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Mr Bates vs the Post Office

Jim Audiomisc said:
FWIW My first computer was IIRC an ICL1900. Paper tapes and punched Fortran IBM cards. 8-] Second was an American 'mini' where you started off loading the OS using a row of toggle switches to teach it how to read a papar tape that held the actual OS and then run. I'm old!
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That was known as the 'front panel'. You had two banks of switches one to set the address and the other to set the Op code byte. Step by step the code to read the O/S from a tape drive was loaded and then push 'run' and the O/S was read into core memory and the machine booted.

ICL was across the road from where I worked and Olivetti was next door. At the time the ICL mainframes used a 6 bit Byte and each Byte was stored on a small plug in card that had 6 toroid's soldered- one for each bit.

How times have changed.

DV
 
During last nights BBC Question Time when the subject of the PO scandal was raised, Liza Nandy put forward an excellent point that should be pressed home really hard, that was that there should be a full Hillsborough Bill put in place where-by anyone in a position of authority who is latter found to have knowingly lied or deceived an investigation such as this or others mentioned up-thread. then they should be subject to the full force of the law for subsequent prosecution. If I remember correctly, this present government voted against taking the bill that far presumably to save themselves from prosecution for the lies and deceit perpetrated on the general public throughout their tenure in power.
 
At the apex of this is the distinct idea that a certain cadre of senior managers deliberately sacrificed hundreds of "little people" because that was a better option than admitting they'd f*cked up. It is very difficult to avoid that conclusion, even speaking as the ardent defender of the establishment that I am in these parts.

There are at least one or two parallels with the infected blood tragedy. In both, you wonder why there wasn't someone saying "hang on, this can't be right..."

I'm really not buying the attempts to implicate Starmer from his time as DPP. The right has been trying this on for years, with Savile and anything else they can get their hands on.
 
Tony L said:
The difference is intent. The Conservative Party is funded by the wealthy elite for the sole benefit of the wealthy elite. It is paid for by billionaire donors, large corporations etc. If it ever does anything to benefit the electorate it is by accident rather than design. The 20+ year failing of Horizon and the government cover-up to protect donors and other high-level grifters by painting working class folk liars and thieves is the perfect example.

I’m absolutely no fan of Labour. They are useless, cowardly and incompetent, and not immune to corruption (largely petty expenses theft etc, not the £multi-million Tory stuff), but they are at least conceptually on the side of working people being born out of the trade union movement. The Conservative Party is born purely out of elitism, imperialism, corruption and exploitation. It is in its DNA. As ever follow the money. Who pays for the Conservative Party? What do they get for their money? Why exactly is Rishi Infosys BP Sunak, a man already with a wealth of £750 million, taking a £150k role as PM if it isn't to secure multi-£bn contracts for his business empire? The grift is the point. A £376,000 donation from a Fujitsu CEO such small change in this picture the media can barely be arsed reporting it.



Fair enough. I’m clearly out of date there and running on learned rather than practical experience. I’m thinking of the end days of ICL as IIRC their computer systems were rebranded Fujitsu Siemens, especially their attempts into the PC market. I always deliberately avoided state contracts so I’ve never personally worked on any ICL kit. Never been in the room with any other than a visit to TNMOC many years ago. All IBM, Compaq etc where I worked! I’m way out of date anyway, the last IT contract I had was back in 2001 I think!
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Another reminder that this probably wouldn’t have happened without the venal complicity of the Lib Dems. Fruit of the poisonous tree which brought us Brexit & all manner of batshit crazy right wing crackpots.
 
I just watched Paul Brand (ITV NEWS) question Sir Ed Davey.

Paul kept saying "why can't you say sorry"....."that's not an apology".

Do these MPs think buy saying "I regret" gets them out of jail.

Ed Davey has shown himself to be a complete shit.
 
Woodface said:
Another reminder that this probably wouldn’t have happened without the venal complicity of the Lib Dems.
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Eh the project started in 92 went live in 99'ish, the Lib Dems were in coalition from 2010 to 2015

The secondsight report was in mid 2013 but the PO was still lying to Parliament at that point so I fail to see how it "wouldn't have happened without the Lib Dems"
 
vacuum_tubes said:
Eh the project started in 92 went live in 99'ish, the Lib Dems were in coalition from 2010 to 2015

The secondsight report was in mid 2013 but the PO was still lying to Parliament at that point so I fail to see how it "wouldn't have happened without the Lib Dems"
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& Ed Davey refused to meet the sub postmasters or be arsed to do anything. Propped up the crooked Tories who took money from Fujitsu.
 
As ever follow the money; that has always been flowing into Tory pockets. They are desperately trying to blame the LDs now as they know a shedload of seats will fall to them next election. Just ask why the right-wing media are 100% focused on Ed Davy yet no one at all talks about the £376,000 paid to the Conservative Party from one Fujitsu CEO and failed Tory Minister For Crumbling Schools Gillian Keegan being married to the current one.

PS FWIW as stated upthread I think Ed Davy should just resign anyway. Just sink the Tory media’s pathetic deflection boat. Layla Moran is just exponentially more suited to the leadership role and could take scythe to the Tory heartlands at the next election, and take likely take seats from Sir Keir Of The Nothings too, so it would be the right strategic move. Ed Davy just isn’t very good, and never has been.
 
Woodface said:
& Ed Davey refused to meet the sub postmasters or be arsed to do anything. Propped up the crooked Tories who took money from Fujitsu.
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I'm no fan of his but he refused to meet him once, then did a few months later. He was postal minister from 2010-2012. Again before secondsight did their investigation or anything was in the press. He would have been lied to by the PO and the civil servants.

You're really clutching at straws to say "wouldn’t have happened without the venal complicity of the Lib Dems"
 
Ed's problem, and the point of attack for the usual media, is that for much of his career he has been demanding, perhaps rather pointlessly in some instances, that other people resign.

Honestly, I don't think he is especially "complicit" though. he was one of many responsible ministers who just accepted what they were being told by the PO. The crunchy issue is that at a lower level they just get told this stuff - that the line to take plays to the lowest risk and exposure, even if it's downright wrong.
 
Blaming Ed Davey is absurd, just not quite as absurd as blaming Starmer. It's absolute desperation from the Tories and their media cheerleaders.
 
Tony L said:
A DEC PDP of some description? Again never worked on one, but they are such cool things with a lovely mid-century modern design aesthetic and colour pallet. A lot of the IBM mainframes are remarkably stylish things too. Cool terminals, control panels with loads of switches and blinking lights, giant tape machines etc. Exactly what a computer should be!
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Could be something like a PDP 11/70. I recall the heat in our DEC office in Stratford when booted the beast.
 
vacuum_tubes said:
I'm no fan of his but he refused to meet him once, then did a few months later. He was postal minister from 2010-2012. Again before secondsight did their investigation or anything was in the press. He would have been lied to by the PO and the civil servants.

You're really clutching at straws to say "wouldn’t have happened without the venal complicity of the Lib Dems"
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Yeah, probably a bit of a stretch from me but I bloody hate the Libs & they enabled the worrst government in my lifetime. The ongoing shitshow would be far shorter without their complicity. The fact that their current leader is directly linked to this is pretty shameful.
 
Ward said:
During last nights BBC Question Time when the subject of the PO scandal was raised, Liza Nandy put forward an excellent point that should be pressed home really hard, that was that there should be a full Hillsborough Bill put in place where-by anyone in a position of authority who is latter found to have knowingly lied or deceived an investigation such as this or others mentioned up-thread. then they should be subject to the full force of the law for subsequent prosecution. If I remember correctly, this present government voted against taking the bill that far presumably to save themselves from prosecution for the lies and deceit perpetrated on the general public throughout their tenure in power.
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Not sure if she ran that past Sir Keir, as it puts his ideological guru (no, not Mrs. Thatch, the other one) firmly in the dock.
 
A disgusting slur that a blanket quashing of convictions might mean some postmasters getting away with fiddling the books. Has any evidence been uncovered that this was the case? Even if it has, why were postmasters jailed for a measly few thousand quid? Beer money to Matt Hancock, Michelle Mone and the human turd that is Peter Mandelson.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1745920610893434993

“We've a new report: the Post Office claimed £934m tax relief for its compensation payments to the postmasters it persecuted. That's outrageous. It's also unlawful - so the Post Office now faces an unexpected £100m tax bill. It may be insolvent.”

Dan Neidle.

If this is the case it means the (no doubt Tory) management at the top of the PO will have been paying themselves LOL salaries, grotesquely inflated bonuses etc based on highly dubious accounts. It has all just been reported on Sky. The PO is fully state owned so it can’t go bankrupt (thank you MMT), but the spotlight needs shining very brightly indeed on upper management. Those responsible for all aspects of this debacle need to be publicly identified and dragged through the courts.
 
This is where is starts getting really daft. Govt departments claiming against each other. The only winners being lawyers. As I’ve said, these folk need a proper payout to get their lives back on track, a couple of million each IMHO. Pay it out and spend the legal fees on pursuing Fujitsu and the PO Board at the time, who should be stripped of bonuses, pensions, the lot.

www.bbc.co.uk

Post Office may face £100m tax bill over victim payouts - experts

It may have underpaid more than £100m in tax while overpaying its senior executives, according to experts.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
PTWild said:
For anyone with an IT background, the witness statement of David McDonnell is quite astounding. He was parachuted in to help the team of hopeless coders who wrote the module that caused the cash discrepancies. It’s well worth a read. He was moved off for causing too much noise.

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/file/841/download?token=j0Gpjhz7
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Scary. As ever the problem is with non-technical upper management. It always is. Some pigshit ignorant overpaid blurt in a suit trying to cover their own arse by demanding stuff that they simply don’t understand. I’ve seen it so many times to differing degrees and it is a reason I detested working in the corporate rat-race.
 
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