it’s popularised on the idiot-box. “Computer says” is the real pandemic which is killing humanity ( has nobody heard of ‘garbage in, garbage out’?). Let’s not forget it’s the misuse of computers that have at the heart of it given us The Great Climate Lie and Convid. It’s almost impossible to get at the truth on anything in the news, at least not quickly, and by the time it’s out people have ‘moved on’. Except the small percentage of independent truth-seekers and dissidents. We must thank God for them. May they never be silenced, although the political mercenaries and prostitutes who rule us are having a damned-good try.

    1. Oh for goodness sake. Hysterical idiocy. Horizon was a system written by people who were using appalling practices. It ignored basic common sense. The civil servants and ministers appointed were placeholders offered a whacking great salary to do almost nothing.

      That’s the problem right there: the human element. Horizon the system didn’t go after Post Masters, the Post office staff did to cover the tracks of their ineptitude.

      1. She has a good point though. The human element was influenced by people’s belief that computers are infallible.

        Don’t forget that you come from a background of knowing how to assess software. Most people don’t.

        1. ..and the judges in these many prosecutions all took advice from the one

          “expert witness” that the post office had dredged up from somewhere.

          Shows an extremely high level of naivety in our judges.

          1. I suspect that their thought processes went something like this: How can a Cambridge graduate and high level managers be wrong and a lower middle class oik, probably a Brexiteer into the bargain, be telling the truth?

    2. I have a sneaking suspicion that something associated with AI is being used in our everyday lives now.
      We seem to have recently adopted some sort of interference with our TV sound systems. Has anyone else noticed how certain letters are being over emphasised in public TV speech.
      Cs, Ks, Qs, Ts, even Gs and Xs. As heard in south African Xhosa clicks.
      It’s almost impossible to pronounce most of these words as is this trend in normal speech, without a lot of extra time, effort and over emphasis.
      I expect it’s possible to run sound and human speech through broadcast sound and speech systems.
      Just sayin’…….

  22. The damaging decline of NHS general practice

    There’s not much inspection/diagnosis made down a telephone.

    NewsThe damaging decline of NHS general practice

    1. I’ve had a message telling me that my appointment that I am not aware of, perhaps it was the appointment this past Tuesday. Is going to be cancelled. And they will be writing to me.
      Appointment Tuesday very successful and satisfying treatment.
      My wife yesterday went to a reasonably local pharmacy as by our GP practice directed, to discuss a possible urine infection. The pharmacist asked her age (as if that matters) and (looks much younger than she is) because she is over 65 told her she would have to pay for advice and possible treatment. Even wanted to charge her 75 pence for a sample container.
      The care pattern is worsening out there now.

    2. I hear (R4) that the envy of the world has failed to meet any of its targets for the last 7 years (bar 2 minor indicators). Well, that’ll be gongs all round then..

      1. It its target was to piss listeners off by becoming a Woke parody of a news outlet, it has succeeded beyond its wildest ambitions

      2. It its target was to piss listeners off by becoming a Woke parody of a news outlet, it has succeeded beyond its wildest ambitions

  23. Morning all 🙂😊
    Very chilly outside this morning.
    I sincerely hope, but I doubt if people will be holding their breath. The perpetrators of these awful lies directed at all of these honest people who served their communities without malice or the suggested greed. I hope that the ‘they’ who did this, right to the top, are treated as deserved. There can be no excuses for all their lies whatsoever.

  24. Good morning all.

    Have been “chatting” with son and daughter about the Post office scandal and I’ve been wondering – now is it that the auditors for the PO did not pick up on any “missing money”? Wouldn’t they be the ones to notice that figures didn’t add up? I don’t understand how it wasn’t picked up by outside bodies. Or does the PO do its own auditing? Just pondering.

      1. “EY (Ernst & Young) will have to come up with some compelling and persuasive answers to the Williams Inquiry to remove the suspicion that they chose not ask the right questions, that they chose not to challenge the Royal Mail and Post Office. ”

        I hope they get held to account, otherwise what’s the point of external audits?

    2. Lagarde was found guilty of criminal negligence when head of the IMF but was somehow exonerated. Then they compound this by making her head of the European Central Bank. You couldn’t make it up.9

  26. 381688+ up ticks,

    In view of this surely tis time the peoples of decency formed their own deck of political /pharmaceutical allegedly feckless
    cards.

    Dt,

    Post Office paid out bonuses for every conviction under Horizon scandal
    Cash incentive handed to investigators revealed as Rishi Sunak vows all victims will be exonerated

    2. Quote from today’s Guardian:

      At the inquiry Blake points out that some of what was in a previous witness statement from Bradshaw was drafted by the PR department at the Post Office.

      Bradshaw says he did not know that. As far as he was aware, he says, the draft came from the lawyers.

      Back at the Post Office inquiry Julian Blake KC says Stephen Bradshaw, the Post Office investigator, seems to show a “lack of reflection” on his role in miscarriage of justice events in a witness statement he supplied.

      Bradshaw says he has reflected on what he said in his statement, because some of what he said was “completely wrong”. But he says he was told what he should say by lawyers.

  27. ‘Morning All

    Medley Time

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c11cc469cb560f7feeaac11e1f8ed0bb4a3e17911aa04a1a213f02de732fa8de.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c048b5e1acbcb14f187e018c1e137072794e9b450f4cc43b97db0f3c3d4ef029.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e9fb37843afa0098c812a169e741811d8094d276884a74cae297457e6d85cda.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17a8505cc616748dd6408c7067479f8f12a272a056aeb47bab675e8bfece1c6e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fc971d913419d9339921add46135e15833c614c7842901964b2fb124c9fa89b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2551423bc05d4577fd0f79e167325fd210270a2b1b743c9100d416163840af25.jpg

    Gud Boi!!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/132229d2d711aab3ef32918d6e86769437fb15b0bffe1ca39c7ebbb4268b4918.gif

  30. Scandalous Indoctrination: Inside a Kings College Counter-Terrorism Course for UK Civil Servants

    A former civil servant, Anna Stanley reports on a counter-terrorism course she attended which she found a deeply, existentially depressing experience. She argues that ‘prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination and that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

    I recently attended a Kings College course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’. Organised by the Centre for Defence Studies, it was designed for civil servants and professionals in Counter Terrorism. Staff from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and Home Office attended. Facilitating this relatively new 3 day course were senior lecturers from the Security Studies Department.

    The civil servants were given presentations by Kings College lecturers while Visiting Senior Research Fellows and Professors also spoke. These included those formerly holding positions such as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office and Director of GCHQ, Defence Minister and Foreign Office Director.

    The course was a deeply, existentially depressing experience.

    ‘Prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination. It confirmed my fears – that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

    Underpinning their presentations, some of the lecturers relayed typical post-modern identity politics.

    The course began with the issue of definitions. What is Terrorism? Without anyone providing an opposing standpoint, we were taught the adage, ‘One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’

    I posed to the room: ‘Surely we can acknowledge subjectivity while being able to come up with a collective understanding of what terrorism is?’ Some 40 civil servants looked at me blankly. No?

    I wondered why we were there.

    The danger of understanding terrorism with cultural relativism is that it breeds moral apathy; the kind that says ‘Who are we, mere democratic, liberal Westerners to impose our morality onto others? Who are we to say our culture is superior to others?’

    These are luxury attitudes. It is easy to be sat in Kings College London and feel that all cultures are equal, when you haven’t been anally raped at a peace festival by someone shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and held hostage. In the introduction to the course, labeling an organisation as terrorist was described as a problem because it ‘implies a moral judgment’. Nothing was said about why a moral judgment might be appropriate.

    All the civil servant participants were given a topic to research and present. One attendee said her brother had been radicalised and fought in Syria for Islamic State (ISIS). ’Phew’, I thought. At least one person here will understand the problems of extremism (!) Her presentation was about the UK’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, Prevent. She argued Prevent is inherently racist because it focuses on Islamist extremism. The mere mention of Islamist extremism makes Muslims ‘feel uncomfortable’, she argued. Her brother would most certainly have agreed.

    I raised the point that nearly 70 per cent of terrorist attacks in the UK are Islamist. Similarly, 70 per cent of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. It would be absurd to avoid mentioning this in the study of cancer so smokers don’t feel uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, this comparison was not well received.

    Later on, we were shown an ISIS propaganda recruitment video filmed in Syria. The same attendee’s face lit up. Laughing and pointing at the Jihadi in the video, ‘He used to go to my school! I know him!’ she exclaimed. Mouth agape, I looked around the room for responses to yet another disclosure involving personal links to ISIS terrorists. I appeared to be the only one to find this extraordinary.

    There was an irony to being surrounded by civil servants who hate the concept of the State. As young professionals, they represented a microcosm of the views emanating from British universities: When it comes to extremism and counter terrorism, the State is not to be trusted.

    The head of Security Studies at Kings College read concernedly, ‘Problems of Definitions: Labelling a group terrorist can increase the state’s power.’ The civil servants nodded in agreement.

    The visiting speakers were political heavyweights. Possessing genuine expertise with interesting anecdotes, their past responses to crises like the ‘Northern Ireland Troubles’ were referenced frequently. Yet I couldn’t help but feel many of their insights were lost by the audience.

    One attendee provocatively asked a former head of GCHQ whether he ‘felt bad infringing on our civil liberties in the pursuit of terrorists?’ Naïve and uninformed, the questioner had highlighted mainstream opinion that security services are routinely listening to innocent, random people’s phone calls or stalking their WhatsApps. Lacking was any appreciation the UK is exemplary. Protective legislation is laborious to the point of being near obstructive and investigations pursuing criminals and terrorists are rigorously audited.

    Israel was referenced throughout the course. We were told some consider Hamas terrorists as freedom fighters whereas Israel was provided as a prime example when considering the question of whether a state can commit terrorism. In the introduction, one slide read ‘Condemning terrorism is to endorse the power of the strong over the weak’, a dangerous conclusion breeding anti-Israel positions. In this perspective, Israel is seen as a powerful aggressor and the Palestinians militarily disadvantaged in asymmetric warfare. Thus, the Palestinians are inherently oppressed an axiom that fuels the view that Israel is a terrorist state and Hamas’ atrocities are justifiably ‘contextualised’. To call Hamas terrorist – as the BBC is so pointedly resistant to doing – would be to ‘endorse the power of the strong over the weak’.

    Another slide read, ‘Terrorism is not the problem, rather the systems they oppose are terrorist,’ reflecting post-modern identity politics wrapped up as counter terrorism education. Everything was viewed through the lens of power.

    While the lecturer did not explicitly present the slides as reflecting his own beliefs, he said nothing to counter them.

    I am grateful I attended the course before the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. I have no doubt the pogrom would have been contextually justified as ‘merely the oppressed countering the oppressor’; with Israel’s response described as morally equivalent (or worse) to the atrocities.

    None of the Counter Terrorism lecturers (bar two) posted about the attacks on their otherwise informative social media platforms. Of these two, one Professor wrote a RUSI Think Tank commentary, saying Israeli ‘crisis meetings could be affected by a desire for revenge’ and why ‘restraint in Counterterrorism is so important’.

    During the span of the course, there was no mention of immigration being relevant to terrorism in the UK, except as a view ‘given by the right wing’.

    The course’s overriding emphasis was that Islamist extremism is exaggerated. Right-wing extremism was given more weight than is proportionate. This is in direct conflict with William Shawcross’ findings, in the latest government commissioned review of its anti-radicalisation programme, Prevent.

    One lecturer derogatively described Shawcross as ‘the type of person who would say all current counter-terrorism professionals are woke…He is of that ilk.’ This of course discredited Shawcross to the course attendees.

    The lecturer further argued that Douglas Murray and Joe Rogan are both examples of the far right. ‘To what extent should Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray be suppressed?’ he asked. ‘They have millions of followers. To de-platform them would cause issues.’

    Concluding his talk, the lecturer told a room full of government professionals, ‘so, society needs to find other ways to suppress them.’

    1. Little wonder that they and programmes like Prevent magnify a million fold the threat of the Far Right. And yet it always a.muslim who carries out a Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena, or Borough Market. And all this cr@p maturated under 14 years of the Conservatives.

    4. When all this is unwrapped, they’re trying to argue black is white. It is pure doublethink to demand the state have more power to suppress opinions it disagrees with to endorse threats to the public by blaming the public for those threats.

      It is, simply put, madness.

    5. There was an irony to being surrounded by civil servants who hate the concept of the State. As young professionals, they represented a microcosm of the views emanating from British universities: When it comes to extremism and counter terrorism, the State is not to be trusted.

      The head of Security Studies at Kings College read concernedly, ‘Problems of Definitions: Labelling a group terrorist can increase the state’s power.’ The civil servants nodded in agreement.

      If only the state did use its power in respect of terrorists and other foreign criminals. That would be the correct use – for the protection of the nation.

      I don’t suppose there’ll be any discussions on the abuse of state power in 2020-21…

    6. There was an irony to being surrounded by civil servants who hate the concept of the State. As young professionals, they represented a microcosm of the views emanating from British universities: When it comes to extremism and counter terrorism, the State is not to be trusted.

      The head of Security Studies at Kings College read concernedly, ‘Problems of Definitions: Labelling a group terrorist can increase the state’s power.’ The civil servants nodded in agreement.

      If only the state did use its power in respect of terrorists and other foreign criminals. That would be the correct use of power – for the protection of the nation.

      I don’t suppose there’ll be any discussions on the abuse of state power in 2020-21…

  31. A pet peeve of mine is the effect of the changes (Blair again) in the way judges are appointed here is just one example………….

    DM
    “Immigration judge teamed up with crooked lawyers to fleece
    taxpayer out of £1.8m in false legal aid claims over case of Indian
    restaurants employing illegal workers, court hears.
    Rasib Ghaffar, 54, denies conspiracy to commit fraud with six others.
    Ghaffar, a
    qualified barrister and part-time immigration judge denies conspiracy
    to commit fraud by false representation with six others including a
    fellow barrister, solicitors, clerk and costs draftsman.
    Paul
    Sharkey, prosecuting, explained that Ghaffar’s wife, solicitor Kareena
    Maciel, 51, who has been found unfit to stand trial due to medical
    problems.
    Mr Sharkey said solicitors Azhar Khan, 52, and Joseph
    Ameyaw-Kyeremeh, 72, along with barrister’s clerk Gazi Khan, 52 have
    already been convicted of their involvement in the conspiracy.”

    2. This would be regarded as a justifiable perk in the sub-continent. I have nothing against Indians, they just have a different attitude to these things.

    1. “Then in 1993, The Washington Post reported that evangelicals were largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.” Did they also point out that Mohammedans are largely low IQ, ignorant and obedient upon pain of death?

      1. Errr….
        They wouldn’t wish to be bombed?

        In the USA Islam hasn’t got close to the concentrated critical masses of European towns and cities.

    2. “He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a naughty Billionaire….”

      (With apols to the Python team)

  34. Good morning, all. Bright with cloud after a frost overnight.

    Whitewash, kicking the can down the road, cover-up etc. Words fail. This decision is breathtakingly rotten.

    Clearly, those responsible for introducing and promoting this potion must be worried: those who forced this potion onto people under threat of losing their job etc. must be terrified. And rightly so.

    https://twitter.com/lensiseethrough/status/1745358216500764713

    1. Nooo, it’s not cowardice. It’s just what the state does. Hide the truth, avoid facts, lie about problems, deceive at every turn.

  35. Rod Liddle
    My wish for Ed Davey
    From magazine issue:13 January 2024

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Rod-Getty-1.jpg

    Has Ed Davey resigned yet? Being a man of great decency and honour, I assume he has, leaving the party to be led by Velma from Scooby-Doo. If he hasn’t yet resigned – and from his statements at time of writing it doesn’t look as if he has that intention – then I hope he is hounded on every step of the electoral trail this year by furious postmasters and mistresses. May they ambush every photo op, like a tribe of incandescent hobbits. Yes, there were at least ten other government ministers, from all three major parties, who should feel some sense of culpability, but Davey’s tenure as Post Office minister came at a fairly crucial time in the proceedings, between 2010 and 2012. We are reminded too that Davey finds it difficult to open his fat mouth without calling for someone’s resignation and so it is gratifying to see the boot on the other foot and kicking with great vigour.

    The Horizon scandal is being called Britain’s greatest ever miscarriage of justice, given that more than 700 postmasters and mistresses were hauled before the courts, given criminal convictions and in many cases rendered bankrupt simply, it would seem, because the Post Office bureaucrats refused to consider that perhaps their Fujitsu software accounting system might be a little flawed. Instead, disdaining Occam’s razor, they wedded themselves to the highly unlikely proposition that hundreds upon hundreds of frauds were being carried out across the country by their employees.

    If they had paused for one moment to weigh up the probabilities at work, they would surely have suspected that the problem lay with IT, not the workforce. But they either couldn’t do that, or didn’t do that, presumably because they would have been forced to take the rap for installing such a staggeringly useless system, which one outside invigilator, a man called Jason Coyne, described as being frequently not fit for purpose. The Post Office’s response to Mr Coyne’s analysis was, effectively, to sack him and take no notice of what he had discovered. This is so often the case with ‘whistleblowers’ in bureaucracies – they are usually at first ignored, then defamed and finally kicked out.

    Some of those postmasters and mistresses committed suicide, and I suppose the other scandal is that people like me didn’t really get involved in the story until Toby Jones had made it intelligible. The greater interest now is a consequence of Jones’s (as usual) excellent portrayal in an ITV drama of a wronged postmaster who refused to back down.

    When I began to read about the issue in a bit more depth it reminded me of the Cleveland child abuse scandal of 1987. Some 121 children were removed from their families because two paediatricians at the (then) Middlesbrough Hospital, Marietta Higgs and Geoffrey Wyatt, reckoned they were being buggered by their parents. They came to this conclusion having employed a new testing procedure on the children called ‘reflex anal dilation’. This was basically poking a pencil up some child’s bum and seeing if the sphincter muscle dilated.

    Much as with the Post Office business, any notion of comparative probability was dismissed. Their procedure – which, to my mind, counts as serious child abuse all by itself – could not possibly be wrong, they told themselves. A wokeish ideology on the part of the doctors and class differences undoubtedly played a role in the Cleveland scandal; indeed, the two doctors still believe they made the right diagnoses and, far from apologising, have demanded a new investigation, despite repeated verdicts from chief medical officers that the horrible testing procedure had been unreliable.

    But there are plenty of other more recent scandals which stem directly from either top-ranking or middle-ranking bureaucrats closing ranks to save their own backsides and thus making the situation a hundred times worse further down the line. It happens at least once a year in the BBC, for example, the most notorious examples of late being the corporation’s refusal to see anything remiss in the behaviour of Jimmy Savile, and last year’s imbroglio over Huw Edwards.

    The process is almost always as follows: someone in the BBC does something naughty or wicked and, when a member of the general public complains, the corporation airily wafts it away: nothing to be seen here. Then the BBC’s own journos start wondering a little – Meirion Jones in the Savile case and Newsnight in the Huw Edwards business. Then the press gets involved and finally the BBC is forced to ’fess up – and a much bigger mess is left behind than if they had acted upon the original complaints, rather than hoping that they would go away. They never do go away: when will our institutions learn that?

    There is a very similar story to be told about our, euh, magnificent National Health Service, both with the professional high-handedness and malpractice of doctors in the contaminated blood scandal and the more recent case of the psychotic nurse Lucy Letby. Had the numerous whistleblowers – largely consultants – been listened to, Letby would probably not have got away with murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six more. But it was easier for the authorities, with their rotas, to stand by Letby than to launch an investigation which might rebound horribly upon the hospital and thus upon themselves.

    This is the thing about whistleblowers – initially their revelations do create short-term instability for whatever institution they are exposing. The purpose of bureaucrats is to prevent instability, short-term or otherwise – and so the whistleblowers are always ignored, defamed or exiled. And as a consequence the problem becomes a crisis and then, a little further down the line, a scandal. This is a huge flaw in the bureaucratic ideal, and one which unfortunately was not foreseen by the sociologist Max Weber, who believed that a strict hierarchy and a nice, strong set of rules would eliminate corruption. How wrong he was.

    *********************************

    Robin_Guenier
    3 hours ago edited
    There’s an absolutely gigantic scandal – Net Zero – rushing upon us. It’s almost unbelievably foolish: unachievable, socially and economically disastrous and completely pointless. Yet, despite many voices pointing out its absurdity, our political masters are determined to foist this ruinous policy on the country.

    Although most people and households in the UK are already being hurt – increased energy bills, low traffic zones, ULEZ, absurd speed limits, phasing out of reliable and affordable cars, heat pump requirements, the industrialisation of the countryside, etc. – all this is just a taster of what’s to come unless the madness is stopped.

    And, if the politicians were to stop for a moment and listen to the critics, it would not be too late to do that. But will they? Experience says it’s unlikely.

    Nikephoros Phokas Robin_Guenier

    Thank you for constantly raising this issue, Mr Guenier.
    Any electrician, Grid engineer etc knows that Net Zero is impossible within current timescales and with current technology.
    A major infrastructure investor I know says that even civil servants in Westminster know it’s unsustainable, but that politicians, who won’t be around when it all goes hideously wrong, have swallowed it hook, like and sinker.

    1. Well said, Rodney.

      Each second more and more mountains of clear, irrefutable and irrebuttable evidence is presented that conclusively shows that the human species has been, for a long time now, completely unfit for purpose.

      2. It only occurred to me today (i know, i know) that this thrusting upon us of “plant based alternatives” such as soymilk to meat and, yes, the bugs, and the rewilding, and the other attacks on farmers, is a genuine attempt to shut down production of normal healthy food so we are all living on terrible diets in our 15 minute neighbourhoods. And what will they do with the farms (and I was too stupid to work this out till this morning)? Of course the land will be built upon, to accommodate the diverse “black and brown people” from other parts of the globe. It’s been 50 years – and 30 since Bliar and his gang started the process of “rubbing our noses” in diversity – and you have to admit they have been very good at what they have done and I think they will succeed.

        1. The accommodated black and brown people on our agricultural lands will be fed on Gates’s fake foods. We will be dead, of course. This is what the protests are about in Germany and the Netherlands.

        2. Problem is they’ve gone from rubbing noses to covering us in excrement and no showers allowed.

    2. The point of Net Zero is to give the peasants something else to think about so that they will be too cold and hungry to come after the parasite class with pitchforks when the dollar crashes.

    3. Looking at the picture Davey is as keen as mustard (or is it rape?) to evade the consequences of his foulness!

  36. A different take on the approach Biden may well take towards Trump, Hitler comparisons.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/sign-of-the-times-2/

    Okay, sport fans, according to Joe Biden the Donald is the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, so if you value your freedoms, do not vote for Trump or you’ll be seeing storm troopers marching down Fifth Avenue. Biden gets his ideas from The New York Times, the paper that prints only news that fits its extreme lefty agenda, and opinions whose virtue signaling is valued above truth or fact. I rarely read the Times, but when I do I find it amusing because it’s such an obvious con as a newspaper: ultra-woke, pro-migrant, anti-Catholic, pro-minority, anti-cop, pro-criminal, antiwhite. Turning Trump into Hitler was a natural, except that the Führer managed to win two Iron Crosses in World War I before ruining the greatest country of Europe in World War II. (The Donald did not serve.)

    The irony is that Trump is as far removed from Bismarck as he is from Hitler, but how would the Times or Biden know all that? The rag used to be reliable but is now a joke, run by woke-crazed numbskulls desperate to exclude anyone who disagrees with woke mandates. Biden has never been employed and has lived off the national trough ever since he finished among last in his class in a very undistinguished place of learning. So he picks up the baton passed to him by the Times that a Trump presidency will turn into a dictatorship and presto, Adolf is back in the news and this time no more Mr. Nice Guy.

    1. There’s a comical irony that the Left are unable to see how evil, oppressive and authoritarian they are. This is obviously deliberate as the doublethink would cause psychosis (most are there already). They struggle with self regard, to look at their xenophobia, their terror of democracy, their hatred of choice, their removal of personal liberty – for your own good, of course – as bad things so utterly dementedly obsessed are they with having to be right.

      I think this is just to prevent the truth creeping in. Reality and facts are like sunlight to the fictional vampire – thus why truth is an allegorical bane for the murderous actions of Count Dracula: he is forced to see what he has done and cannot face it, so to are Lefties left broken by the horrors they force on others.

  37. Laura Gascoigne
    The killer satire of James Gillray
    I emerged from this show breathless with astonishment at the daring of his attacks. The Georgians had a nerve. Are we losing ours?
    From magazine issue:13 January 2024

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Exhibitions-1.png
    ‘Taking Physick; or The News of Shooting the King of Sweden!’, 1792, by James Gillray. Collection: B. Lemer

    James Gillray: Characters in Caricature
    Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, until 10 March

    ‘I hope the day will never come when I shall neither be the subject of calumny or ridicule, for then I shall be neglected and forgotten’, is how Samuel Johnson greeted the news that James Gillray had caricatured him as Dr Pomposo. In Georgian London, a caricature was a fast-track to celebrity. And, as described by one contemporary observer, the print shop window was ‘the temple of fame in grotesque’.

    Gillray was chiefly responsible for this. When he emerged on to the print publishing scene in the 1780s, the British art of ‘caricatura’ – an Italian import – was in its infancy. It grew up fast. Gillray, who had misspent part of his youth as a strolling player, invented a wittily scripted visual theatre of the absurd, uniting brilliant draughtsmanship with a fluency in mirror writing that rivalled Leonardo’s. It was a killer combination.

    For modern audiences, the problem with Gillray is that without a grasp of the politics of the period, his best shots are liable to fly over their heads. For the current Gillray exhibition at Gainsborough’s House – the first in 20 years – his biographer Tim Clayton has sensibly focused on the most famous of his cast of characters. Nobody – apart from Nelson – is spared. Lèse-majesté was his stock-in-trade: in ‘Taking Physick; or The News of Shooting the King of Sweden!’(1792) George III and Queen Charlotte are shown sitting on a double commode as William Pitt announces some bowel-loosening news.

    For an audience that, pre-modern mass media, had little idea what public figures looked like, Gillray rendered his favourite targets instantly recognisable by judicious exaggeration: the corpulent Prince George straining the buttons of his waistcoat and breeches in ‘A Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion’ (1792); the ascetic Edmund Burke stripped down to specs, nose and bony hands in ‘Smelling out a Rat; or The Atheistical-Revolutionist disturbed in his Midnight “Calculations”’ (1790); the lanky Pitt contrasted with the rotund Albinia Hobart in ‘A Sphere Projecting against a Plane’ (1792), illustrating Euclid’s principle that a plane, ‘when applied ever so closely to a sphere, can only touch its Superfices, without being able to enter it’ (see below). The bachelor prime minister whom Gillray dubbed ‘the bottomless Pitt’ was famously virginal.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Artsopener.jpg
    ‘A Sphere Projecting Against a Plane’, 1792, by James Gillray. Collection: Donald Coverdale

    Gillray worked for various publishers, but from the 1790s almost exclusively for Hannah Humphrey, lodging above her shop in St James’s and caricaturing the influencers of the day for her female clientele. By then, political satirists were feeling the heat. A month after the publication of ‘Taking Physick’ a royal proclamation clamped down on seditious writings; Gillray retorted with ‘Vices overlook’d in the New Proclamation’ (1792) showing the royal family indulging in avarice, drunkenness, gambling and debauchery: ‘Vices, which remain unforbidden by Proclamation… in place of the more dangerous Ones of Thinking, Speaking & Writing.’ Touché.

    But in January 1796, Gillray was charged with blasphemy for drawing an innocuous parody of the Wise Men. After an interview with George Canning, who had been badgering him for a caricature, the charge was dropped; 18 months later he was on a government pension.

    Had he sold out? Although a liberal at heart, Gillray was always even-handed in dishing it out and, in an age before PR companies, caricaturists were political pen-slingers for hire. Initially sympathetic to the French revolutionaries, after the outbreak of war with France he was recruited as a highly effective government propagandist: his image of ‘Little Boney’ as a vertically challenged tyrant has stuck (the Corsican was actually above average height). But his famous cartoon of Napoleon and Pitt carving up the world between them, ‘The Plumb Pudding in Danger; or State Epicures taking un Petit Souper’ (1805), was a general indictment of geopolitical greed.

    Brought up, like William Blake, in the Moravian evangelical Protestant church, Gillray was a born dissenter, a depressive and a workaholic. His relentless rate of production took its toll: no creative brain could keep up that stream of ideas without consequences. Following the loss of his two lead characters, Pitt and Fox, in 1806 and at risk of losing his sight, he began to lose his mind. In July 1811, he tried to throw himself from the attic of Humphrey’s shop and had to have his head prised from between the window bars by a chairman from White’s. Four years later he was dead, aged 58.

    Two centuries on, a collection of Gillray cartoons remains a wild ride. I emerged from this one breathless with astonishment at the daring of his attacks and the admirable sang-froid with which his subjects suffered them. Martin Rowson and Steve Bell, who both cite the Georgian cartoonist as a major influence, were censored or sacked by the Guardian last year for far less. The Georgians had a nerve. Are we losing ours?

    1. Is the writer unaware of Bob Moran?

      Matt is still my favourite though – he has managed to get some hefty swipes in at the Establishment over the last few years too.

    4. That is not a commode; it isn’t even a close stool – it is a lavatory in a house of easement.

  40. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69062d9083d8180094dc04c7b88526082aca2ec4dfd2cf0fccfd1e41d5e2155c.png

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/establishment-jews-have-appeased-islamism-and-abetted-the-rise-in-anti-semitism/

    BTL – Percival Wrattstrangler

    If you support Israel and condemn the barbarity of Hamas’s Genocidic attack on Jews on October 7th you now risk being branded as Islamophobic and racist.

    If a Jew is terrified of being attacked, raped or murdered by a Muslim because he or she is a Jew then this can no longer be described as a mere phobia – it may well be a very real terror.

    The word Islamophobia is inappropriate – indeed implying that infidels who fear Islam are racist is nonsense.

    1. He is right. There is no such thing as Islamophobia. What there is is a very healthy distrust, fear and loathing of Islam based on history and World terror incidents of the last fifty or so years. One of the very best educators on this subject is Dr Bill Warner through his website https://www.politicalislam.com. A look through his archive should be enough to convince anyone who still sits on the fence about the evil nature of this creed/way of life/way of conquest.

      1. As with much mental conditions, it becomes a disorder only when there is no rational reason for it. If there is good cause, then it is a normal reaction, not a disorder. Not every normal reaction is pleasurable, and very many are actually essential to survival.

        I once knew an Islamophobe. She was my girlfriend at the time, and were in a shopping mall in Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao, a province that has trouble with a conflict between religious separatists and equally religious loyalists very much akin to Ireland during the Troubles. We wandered outside to explore the city, but a gentleman in a white robe minding his own business wandered past. She gave a little squeak and bolted back inside the shopping mall, refusing to come out. There was no rational explanation other than a general alertness about Muslim organised criminals on the island. I put it down to Islamophobia.

        Do you believe in a sixth sense, whereby some people evoke the hairs on the back of the neck and the fight-or-flight instinct to take over before there is any chance to rationalise it? Many times, these intuitions turn out to be valid, and these fears are normal and part of the survival instinct. I would not then refer to it as a mental disorder.

        We seem to have lost the capacity, for political-fashion reasons, to discriminate accurately, but perhaps this is a skill that is sorely needed?

        1. Now I know that Fujitsu admin can press a button on their keyboard and make untraceable changes to Horizon transactions I have developed PostOffobia! 😱

    2. He is right. There is no such thing as Islamophobia. What there is is a very healthy distrust, fear and loathing of Islam based on history and World terror incidents of the last fifty or so years. One of the very best educators on this subject is Dr Bill Warner through his website https://www.politicalislam.com. A look through his archive should be enough to convince anyone who still sits on the fence about the evil nature of this creed/way of life/way of conquest.

  43. 381688+ up ticks,

    Just musing, but would it not be an idea to supply the councils

    with electric fire engines, thereby allowing them to work from home.

  45. Just frightened a fox from our garden, just by rattling the door handle. It was very beautiful, sleek, handsome and very well fed. Not by us!

    Meant to say the other day that I saw two blackbirds fluttering up and down together. Really lovely. If that was their courtship it didn’t take very long.

    2. Two dead foxes on my way to work this morning.

      I am no fan of foxes, especially in town. But I also don’t like to see ones hit by cars, dead by the side of the road.

      1. It used to be that if you see foxes as roadkill, chances are you live in a hunting country. If you see mainly rabbits dead on the road, chances are you don’t (the foxes will have been all shot rather than culled). What happens know heaven knows; foxes are shot, gassed, snared and poisoned. Such indiscriminate killing can’t be good for the species.

  46. Look at the pictures. Who do they think they’re trying to fool?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12942339/What-average-British-family-look-like-2095-according-science.html

    Revealed: What the average British family will look like by 2095, according to science
    Scientists predict the average family will be both smaller and older by 2095
    The average person will have more grandparents and fewer cousins and siblings

    Unless of course all the TV advertisements and TV programmes are lying to us as to what currently represents a typical British household.

    1. Talking of advertisements. Is anyone else irritated by the constant dropping of t in words? I’m no a perfect user of the language by any means but it jus grates so much. (Can’t think of a single example now – typical!).

      Ah, “the fear of doin i wrong” (on radio) pop with excimen , see websi for details. Grrr

    1. It always used to be possible to bypass the application, go into a database and modify data directly. I must admit to correcting a few systems in that manner and the audit trail was not always that complete.
      However, that is a memory from the past, the last systems I worked on encrypted all of the data so even if I could bypass the firewall, I couldn’t make head nor tail of anything.

  48. Well, this is going to be a good day! There appeared in a couple of my classes a most ridiculously handsome young man – the epitome of the Disney prince (even the modern versions, seeing as what he’s Indian). He can dance, too!

    Chatting to him, he said he was reluctant to go out to milongas on his own, as he’d feel more comfortable asking women to dance he already knew.

    Selflessly, therefore, I offered to accompany him tonight… 😉

    Good thing I have my head firmly screwed on! 🤣🤣

      1. And now the pinnacle of sophistication in entertainment is occupied by Dant and Eck. No wonder our civilisation has come to an ignominious end.

      2. And now the pinnacle of sophistication in entertainment is occupied by Dant and Eck. No wonder our civilisation come come to an ignominious end.

      3. His published diaries are worth a read. While living in Jamaica he was invited to a formal function where Princess Margaret was to be the guest of honour. The invitation stated that the princess must not be asked to dance with a black man (imagine the stink if that happened now) so Coward replied that she should try it as she’d find that they’re much better dancers than she’s used to!

          1. What a talented man he was! If I remember correctly, there wasn’t much he could not do.

          2. In those days if you were black you needed to have talent to succeed; now all you need is to be black.

  49. Ireland’s pro-immigration elites are driving the country to the brink. 11 January 2024.

    Ireland is starting to see the downsides of immigration. Will it now follow in the footsteps of the European continent and cede the debate to the far-right, giving them a monopoly on speaking uncomfortable truths?

    Hopefully they will overthrow the government and hang its leaders and then the rest of Europe can follow suit!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/11/leo-varadkar-dublin-ireland-mass-migration/

    2. 381688+ up ticks,

      Afternoon AS,

      Must disagree on the hanging point, life meaning life yes, hanging no.

      Lest we forget,

      e Tragic Life, and Death of Timothy Evans

      Centre for Criminology | University of South Wales
      https://criminology.research.southwales.ac.uk › tragic-…
      Three years after Timothy’s execution, John Christie was found to be a serial killer who had killed six women in the same house. A royal pardon was eventually …

  50. EXCLUSIVE’Prince Harry is NOT a Living Legend of Aviation’: Ex-Royal Navy chief slams ‘pathetic publicity stunt’ after Duke beats British astronaut Tim Peake to win aviation award – as top colonel says royal wasn’t even at the controls of Afghanistan helicopter
    Lord Alan West lashed out at Harry being named a ‘Living Legend’ in aviation
    The Duke pipped fellow Apache pilot-turned-astronaut Peake to the accolade

    A defence chief has hit out after Prince Harry beat history-making British astronaut Tim Peake to be named a ‘Legend of Aviation’ for his work flying an Army helicopter in Afghanistan.

    The Duke of Sussex, 39, has been recognised for the gong ahead of fellow veteran Apache gunship pilot-turned-astronaut Peake, 51, who in 2016 became the first British astronaut to walk in space during a trip to International Space Station.

    Harry will be inducted next Friday at a glitzy awards ceremony hosted by actor and aviation ambassador John Travolta in Beverly Hills, California and where VIP tables can cost £30,000.

    The Duke bagged the award despite only ever being ‘number two’ in his helicopter, acting as a gunner in Afghanistan – with his gong success today branded a ‘pathetic’ publicity stunt by Lord Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy.

    Reacting to Harry’s accolade, the Cold War naval commander told MailOnline: ‘He is not a living legend of aviation. To suggest he is, is pathetic. It makes the whole thing seem a bit of a nonsense if they’re willing to pick someone like Prince Harry.

    ‘He is not a living legend. There are lots of people who deserve to be called this but not Prince Harry. I find it extraordinary he has been picked.

    Prince Harry’s service compared to Tim Peake
    Time in the British Army:

    Harry – 10 years

    Tim – 17 years

    Highest rank achieved:

    Harry – Captain

    Tim – Major

    ‘He didn’t carry off any great exciting feat of amazing flying skill while flying for the Army.

    ‘They’re just trying to get publicity. They know it will cause a stir. I find the whole thing really rather pathetic.’

    Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp also lashed out, claiming the awards were about ‘celebrities massaging each other’s egos’.

    ‘I can think of many people who did pretty extraordinary things while serving in the British and American armed forces which would be much more deserving of an award like this.’ he told The Sun.

    He added: ‘It is obviously because of who he is – not what he did. An Apache is crewed by two people – a pilot and a gunner. Harry was a gunner. He was number two in the aircraft.’

    The decorated event has been previously been dubbed by actor Morgan Freeman – who has also been hailed a ‘living legend – as the Oscars of aviation.

    Harry will be joining a host of famous faces, including Apollo 11 hero Buzz Aldrin, Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford, who are both qualified pilots, and billionaires Elon Musk and Jeffrey Bezos, who own their own space businesses.

    Former ‘living legends’ are involved in nominating and selecting the next generation of inductees, with the likes of Travolta, Bezos, Ford, Freeman and Musk among the high-profile stars who would have been able to have a say in the move.

    Lauren Sanchez, the 53-year-old fiancé of Amazon founder Bezos, is also set to receive an accolade at next week’s gongs, being presented with the Elling Halvorson Vertical Flight Hall of Fame Award, highlighting her work in business and as a helicopter pilot.

    more———– https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12950937/prince-harry-living-legend-aviation-tim-peake-royal-navy-admiral-fury.html

  51. So South Africa at a UN Court are accusing Israel of committing genocide, did anyone think to question them about their treatment of white farmers while they were in court?

    2. Not only the white farmers but….
      WTF has anything got to do with South Africa ?
      They just sat on their lazy (polite) backsides while their old neighbour Mugabe murdered around 20,000 of his own people because that POS Mugabe knew they would never have voted for him.

      1. Ironic that the White Boers were there long before the Bantu tribes who now form the majority of the population.

    5. South Africa’s a failed state. I wonder if the Western Cape independence will ever get off the ground? Probably not without the support of western governments. Can’t see their backing whites against anyone.

  52. Have been running around .. car has failed MOT on emissions .
    My heart appointment has also come through, later this month, Echo cardiogram , and I also have an irritating cough.

    Beautiful sunny afternoon, but very cold .

    Pip had a good gallop on the heath, then a visit to the groomer for nails , feathers and feet etc.

    Going to pick him up now in Mohs car.

    1. Just as the fraud investigators didn’t have a clue about dodgy Horizon software my suspicions about the competence of MOT inspections have iincreased particularly with the reporting of Advisory Notices and MOT Failures. I can’t help thinking about the remuneration following such an opinion – a bit like the fraud investigators incentivised for enabling a prosecution.

      2. The French system is far better. The inspectors have nothing to do with the garages that do the repairs so they do not have any motivation to fail a car.

        If the car fails the test you have two months in which to get it repaired at the garage of your choice and then represent it for a second test. They also give a list of jobs that need considering which are minor enough to not require the examiner to fail the car.

        Certificates of roadworthiness are valid for two years.

    3. I think a lot of us have had the coughing bug – mine at last seems to be on the way out.

      Hope the Echocardiogram doesn’t find anything serious.

  53. “ At 69 years of age, and with more than 20 years of no-claims driving, I find that my car insurance premium has just been increased by 50 per cent.

    My wife’s renewal, with the same no-claims history, has been increased from £580 to £1,510.

    Two different insurance companies, a similar theme and no explanation. Is this simply profiteering?”

    My house insurance has doubled. I spoke to my broker and he said not only have the number of claims increased (as is their won’t in straitened circumstances), the cost of paying out has increased enormously too. This makes sense; I used to work in the insurance industry before I moved to asset management, and his answer is what I expected based on my continued interest in the market.

    3. Before handing back the keys of my company Ford Escort and returning to university to get a PGCE and become a schoolmaster, I worked for part of the Hill Samuel group called Noble Lowndes and Partners – or Nobbly Loins as I called it – and tried to flog life assurance and pension plans.

      My heart was never really in the job and, as I had just broken up with the then girlfriend, I decided a complete change of life was necessary. On reflection the people to whom I am most grateful are the girls and women who found me impossible and gave me the push.

    4. It’s just greed. They’ll always have excuses ready to justify the increases, but basically they’re just state-licensed robbers.

  56. Ed Davey has called on so many others to resign. Will he now take his own medicine?

    Constantly demanding resignations has infantilised and debased our politics. The leader of the Liberal Democrats is the worst culprit

    TOM HARRIS
    11 January 2024 • 12:54pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/01/11/TELEMMGLPICT000362089132_17049769612060_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrQxcDHqZ1D9rc51SGqPCxv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680

    Ed Davey is in some trouble after it was revealed that as the minister responsible for the Post Office from 2010 to 2012 during the coalition government, he did nothing to address the plight of wrongly-accused sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses.

    In fact, his justification – that he was misled by officials at the time – has the ring of truth. He was a relatively new minister at the time and inclined, like most people in that job, to rely heavily on official advice. This is a practice that is widespread in Whitehall, for the simple reason that it protects ministers (and ex-ministers) down the line from the consequences of poor decisions. Were a minister to ignore officials’ advice and make an executive decision that civil servants disapproved of, there would be no protection for that minister in the event of the emergence of any negative consequences to that decision.

    The problem with the Liberal Democrat leader’s position, of course, is that since he was elected to his his current role, he himself has demanded the resignation of dozens of individuals, many of such calls on grounds less persuasive than those he is now trying to resist himself.

    His critics in other parties probably accept that as far as the Post Office scandal is concerned, Davey is unlikely to go. There is a distinct whiff of “There but for the grace of God go I” syndrome about all of this. A more serious criticism – if deliberately dismissing appeals for justice from the post masters were not serious enough – is that Davey has resorted so often to the nuclear option of calling for resignations so many times that he has been revealed as a not-very-serious politician.

    This matters. Davey is the knight who cried wolf – if you demand the self-sacrifice of any official, elected or otherwise, for alleged wrongdoing, and if you do so with such frequency that each subsequent press release causes a rapidly diminishing level of interest, what happens when you call for a resignation that is amply justified and necessary? What moral authority has Davey now got to pontificate over the fates of anyone who has made a miscalculation or misjudgment in public office?

    For the LibDems, the problem is compounded by the fact that Davey cannot now, with any credibility, issue any more demands for resignations without inviting an avalanche of criticism upon himself and his party. “You didn’t resign when you were caught out – why should he/she/they?” And if he cannot demand resignations at the drop of a hat, what is he to do with his time, other than take part in embarrassingly unsubtle photo opportunities involving plastic brick walls and hammers?

    We should not be surprised that demands for the resignation of individuals have become more popular among politicians of all stripes, since such calls are primarily used to obtain that most precious of all rewards – social media likes. There was a time (although you would have to go back about three decades) when it was an infrequently-used weapon in the political armoury, and was all the more effective for the rarity of its deployment. Ministers actually used to fear that moment when their opposite number would demand their departure, because it happened so rarely and was therefore a serious development.

    Resorting at the very outset of any scandal or controversy to the pressing of the button marked “Resignation” is tempting, but it’s also lazy and, for the reasons stated above, frequently unproductive. It is often used as a media soundbite deliberately in order to circumvent the need to apply an inconveniently large amount of analysis to what is often a complicated and opaque situation. Better to get the Twitter (or X) hits right at the start and knock off early for the day.

    I was once asked by a BBC radio presenter why I had chosen not to demand the resignation of TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson after he described the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, as a “one-eyed Scots idiot”, my own father having struggled throughout his adult life with only one eye. I didn’t feel that my personal family circumstances gave me the exclusive right to feel offended at such idiotic language, but demanding that someone’s livelihood be removed because of hurt feelings seemed to me absurd. It still does.

    And that is Ed Davey’s problem. He has indulged and encouraged a growing culture that sees resignation as the first and best solution to any problem across an illogical range of grievances, from political mistakes to hurty feelings. If he is now being hoisted by his own petard, that matters less than the damage his cynical and childish antics have wrought on our politics in recent years.

    *******************************************************

    Marcus Walford
    1 HR AGO
    The most damning part of this affair is that he went on to receive £225,000 in consultancy fees from the law firm acting for the Post Office.
    Whether he resigns or not, I hope the smug grin has been wiped off his face for good.

    John Lancaster
    1 HR AGO
    Meanwhile the BBC are displaying the staggering hypocrisy of both themselves and their friends in the LIbDumbs by running this story: ‘The Lib Dems have asked Ofcom to investigate alleged bias in GB News’ coverage of the Post Office scandal, including attacks on Sir Ed Davey.’ You couldn’t make it up!

    2. I suppose that those who wish the Lib/Dems to be wiped out will want Davey to stay; those who want the Conservatives wiped out will want Sunak to stay; and those who want Reform to make no significant progress will pray that Farage remains a presenter at GB News and does not lead the party.

    1. How and why did the Poles land themselves with Tusk again?

      I remember when first watching the film of A Streetcar Named Desire (starring Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden) I thought the abuse to which Poles (Polacks) were subjected for their stupidity was very unfair.

      Mind you, to have brought back Donald Tusk shows that there was some justification for that abuse!

      But the Irish have voted for Varadkar as their Taoiseach and such erratic behaviour over the years has given rise to the Irish being abused as stupid. But can the British be too bright having had excrement like Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Sunak, Johnson and soon to be P.M. Starmer in the top job?

      1. I think elections have been rigged for some years Rastus. And some have been placed even when there hasn’t been an election. Look at the UK, for instance. Although the US pulled back the curtain late 2019. Thus I don’t think we can lay the blame entirely at the door of the people.

      2. PR gave Poland Tusk and Ireland Varadkar. They got a much smaller %age of the vote than our useless corrupt scum.

  58. Who is pushing it? Last week Sainsbury’s email was suggesting ‘meat-free’ meals. This week, Morrisons are at it.

    3. They are just softening us up with lunatic ideas in the build up to the big Davos meeting later this month.

      Anyone ele fancy a nice sundried locust wing for lunch?

      3. It’s quite surprising how many mad and lunatic people have raised their ugly heads just recently. Who’s paying them ?

      4. Nah, having watched praying mantises devour them the wings and bottom of the legs are always discarded. Juicy head, thorax and abdomen for me.

  59. It gets worse……..

    Bastards

    Former sub-postmistress lived ‘hand to mouth’ after Horizon scandal

    Sarah Burgess-Boyde ‘lost everything’ when she was wrongly accused of stealing £33,000

    After she flagged to bosses that the Horizon IT system was showing a

    shortfall in her branch, she was subject to a three-day audit in 2009,

    which would land her in court, wrongly accused of stealing £33,000.

    Despite being acquitted in December 2011, she is facing retirement without any pension or savings.

    “I was suspended then I went through the disciplinary procedure including a

    fraud investigation. I was charged with theft, I was eventually taken

    to trial in December 2011, where I was acquitted when the Post Office

    presented no evidence,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

    “I have lost everything – I’ve lost my business, all my savings, I haven’t got a penny to my name.

    She said Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, must also do more for those who

    were not convicted as £75,000 compensation “doesn’t cut it”.

    £75,000 for having your life ruined and being financially destroyed is an insult.

    From the Telegraph

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c5930bef5d2a8c1fa11bc56d6a15b9058425883c185c932a97ee8151c9b5a592.jpg

    1. Presumably the PO holds/held public liability insurance.
      Why aren’t the insurers on the hook rather than the taxpayer?

      1. I’ll bet that they rely on HMG and are not insured – not against their own fraud, anyway!

        1. Nor am I, but if sued they ought to be able to claim.
          But as BT observes, the likelihood is they rely on the Government to pay up.

    2. Don’t worry Rik-Redux.

      All is not lost.

      The Government has stated that they won’t require the repayment of bonuses given to post

      office employees for successful prosecutions. This of course, includes Paula Vennells.

      Phew !! — glad that the in-crowd got out of this without expense.

    1. I completely concur. It’s damned cold. Spoke to the lender today to ask about moving!

      I know I’m full of sound and fury but truly, this green idiocy is going to destroy this country. It must be stopped. It simply has to be.

    2. Does anyone manufacture a biomass boiler that could cope with circular black bouncy logs? Rubber grows in trees, so it’s renewable and definitely worth a tyr.

    3. Does anyone manufacture a biomass boiler that could cope with circular black bouncy logs? Rubber grows in trees, so it’s renewable and definitely worth a tyr.

    1. Stuff the drugs. I just want to be warm. I agree with the prinicple. The state has become far, far too big, too expansive and aggressive. The problem is, people seem to like this. They like a huge, massive government that forces Peter to pay for Paul.

      1. The moment people realise that they are not Paul or even his cousin five times removed that will change. It’s happening already, with very significant revolt breaking out – albeit not on the media…. it will get messy quickly I think.

  64. That’s another knackering day done!
    Several mushroom trays filled with sticks and stacked.
    Chainsaw taken for a walk up the hill to drop a couple of dead saplings, then a start made on cutting up some ash & beech that came down at the start of last year, both complete uprooted trees and large fallen limbs. Still got lots more to do too.
    Then get the dinner started, salmon fillets done on a low heat with slices of lemon on top, a garlic & herb white sauce, mashed tatties, runner beans and peas.
    And, while the dinner was a doing of, a quick run into Cromford for a small amount of shopping and to drop the van off for it’s servicing tomorrow.
    A quick walk home to get the dinner finished off and I’ve just eaten mine!
    Very nice.

      1. Dinner is what we call our main meal of the day, irrespective of whatever time it is served.

  68. Government overreach again.

    The BC government have introduced a scheme where kiddies (or minors as they call them) can get opioid drugs from the government safe supply centres. All it needs is two doctors to agree that the young addict qualifies for fentanyl and the like. Notice that parents do not need to be informed of the action.

        1. As was so often the case, Britain was later on the scene, following other European countries, but being better at it.
          Early in the 18th century the Portuguese found that they could import opium from India and sell it in China at a considerable profit. The British discovered the trade, and they became the leading suppliers for the Chinese market.
          They fought and won an opium war to protect the trade.

  69. A poor Par Four.

    Wordle 936 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. A 4 but thought I was going to do better.

        Wordle 936 4/6

        ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        2. Me too

          Wordle 936 4/6

          ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
          ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜
          🟨🟨🟨🟩🟨
          🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Good. Very poor for me today. Wasn’t paying attention properly to the last letter!
      Wordle 936 6/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Me as well. So many options,only one solution that they like.

        Wordle 936 6/6

        ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
        ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
        ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
        🟩🟩🟩⬜🟨
        🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  71. That’s me gone for a weird day. Market this morning – unusually quiet. I slept little last night so made up for it by sleeping most of this afternoon – so, no doubt, I’ll not sleep properly tonight. Maddening.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. I blame the Industrial Revolution. Had it not triggered a vast burning of fossil fuels and an.explosion of technological progress, electric buses would never have been necessary, nor would they have ever been invented. 😉

        1. For the first question, I would say that diesel and petrol are both products made from oil, of a biological origin. There is some abiological oil but not much at all.
          For the second, I would say they are not necessary.

          5. I think it’s all the same really, because energy is so politicised. I just very much dislike being taught stuff as fact that is actually only a theory.
            They started off with CO2 and warming being a theory, then suddenly they were teaching it in school as fact

        2. Coal, which was the main fuel of the Industrial Revolution, also has a biological origin of course.

      1. “Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.”

        1. Just been listening to Jack Posobiec, of Polish background, on the War Room, and he stated that Tusk put together an ‘umbrella’ coalition of small parties to gain control of Poland. According to Posobiec, Tusk, when challenged about his policies before the election, stated that he wouldn’t do the things that he was being challenged on. Of course, Tusk lied and now Poland is in trouble. It’s basically a globalist/EU coup d’état.

    2. Jim Ferguson is a bit of a rabble rouser.
      Not surprised the Poles are up in arms though. Plenty remember the last round of political prisoners. Arresting two ministers in the old government is not a good look for the new government led by a man who openly pledges allegiance to a non-Polish organisation.
      Wonder how that election was counted…

      1. One for Tusk, two in the bin.

        One for the opposition, two for Tusk

        One for the bin, three for Tusk

        One for Tusk, three for Tusk?

      2. We do need rabble rousers….. if only to get the zombies’ eyes away from their mobile phones for a few seconds.

      3. The last time the Polish government went against the globalists they all died in a plane crash.

        1. Left wing politics have never liked democracy. That deficit and the sheer size of the state are resolved by two things: removing the ability for the government to raise taxes and the public being able to remove law they disagree with.

          At a stroke, government is castrated.

      1. 381688+ up ticks,

        Evening VW,

        I am of the belief that “hurty Words” are becoming the indigenous peoples second language, at very long last.

  75. Evening, all. Not long back from a memorial service in St Asaph cathedral and a very boozy (it was a hunt do) wake afterwards (alas, not for me, as I had to drive myself). The funeral kit will get quite an airing over the next few days; I have two to attend on Monday, one after the other (fortunately, both in the same place with enough time in between for a sandwich and a cup of coffee).

    Meanwhile, heddlu have serious matters to deal with (and the fire brigade is being brought in to help drivers cope with 20mph limits!)

    https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2024/01/11/police-investigate-poison-pen-letter-criticising-familys-birmingham-accents/

    1. There are times when I am grateful for being a miserable bastard with no friends!

      I don’t enjoy funerals, unless they involve the likes of Blair and his ilk.

      1. Funerals and hospital visits, dreadful things. The hospital one is awful as a visitor and as a visitee.

          2. The last time I was in hospital visitors were forbidden, even my wife.
            Brilliant, no need to talk about;
            “how are you feeling?” shite, since you ask
            “Are you getting everything you need?” No, I haven’t seen a single dancing girl

            “What’s the food like?” For Gawd’s sake, it’s awful, what do you expect?
            “Can I have the pin for your credit card?”

          4. I’m a Luddite.
            My card doesn’t do contactless because I don’t activate it.
            Although, being a Luddite, I may have activated unknowingly.

          5. I am not sure you have to activate it; if you use it contactless (and one of my friends had that happen when a shop assistant, trying to help, did it without consultation) it works.

          6. On the odd occasion I have passed it over the contactless thing on the edge of the slot it has refused and told me to use the slot and my PIN.

          7. That’s possibly because you are supposed to press it onto the contactless connection with the chip in the right place 🙂

          8. Possibly.
            I have to confess that I do use one of my cards in that way; but I don’t like it.
            The thought I could lose my wallet and be scammed for thousands doesn’t appeal.

          9. Separate your money from your cards and wallet. When on holiday i have two wallets. One for me and one for the mugger.

          11. That was my understanding. I thought a card payment had first to be made with the PIN in order to activate its contactless function. It prevents the card being intercepted and used by another.

          12. It does, or did. But once you’ve used it with the pin, then losing it, or having it swiped (ho ho), means anyone can swipe it.

          13. That’s true. I dont know how many transactions will be accepted before a random PIN check – they do have them – thwarts any further fraudulent use. I also wonder whether an algorithm detects irregular card use and triggers an early PIN check. The cardholder can also contact the bank in the event of the card being lost or stolen to have it cancelled, although who knows how many dishonest transactions will pass before then? The only consolation – if that’s what it’s called – is that contactless transactions are capped at £100 a time and cannot be used to withdraw cash from ATMs.

          15. I only ever load my debit card for what i expect to spend that day. Most of my money is in two building societies with no cards assigned to the accounts.

          16. But it could save you at least 5 minutes a year, not having to enter the pin number. I’ve always thought the contactless shit was exactly that.

          17. They are activated by default these days aren’t they?
            I’ve just been issued with a new one, must go down to the cashpoint and switch the contactless off. In the US you can punch a hole through its wretched little aerial to be safe.

            There is nothing Luddite about not using this appallingly insecure contactless payment system!

          18. I don’t use contactless on my card. I do enjoy waving it over the card reader in a Bar and telling them their machine is broken. Sometimes it takes them ages to twig that i’m taking the piss.

          20. I have to admit I’ve done that on purpose just to tease someone 😈.

            I did fish out other presents afterwards, and it did make them laugh, so not *quite* as wicked as it may seem…

            My goodness, those grapes tasted good!! 🙂🙂

          26. Ah, hilarious. I use autocarrot for writing in Spanish, and it’s *evidently* picked up that I’m in Argentina!! 🤣🤣🤣

            I meant messy, obviously.

          27. I am happy to receive visitors when i am in hospital but woe betide them if they come empty handed !

        2. I hate, loathe and detest hospitals and hotels.

          Different types of establishment but their names both emerge from the same OFr and L root [hospitāle/hospitālia, from hospes].

          1. Yes, hotels too, and I’ve been in some good ones as well as some real dives, Nigeria springs to mind as examples of both as it happens.

        3. I recall visiting my Godmother who had been mugged and had broken her hip in the fall as her handbag was snatched.
          She was in the NHS, (envy of the world) in excruciating pain and nobody seemed to be at all concerned. She begged to be put out of her misery. Needless to say she died in situ, in pain, and nobody gave a toss.
          This was at least 40 years ago.

        4. I used to like hospitals when they smelled of disinfectant; it brought my father to mind. No longer.

          1. Funnily enough I remarked on the changed smell of hospitals the other day. When I first went to hospital, the overwhelming smell was disinfectant. Recent visits have had more unpleasant whiffs (emanating from the loos).

      3. At least I am at an age when the deceased have lived a long and fruitful, often exciting, life. It isn’t so bad when people are in their eighties and nineties.

      4. Even though you are a miserable bastard i would still consider you to be a friend of mine. Next time you are in the UK i will even let you buy me a drink. :@)

  77. If, like me , you think Russia is a great and important country in spite of what has been happening since February 24th 2022. If, like me, you think the country of Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Chekov, Pasternak, Sozhenitsyn and of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky and many, many others should have been held closer after the Cold War so that the West today could have been in a much more friendly and cordial relationship to it.

    If, like me, you enjoy a good male voice choir.

    You’ll enjoy this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNVPw5ReQHE

    I reckon he must be getting on for 7 feet tall.

    1. The biggest mistake the West ever made was to isolate post fall of the Berlin wall Russia.

      We could have had a powerful friend when the world has to choose between Democracy, Islam, and Chinese/Korean style communism, which isn’t far away.

      1. Russia and Russians would have loved us. What was chosen instead………….a country that uses us as a whore uses abortion on demand.

  78. As much as I admire Richard Attenborough, I do find his constant whining about Glow Ball temperature changes more annoying in every programme.
    The recent rain has probably furthered his ambition to see moder cities go under.
    I don’t think I’ve heard him mention at all, the fact the most self important people on the planet, who individually use more fossil fuel in a year than the average person uses in their entire lifetime.

        2. He did. I used to bump into DA quite frequently on Richmond Hill, but never even saw RA who lived on Richmond Green.

          2. Thanks, that’s news to me. Felt sorry for Dicky when his granddaughter died in that nasty tsunami in 2004.

    2. We really ought to stop calling them ‘fossil’ fuels. As hydro-carbons are present throughout the universe, there’s nothing ‘fossil’ about them.
      I think just hydro-carbons will do. Or Earth fuels.

    3. As I commented earlier somewhere else .

      The silly old converted old woke has shown us all a huge toothy sea monster that was pulled out of a very high cliff here in our Dorsetty parts , at Kimmeridge , a few miles up the coast from here .

      I have a collection of ammonites and other fossil mementos that I have picked up when do walking in fields and other high up places far from the sea …( not cliffs) I have them scattered around in pots , jars and the garden ..

      My point is , we were covered in water once , was that global warming , and oh yes the path of glaciers and twisted rocks tell another story.. and we daren’t mention fossils , do we .

      Why doesn’t he talk about the decimation of the rainforests or plastics polluting the oceans or the birthrate ..

      I guess the good news will be our mortality and failure of the rice crop etc etc.

      1. Our country has been under water more than a few times, Maggie. It has also been a lot closer to the equator than it is now. Just think, the top of Mt Everest was once a seabed.

      2. There’s something magical about finding and holding a fossil, and I’m not talking about Nottlers.

      3. Totally agree TB.
        And as others have pointed out. If massive flooding is remotely imminent why would well known very wealthy people live virtually on sea shores.
        I once had dozens of Ammonites and belemnites. All picked up on Dorset beaches early 70s. . Before we left to live in Oz I donated them to a school I was working at near Hammersmith.

    1. If only they would.
      There was one a few years ago, but with nothing like the impact of this recent PO one.

  80. Last night we had a lovely warm log fire , and consequently dozed off in our chairs at some point of the evening.

    We woke up after midnight , fire dying and Pip spaniel agitating to have his last minute wee in the garden .

    Moh opened the patio door , let the dog out , and called for me to listen to a couple of probably military jets flying up there somewhere .

    We both said , something is kicking off …

    Britain and US ‘to carry out airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen TONIGHT’: Emergency meeting is called for UK ministers to sign off response after ships targeted in Red Sea

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12953065/emergency-cabinet-meeting-yemen-attacks-airstrikes-ministers.html

      1. Ditto tanking the van up t’other week.
        £140 worth of diesel should last a month or two.

  82. Very, very evil thought for the day.

    If we really are going to go to war against the Houthi and the Iranians, perhaps a nuclear holocaust would be the best approach.
    All over very quickly, no mullahs, no terrorists, no waves of refugee gimmigrants and sure as Hell nobody else would volunteer to take the Islamic terrorist torch…

    2. Mmmm, I see your point, but would feel unhappy at nuking the Persian people, perhaps even a majority, who hate their country’s regime. As for the Yemen,…

    3. It’s just part of their terrible medieval culture.
      It’s inbred to cause as much trouble for other people as they can.

        1. They don’t seem to understand anything JN.
          Except of course their expenses and salary increases.

    4. The Iranians will blame the US no matter who fired the missile so go ahead.

      Canada is fully behind the mission to counter the research attacks, three service personnel have been sent to help the American forces. That’s right, three people but no ships or planes – we don’t have any.

      2. His instructor (whom I know) wasn’t impressed. He kept having to tear Harry off a strip and point out the obvious in words of one syllable.

    2. I don’t know the source of Lord of the Manor’s claim about three fails. I can only find one failure: a maths test in 2009.

      He set his heart on helicopters while serving a tour in Afghanistan with the Household Cavalry. In 2009 he transferred to begin training as a chopper pilot — and despite failing an early math exam he stuck with it to win his wings.

      https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/prince-harry-qualified-apache-pilot/news-story/14c8b88063d1a6431262d3e52e291125

    1. We know one thing for sure, he was actually involved in the flights. And that may have been incidental in the meeting of his wife.
      As in, By hell he Copt her.

    2. Has Prince Harry got no sense of shame?

      He has no ‘astronautic’ credentials whatsoever.

    3. He must have a lot of solo flights under his belt to get his wings – he needs his wings on ordinary aircraft before going on to choppers surely

  86. That’s it!
    I’m off to bed.
    Plans for tomorrow? Drag Graduate Son up the hill to help drag down the lumps of fallen tree I cut up today and then cut up some more bits of tree!

    1. “I’m a lumberjack and I’m all right. I chop trees down all day, and I sleep all night”. Lol. Good night, BoB.

    1. 381688+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      You mean make a very,very strong warning via channels still open to the peoples,
      to bloody true.

  94. Right, chums, I’ll wish you all a good night with restful sleep. See you all tomorrow.

  97. RAF and US forces rain bombs on dozens
    of Iran-backed targets across Yemen: Rishi Sunak says attacks on
    international shipping by Houthi rebels ‘cannot stand’ while Biden hails
    ‘successful’ blitz and vows MORE action if needed.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12954065/US-UK-launch-airstrikes-Iran-backed-rebels-Explosions-heard-Yemen-Houthis-reporting-enemy-raids-Sunak-said-no-defensive-options-left.html

    Gaza boring. Ukraine….boring…Let’s have a new war !

    1. However more to the point, the judge has asked for a pre sentencing report on how prison would affect this man,

      and despite being guilty, gave him bail.

      Another example of appeasement !!

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