The real story of the Post Office is all about the abuse of power. Those in charge put their interests above those of all others – because they believed that they were the most important people in the organisation.
Their status, income, and the right to demand loyalty and to impose control all confirmed that in their own minds.
It was not possible in that case that they might have made a mistake, in their opinion. A mistake, if there was one, must have been by those they commanded, and not by them. Nothing else was possible.
And if there was a problem with a supplier, then that was helpful, because that, too, let them deny responsibility – an attitude still being seen in yesterday’s ministerial statement on this issue.
The reality was that those in power in the Post Office abused that power to blame others, to cover up that abuse of power and to persecute long after it was known, even by them, that this was unjustifiable. And they did that because they thought they were worth it – because they were important individuals.
This is not then just a story of a failure of justice, or of governance. It is also a story of the abuse of power that neoliberalism and the cult of the powerful individual encouraged and made possible.
Government using its power to screw people over is neoliberalism, eh? As opposed to government power?
It is also a story of the abuse of power that neoliberalism and the cult of the powerful individual
This would never happen under socialism.
There’s even more here that’s good entertainment:
On Sunday I said that we have a choice in politics: we can emphasise the individual or society. What I did not, perhaps, make as clear as I might is that those who choose to emphasise the politics of the individual are those with power. They are those who have disproportionate rights as individuals because of income, wealth, connections, and power.
I think there was a German guy in the 1920s saying something similar?
It was not possible in that case that they might have made a mistake, in their opinion. A mistake, if there was one, must have been by those they commanded, and not by them. Nothing else was possible.
Sounds almost like people who believe in:
– The Tax gap
– The need for country by country reporting
– That money can be printed ad infinitum with no inflationary impact
etc, etc
Until we have political and corporate leadership that serves the community and not powerful individuals, nothing will prevent another Post Office scandal because every day those with power create ever more complex structures that tell them that they are the most important individuals and that society must both serve and reward them for being so.
You could probably lift this straight into a Video from Infowars or suchlike and it wouldn’t look out of place – he has shown increasing signs of declining mental faculties for a number of years – could be he’s finally in need of the sectioning that I have advocated for more than a decade.
You forgot climate change & the patriarchy comrade!
Gov’t officials abuse their power – proof that we need more collectivism!
“It was not possible in that case that they might have made a mistake, in their opinion.”
I think Freudians call this projection.
Sounds like he’s been reading Foucault.
Nah, it’s just a good old fashioned management fuck up.
A new computer system is introduced and suddenly a bunch of SPMs are found to have their hands in the till. Yet there is no linkage between the alleged thieves, by size or location, ethnic origin, or other common factor, and there are lots of SPMs of varying length of service. This alone should have sounded the alarm.
A judge hearing all these different cases should have smelt a rat. Probably the PO drip fed the prosecutions over time and varying courts. The PO, like the RSPCA and others, can conduct their own prosecutions, so DPP Starmer may be out of the frame. But going the expensive route – individual cases – suggests there were some in the PO who had doubts about how the cases would pan out.
the cult of the powerful individual
His problem is that it’s the cult of the wrong individual. If people would only ask he would happily nominate the right one.
so DPP Starmer may be out of the frame.
Or maybe not.
That this would probably not have happened in the private sector, because the private sector cares a lot more about things like financial control. I can tell you from personal experience, banks employ some really anal people in audit and financial control to make sure that everything tallies to the penny. And it’s not because they care about losing a penny, but that the systems are robust.
And when it did happen, Shit Just Got Real very quickly. IT would throw half a dozen of the best people at it, working into the night, work out what had happen, produce reports, fix it, masses of testing of it. The idea of people manually tweaking accounts as a regular thing would have auditors curbstomping me in the car park.
But of course, gov, who cares that much if it’s wrong? What’s Ed Davey or David Cameron going to lose? A bank loses all its money, the stock gets trashed, shareholders are going to want your head. In the absence of financial incentives, what people care about is social incentives, like embarrassing the minister. So you get scandals.
The word liberal is problematic in that it can have its original meaning, love of freedom, or it can have a more modern meaning used by people who claim to love freedom but are actually in favour of authoritarianism. Blaming traditional liberalism, neo or otherwise, for the Post Office scandal is absurd.
Obviously neoliberal is his word of the month – probably came in a christmas cracker. Look out for the dog crapped in the kitchen – was it due to neo liberalism? shortly followed by – my dog’s a neoliberal stooge and finally – help i’ve been committed to a mental health facility and it’s a neoliberal conspiracy.
Moqifen
It seems to have come back in – neoliberalism replacing fascism for the early part of 2024.
I have found it a good rule of thumb that as soon as someone uses the word ‘neoliberal’ in a pejorative sense, they’re invariably full of shit.
@VP – damn those fascist neoliberal stooges
Just to muddy things.
I worked on a Govt IT project, whose sole purpose was to uncover and stamp out fraud, but they pretended that it was to improve efficiency. The PO could (probably did ) say that their super duper system was also designed to weed out crooks and was succeeding.
The real story of the Post Office is all about the abuse of power.
This sentence would make an excellent opening for Richard Murphy’s first novel.
Yes, this has been a massive CYA exercise by both PO and Fujitsu, and that alone should attract prosecution of quite a few people in both organisations. Sadly this is unlikely to happen and any Public Enquiry will procrastinate into the tumbleweeds. cf Covid.
@Ottokring: “Sounds like he’s been reading Foucault.” No need. He knows Foucault about anything.
@Chris – quite superb! Take the rest of the day off.
What’s Ed Davey or David Cameron going to lose?
How about a knighthood and a peerage even if their privy council memberships are irrevocable.
As Paula Vennells has now handed back her CBE similar sacrifices by other highly culpable individuals would be well merited.
@BiND: Presumably if you bring a private prosecution for misconduct in public office against an official of the CPS, then the CPS can take over and drop your prosecution and you then have to resort to judicial review. Have I got that right?
Anybody else find it weird that Venals handed her CBE back today, whereas yesterday apparently everything was fine. And the same for the last N years.
What was the reason? Too shiny? Didn’t match the wallpaper?
Government used its granted power to screw people over and avoid accountability – and this is the fault of neoliberalism.
Therefore we should knock down neoliberalism and give the government sweeping new powers? Is that his takeaway?
Martin: someone Had A Word? I wonder what the offered alternative was?
“someone Had A Word?”
I think the fact it took less than a week for over 1m people to sign a petition calling for her head on stick (in essence) may just have had something to do with it. Even the most cloth eared Establishment apparatchik would be able to see where this was going, and handing the gong back voluntarily now was preferable to having it dragged away at some future point.
I explained what the error was (incomplete transmissions) to some non U.K. friends who work in IT and they thought I was trying to prank them as for them it was inconceivable that a system went live with such an obvious and basic flaw and that it continued to be ignored for so long
BNiC
I think I mentioned it in a previous thread. My late wife used to design and write such systems.
Her ghost is throwing things around the house.
I shall bill Fujitsu for the exorcist.
Possibly one for the excellent S Caldwell if got some time tomorrow night at 7pm
https://independencelive.net/tntshow/
Post your questions for RichardJMurphy on the livestream chat or e-mail. How does that theory that inflation always comes back down explain the currencies we no longer have. Or why do banks pay interest in normal times. Or can the Courageous State be blamed for Horizon.
“ I think the fact it took less than a week for over 1m people to sign a petition calling for her head on stick (in essence) may just have had something to do with it.”
They couldn’t even claim it was an online campaign of right wingers, I didn’t see one Tweet or Retweet about that petition.
@Western Bloke
That this would probably not have happened in the private sector,
I worked for many years at two major banks. One where it could never ever have happened and one where it so easily could. The difference was company culture. With the second one, reporting problems and issues was seen as a failure. Project status was could be “green” or perhaps “yellow” but never “red”. Managers were fearful of passing problems up the chain so each successive layer of management would “cleanse” the reports from below. By the time it got to the top of the tree it would all be a resounding success so the CEO would not have a clue anything could be wrong with the computer system. Do I blame the top tier of the PO management: yes. To be charitable they “might” not have been aware of the reality, however the company culture that refused to accept reality was down to them. As a friend from one of those banks used to say “a fish rots from the head. “
I’m afraid I have a church PCC meeting tomorrow evening, hopefully someone else can pose some challenging questions for Murphy!
I think you’re right as to her being “encouraged” to do it. I thought everybody knew all about all the Post Office scandal but apparently the establishment Someone Else’s Problem field ran out of batteries and, years later, “something must be done!”.
Probably another example of the calibre of politicians we’ve got. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do anything.
AndyF, sounds like you worked at the same banks as my wife. At one she managed to change a green on a project to a red.
“And they did that because they thought they were worth it – because they were important individuals.”
No: they did that because they finally realised that they had fucked up and fucked over a large number of innocents and they had to do that to cover their tracks.