Binge Watching Series Recommendations

[j44ke]

Why does that sound like a catch-22?

[vertical_doug]

Why does that sound like a catch-22?

I don't think of it as a catch-22. There have been calls even from subpostmasters to make sure they don't pay people that actually defrauded the Gov. If you do the math, the £600,000 seems inadequate for many of the people when you consider they lost homes etc....

At least Paula Vennells, the ex-Post Office Boss, handed back her OBE for a job-well done... It's amazing how many shady business heads end up with OBE's.

I can't wait until we get the Lady Mone MedPro scandal TV docu-series. . . This will be another classic.
(for those not in the UK, Lady Mone was a lifetime Peer in the House of Lords who 'helped' fast track her husband's firm MedPro to get a COVID PPE contract worth £200mm. Her family was paid £60mm and the PPE was defective)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ne-ppe-scandal

Just the photos are priceless. The villian writes the story herself. I just don't know where her dalmatian coat is.

[j44ke]

I don't think of it as a catch-22. There have been calls even from subpostmasters to make sure they don't pay people that actually defrauded the Gov. If you do the math, the £600,000 seems inadequate for many of the people when you consider they lost homes etc....

At least Paula Vennells, the ex-Post Office Boss, handed back her OBE for a job-well done... It's amazing how many shady business heads end up with OBE's.

I can't wait until we get the Lady Mone MedPro scandal TV docu-series. . . This will be another classic.
(for those not in the UK, Lady Mone was a lifetime Peer in the House of Lords who 'helped' fast track her husband's firm MedPro to get a COVID PPE contract worth £200mm. Her family was paid £60mm and the PPE was defective)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ne-ppe-scandal

Just the photos are priceless. The villian writes the story herself. I just don't know where her dalmatian coat is.

I guess what I mean is that by signing that piece of paper, the people affected agree to be subject to the same enforcement authority over the same historical period of time that enforcement authority improperly accused them of malfeasance using a broken inaccurate system. Any records for that era are going to be tainted by the use of that system and the credibility of the enforcement authority. Who is to say that the government won't circle back and start retrying those cases afterwards, whether or not the charges are justified. And if you've signed a paper that says the government can in fact come after you if they so decide even though this document and payment are supposed to be an exoneration, that creates a lingering threat of future prosecution. I am sure someone has said, "Well if they are innocent they have nothing to worry about - this is to get actual criminals." But the government's credibility for that period of time is all shot full of holes. What's more, if they cannot by this time separate out the people who were wrongfully accused from the people who were actually embezzling funds, where is there any credibility in the government's ability to properly adjudicate anything coming out of this era? My feeling is that the government has essentially lost the opportunity to prosecute irregularities from this period, and while they may be able to discern who should and should not get the settlement, they should remove that statement from the settlement paperwork as an act of good faith. It is at least redundant (if you do illegal things you typically are subject to prosecution regardless) and reads as tone-deaf.

[Paul Jacobs]

I think that the government is guilty of lack of oversight. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67892045

What is strange about this case is that the Post Office has, for more than 300 years, the tradition of initiating and conducting its own criminal prosecutions without going through the Crown Prosecution Service.

https://theweek.com/law/how-the-post...ecution-powers

[vertical_doug]

Post Office only agreed to accept reduced charges in some cases if accused accepted 'nothing wrong' with Horizon, inquiry told
Back at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Julian Blake, counsel for the inquiry, asks about another prosecution of a post officer operator. He shows the inquiry a document showing the Post Office indicated that it would accept a guilty plea on a less serious charge provided the defendant agreed to accept that there was “nothing wrong with Horizon”.


There seems to a serious urgency within the Post Office to make sure no one spoke badly of the Horizon IT system. The whole stonewall as a robust system. I think before the Crown Prosecution goes after a former subPostMaster, they will want to investigate the what and more importantly the why of the HorizonIT system coverup.

In the series, whenever a subPostMaster asked a support system, the reply was always 'no one else is experiencing problems' Talking points like this going to support and suppression of the support logs, seems to point to something else going on. When the facts don't make sense, you obviously don't know the facts.

This will be interesting if it ever gets investigated. (Although ironically, because of GDPR record retention policy, stuff may have been destroyed.)

Although, I'd think Fujitsu has the support logs. Or potentially the auditors hired in 2012. Bug and issue reports are an important part of any new system deployment.

1. Support
2. Programming
3. Relationship Managers

It all goes against what they would normally do.

I suspect someone very senior in the Post Office could not afford for the system to be a failure and they sent the order down.

[Cosmic Cycle]

Boy Swallows Universe on Netflix is worth a look .

[Chik]

Boy Swallows Universe on Netflix is worth a look .

I couldn't finish the first episode. Not for me.

[echappist]

I suspect someone very senior in the Post Office could not afford for the system to be a failure and they sent the order down.

What’s so special about Fujitsu that it kept on getting contracts despite series of failures? It doesn’t even to be greasing the wheel that much, though perhaps behind the scenes it is?

From an op-ed piece by a barrister representing the subpostmasters.

Accountability is, more broadly, a foreign concept for Fujitsu. It has a history of failing to deliver on its UK contracts but rarely faces consequences. In 2011, Fujitsu was fired from a £6.2bn project to revamp an NHS IT system after repeatedly failing to achieve its objectives. Fujitsu sued the government. The eventual payout was never disclosed, but it could be as much as £628m. In 2021, the Foreign Office determined that a communications system provided by Fujitsu had “significant deficiencies resulting in a technical solution that is likely to be unfit for purpose”. It renewed Fujitsu’s contract anyway. In December, the company was awarded a new contract by the Environment Agency for a flood alert system; Fujitsu’s product reportedly failed to alert people until their houses were already flooded. Between 2010 and 2015, civil servants tried to stop commissioning Fujitsu because of its history of poor performance. They found the UK’s archaic public procurement rules wouldn’t permit it.

[Chik]

What’s so special about Fujitsu that it kept on getting contracts despite series of failures? It doesn’t even to be greasing the wheel that much, though perhaps behind the scenes it is?

From an op-ed piece by a barrister representing the subpostmasters.

Good question.

I also wonder why they ever got the first job, given a wealth of US and Europe based solution providers for whom, I might add, there are armies of experienced consultants and techies to support implementation and maintenance. My guess is that they may have submitted the most economical proposal.

[72gmc]

At least Paula Vennells, the ex-Post Office Boss, handed back her OBE for a job-well done... It's amazing how many shady business heads end up with OBE's.

One of my positive takeaways from this post office scandal is that I'm now aware of the mechanism for rescinding such honors. I've wondered about the shady people, and who monitors how shady they are while holding those honors <cough Dave Brailsford cough>

Back on topic: my wife and I are most of the way through Ridley Road via PBS Masterpiece. Rory Kinnear is another convincing bad guy (he has a good career in the villain business) but Agnes O'Casey is the real reason to watch. First big role for her, apparently, and she's great.