Mr Bates v The Post Office

[Nik Vawn 140]

On 19/01/2024 at 06:51, littleyellowbirdie said:

May's electoral incompetence is an interesting one I hadn't considered and I have to concede it certainly looked incredibly incompetent. Part of me still questions whether it wasn't a concerted effort at electoral suicide in a desperate bid to abort leaving the EU in a way that left the Conservative party to live to fight another day, but simply couldn't overcome the Corbyn effect.

Now there used to be a poster on here, may still be around for all I know, who used to regularly post about May deliberately trying to scupper Brexit.

[dylanisabaddog 4,970]

13 minutes ago, Nik Vawn said:

Now there used to be a poster on here, may still be around for all I know, who used to regularly post about May deliberately trying to scupper Brexit.

Look no further than the ERG

[dylanisabaddog 4,970]

This Thursday 

[Well b back 3,269]

Horrible news, but I guess totally expected. It also shows the government knew full well what was going on.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68079300

[dylanisabaddog 4,970]

10 minutes ago, Well b back said:

Horrible news, but I guess totally expected. It also shows the government knew full well what was going on.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68079300

The name of Vennells all over these new documents. Despite the mounting evidence I'm pretty sure she'll walk away from it without prosecution. 

[Naturalcynic 649]

Do we know whether the Police are investigating this whole sorry affair with a view to possible prosecutions of individuals, or are they dragging their heels waiting for the outcome of The Horizon Inquiry?

[horsefly 4,310]

2 hours ago, Naturalcynic said:

Do we know whether the Police are investigating this whole sorry affair with a view to possible prosecutions of individuals, or are they dragging their heels waiting for the outcome of The Horizon Inquiry?

They are indeed actively investigating for very serious crimes (perjury etc). Whether that will turn out to be a cover up or genuine remains to be seen.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

2 hours ago, horsefly said:

They are indeed actively investigating for very serious crimes (perjury etc). Whether that will turn out to be a cover up or genuine remains to be seen.

Would be interesting to know what crimes they consider have potentially been committed - perjury does seem a very obvious one but I would have thought that fraud, theft and especially misconduct in a public office are all definite possibilities.

[horsefly 4,310]

6 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Would be interesting to know what crimes they consider have potentially been committed - perjury does seem a very obvious one but I would have thought that fraud, theft and especially misconduct in a public office are all definite possibilities.

From what I understand all of those possibilities are being actively investigated.

[Well b back 3,269]

8 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Would be interesting to know what crimes they consider have potentially been committed - perjury does seem a very obvious one but I would have thought that fraud, theft and especially misconduct in a public office are all definite possibilities.

Fraud.

They are also being investigated for tax avoidance, both as a company and individuals as they wrote potential compensation claims off against tax.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

Just now, Well b back said:

They are also being investigated for tax avoidance, both as a company and individuals as they wrote potential compensation claims off against tax.

Really!!

It just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it?

Someone told me this morning that the PO also made sub-postmasters make good losses incurred in armed robberies at Post Offices!!

[Well b back 3,269]

8 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Really!!

It just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it?

Someone told me this morning that the PO also made sub-postmasters make good losses incurred in armed robberies at Post Offices!!

That was in the programme I think, but not totally sure whether it is in the investigations or not. I am pretty sure it was the guy who committed suicide and didn’t they say he left the safe unlocked ? But there were mitigating circumstances with the postman collecting the deliveries ?

Think that’s what it was but maybe somebody could correct me if wrong ?

Edited January 26 by Well b back

[Well b back 3,269]

After all that is coming out this morning about the government helping to cover it up, no wonder they didn’t do their normal trick of throwing mud at SKS for being DOPP.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

43 minutes ago, Well b back said:

After all that is coming out this morning about the government helping to cover it up, no wonder they didn’t do their normal trick of throwing mud at SKS for being DOPP.

Wow - I hadn't seen that when I posted that it just keeps getting worse.............turns out it had already got a lot worse and not just for the Post Office - hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin for the Tory Party.

Think you are right about Starmer - thought it was a bit odd that although the Tories did have a quick go at their usual dirty tricks early on, they very quickly went quiet again and now we know why.

Really looking forward to listening to their explanations/justifications of this one - reckon they can look forward to the mother of all kickings from most of the press and media, although I dare say that GB News idiots will still be trying to pin it on Ed Davey 😂

[Naturalcynic 649]

2 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Wow - I hadn't seen that when I posted that it just keeps getting worse.............turns out it had already got a lot worse and not just for the Post Office - hopefully this is the final nail in the coffin for the Tory Party.

Think you are right about Starmer - thought it was a bit odd that although the Tories did have a quick go at their usual dirty tricks early on, they very quickly went quiet again and now we know why.

Really looking forward to listening to their explanations/justifications of this one - reckon they can look forward to the mother of all kickings from most of the press and media, although I dare say that GB News idiots will still be trying to pin it on Ed Davey 😂

Ministers from Labour, LibDem and Conservative parties all have questions to answer, although Davey perhaps has more to answer than most, not least because after his tenure as Minister with responsibility for postal affairs, he acted between 2015 and 2021 as an advisor for Herbert Smith Freehills, the law firm that advised the Post Office in the 2019 court case and acted for it in compensation claims and disclosures to the public enquiry.

[Well b back 3,269]

Did you not read the minutes of the meeting ? Not sure why the subject has been changed to blame others for what happened that meeting ? I guess to use it in the defence of thieving b******* who thought it better to see postmasters and postmistresses sent to jail, rather than risk their seats.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

17 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

Ministers from Labour, LibDem and Conservative parties all have questions to answer, although Davey perhaps has more to answer than most, not least because after his tenure as Minister with responsibility for postal affairs, he acted between 2015 and 2021 as an advisor for Herbert Smith Freehills, the law firm that advised the Post Office in the 2019 court case and acted for it in compensation claims and disclosures to the public enquiry.

Nice try but unfortunately for you the revelation that the Government became aware of what was going on relates to 2014 onwards by which time Ed Davey had been Energy Minister for 2 years (in what to all intents and purposes was a Tory government anyway).

In addition Davey has already been questioned publically about his tenure as Minister responsible for the PO (which ended in 2012) and has insisted that he did ask questions of the PO himself at the time and was lied to - that may have seemed like a cop out at the time he was asked but it now seems not just plausible but certainly true as we now that there was organised cover up in which the PO lied to everyone including the courts, MPs and initially the Government.

Why would Davy have more questions to answer than his multiple Tory successors in that post who were in charge as the truth about the misdeeds of the Post Office started to emerge, not just through the campaign but via the High Court cases and yet they still did nothing?

But whilst it's true to say that lots of people, and not just ministers, have questions to answer - some senior civil servants must already be looking for new jobs.

But it is only a series of Tory ministers who will have to answer the question 'Why did you not take any action when you were informed that the Post Office had mounted an organised cover up?' which is a question they are going to find pretty difficult to answer in the current climate.

 

 

[Naturalcynic 649]

8 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Nice try but unfortunately for you the revelation that the Government became aware of what was going on relates to 2014 onwards by which time Ed Davey had been Energy Minister for 2 years (in what to all intents and purposes was a Tory government anyway).

In addition Davey has already been questioned publically about his tenure as Minister responsible for the PO (which ended in 2012) and has insisted that he did ask questions of the PO himself at the time and was lied to - that may have seemed like a cop out at the time he was asked but it now seems not just plausible but certainly true as we now that there was organised cover up in which the PO lied to everyone including the courts, MPs and initially the Government.

Why would Davy have more questions to answer than his multiple Tory successors in that post who were in charge as the truth about the misdeeds of the Post Office started to emerge, not just through the campaign but via the High Court cases and yet they still did nothing?

But whilst it's true to say that lots of people, and not just ministers, have questions to answer - some senior civil servants must already be looking for new jobs.

But it is only a series of Tory ministers who will have to answer the question 'Why did you not take any action when you were informed that the Post Office had mounted an organised cover up?' which is a question they are going to find pretty difficult to answer in the current climate.

 

 

You seem very defensive of Davey for some strange reason.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

1 minute ago, Naturalcynic said:

You seem very defensive of Davey for some strange reason.

I didn't intend to be - he isn't someone I have a very high regard for, although ironically he was a far more capable energy minster than anyone we've had since but that apart.........

I was only intending to question, probably at too great a length, why you thought he had 'more to answer than most' when in practice he has a lot less to answer than all his Tory successors.

I couldn't be bothered to look up just how many ministers that amounts to but based on the almost continous Governmental musical chairs that have been going on for years now I imagine that its quite a few, although we can perhaps excuse whoever notionally held the post for a few days whilst Liz Truss was PM.

[Well b back 3,269]

25 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

You seem very defensive of Davey for some strange reason.

Nah, I think you are trying to defend lying, cheating b*******, by deflecting the meeting notes onto somebody that had no say at that stage whatsoever.

[Naturalcynic 649]

36 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

I didn't intend to be - he isn't someone I have a very high regard for, although ironically he was a far more capable energy minster than anyone we've had since but that apart.........

I was only intending to question, probably at too great a length, why you thought he had 'more to answer than most' when in practice he has a lot less to answer than all his Tory successors.

I couldn't be bothered to look up just how many ministers that amounts to but based on the almost continous Governmental musical chairs that have been going on for years now I imagine that its quite a few, although we can perhaps excuse whoever notionally held the post for a few days whilst Liz Truss was PM.

Because of his subsequent involvement with Herbert Smith Freehills.

[Well b back 3,269]

17 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

Because of his subsequent involvement with Herbert Smith Freehills.

Have you seen the meeting notes ? If you have fair enough if that’s your opinion, but my understanding was at that meeting held, those present were told that the Horizon system definitely carried bugs, so to cover this up, those present and the government decided 1. To cover it up and attempt to sack those proving there were bugs, 2. To prosecute more people and then say there was nothing wrong with the system.

Those people in and around that meeting knew categorically that the prosecutions were wrong, those outside that circle were told the people stating there were problems with the system, were not saying that and ‘ they had found no problems with the Horizon ‘. 
Still not sure why you are using others to defend lying, thieving b*******, who then lied to others

 

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

31 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

Because of his subsequent involvement with Herbert Smith Freehills.

And you think that trumps the Tory ministers who had knowledge of the PO cover up, which Davy didn't, and who had ministerial responsibility for the Post Office (which Davy hadn't had since 2012) - that makes no sense to me.

As I said the first time around, I agree there are plenty of politicians and civil servants who have a variety of questions to answer but in terms of who has the most, or perhaps the hardest, questions to answer it is clearly the series of Tory ministers who knew the Post Office had mounted an comprehensive cover up and yet took no action  - worse than that they became part of the cover up themselves at a time when the postmaster's campaign, backbench MPs and Select Committees were all trying unsuccessfully to get at the truth.

One of those MPs was of course a senior Tory, back in the days when decent Tories weren't quite as rare as hen's teeth and he appears to take exactly the same view as to where responsiblity lies:

Lord Arbuthnot, a former MP and vocal critic of the handling of victims in this scandal told the BBC that the government has to take responsibility "for everything that went wrong" in relation to the sub-postmasters.

He said, "It's a distinctly corrupt murky story that goes right the way into government and it's deeply worrying."

Edited January 26 by Creative Midfielder

[Naturalcynic 649]

1 minute ago, Creative Midfielder said:

And you think that trumps the Tory ministers who had knowledge of the PO cover up, which Davy didn't, and who had ministerial responsibility for the Post Office (which Davy hadn't had since 2012) - that makes no sense to me.

As I said the first time around, I agree there are plenty of politicians and civil servants who have a variety of questions but in terms of who has the most, or perhaps the hardest questions to answer it is clearly the series of Tory ministers who knew the Post Office had mounted an comprehensive cover up and yet took no action  - worse than that they became part of the cover up themselves at a time when the postmaster's campaign, backbench MPs and Select Committees were all trying unsuccessfully to get at the truth.

One of those MPs was of course a senior Tory, back in the days when decent Tories weren't quite as rare as hen's teeth and he appears to take exactly the same view as to where responsiblity lies:

Lord Arbuthnot, a former MP and vocal critic of the handling of victims in this scandal told the BBC that the government has to take responsibility "for everything that went wrong" in relation to the sub-postmasters.

He said, "It's a distinctly corrupt murky story that goes right the way into government and it's deeply worrying."

I don’t disagree with what you say.  I just feel that there’s too much pretence from some quarters that Davey is squeaky-clean in all this.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

1 minute ago, Naturalcynic said:

I don’t disagree with what you say.  I just feel that there’s too much pretence from some quarters that Davey is squeaky-clean in all this.

Well if there is ever a full and proper investigation of this whole sorry saga and Davy is proved culpable in some way and punished appropriately then that is fine by me.

But I can't help feeling the whole discussion around him is because as the only non-Tory (ex-)minister with even a tenuous connection to this mess he is, as @Well b back has pointed out,  a very convenient distraction from a whole string of Tory ministers (and possibly/probably PMs) who we now know definitely are culpable.

[Naturalcynic 649]

3 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Well if there is ever a full and proper investigation of this whole sorry saga and Davy is proved culpable in some way and punished appropriately then that is fine by me.

But I can't help feeling the whole discussion around him is because as the only non-Tory (ex-)minister with even a tenuous connection to this mess he is, as @Well b back has pointed out,  a very convenient distraction from a whole string of Tory ministers (and possibly/probably PMs) who we now know definitely are culpable.

There were also several Labour MPs in that job up until 2010.

[Well b back 3,269]

3 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

There were also several Labour MPs in that job up until 2010.

It was in 2014 that this happened ?

[Naturalcynic 649]

3 minutes ago, Well b back said:

It was in 2014 that this happened ?

We’re at cross-purposes.  I’m talking about the whole Horizon scandal, which started in 1999.

[Creative Midfielder 2,001]

6 minutes ago, Naturalcynic said:

There were also several Labour MPs in that job up until 2010.

Yes, there were and they all fall into the large group of people who have questions to answer. which also includes some very senior civil servants.

But their questions will be around whether they asked enough questions themselves or were gullible in believing the lies they were told, and even if it is established that they discharged their ministerial responsibilities poorly I guess that amount to sins of omission and certainly makes them far less culpable than the Tory ministers/PMs who had knowledge of the injustices being done and helped cover them up instead of taking action to stop them - those are sins of commission.

So I’m afraid it still seems like a deflection from the real culprits.

[Well b back 3,269]

On 26/01/2024 at 19:16, Creative Midfielder said:

Yes, there were and they all fall into the large group of people who have questions to answer. which also includes some very senior civil servants.

 

But their questions will be around whether they asked enough questions themselves or were gullible in believing the lies they were told, and even if it is established that they discharged their ministerial responsibilities poorly I guess that amount to sins of omission and certainly makes them far less culpable than the Tory ministers/PMs who had knowledge of the injustices being done and helped cover them up instead of taking action to stop them - those are sins of commission.

 

So I’m afraid it still seems like a deflection from the real culprits.

 

Wonder if there will be some government heads that roll, but I guess not !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68118970