[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, Reynolds plays it by the book here. Badenoch just thinks "critical story, Labour".

[kreuzberger]

Quite. She is a scoundrel with form, and one who has a merely passing acquaintance with actual facts. She is going to need to find some serious reinforcements if she is going to survive this unflushable scandal.

Sure as eggs is eggs, the Sunday Times will be back next weekend for a second bite.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Well indeed. I'd watch that tweet to see how long that stays up.

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Made up anecdotes and falsehoods" too.

[Watchman]

“Officials”, “Taking complete records”…..that’ll be a first with this lot

[Tubby Isaacs]

Tory MP sees serious questions. For someone else.

[kreuzberger]

There are consequences here, by the potential dozen.

Libel, defamation, slander. Take yer pick.

(Christ, she is one of the loathsome worst. I can decide whether I would like to see her sobbing at 4am in a sports centre or on the steps of the High Court. Both are encouragingly possible.)

[Tubby Isaacs]

Here are the allegations. They go some way beyond what Badenoch said when she sacked him. Are these points being addressed tmrw, or does she just mean the bit about her sacking him?

Actually it is mostly about civil servants, though they may not have been doing all this off their own bat.

• He was instructed by a senior civil servant to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability.

• The government body that manages taxpayers’ ownership of the Post Office told its chief executive to write to the lord chancellor stating the reason so few sub-postmasters had come forward to have their convictions overturned was because they were “guilty as charged”.

• The Post Office remains a “mess”, plagued by a “toxic” culture where executives continue to mistrust sub-postmasters, despite exposure of the scandal, and where suspicion they are “digging into the [till] drawers is rife”.

• It still employs more than 40 investigators involved in the wrongful prosecution of sub-postmasters. These investigators are known as “the untouchables” inside the organisation because of the power they wield.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A business department source said: “This blame-passing was a feature of Mr Staunton’s time in the Post Office and emblematic of his lack of control over the organisation and why the board needed new leadership. As well as his poor judgment, Staunton was dismissed for blocking an investigation into his conduct.

That sounds a bit like bullshit. What was the investigation about? Who tried to do it? How could he block it?

I woudn't be massively surprised if Kemi overplayed her hand with this sacking.

[kreuzberger]

The delightfully smooth "young" Adam Crozier taking the stand today and, quite remarkably, no one is delving in to his earlier career, where, "believe them the first time" couldn't have an allegedly truer ring.

Cough - Telegraph...

[Watchman]

Fucking disgrace

Former Post Office general counsel Jane MacLeod confirmed as not appearing at Horizon IT inquiry

A significant development at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry happened earlier. Jason Beer KC has been questioning Post Office CFO Alisdair Cameron.

At one point Cameron said that something would be better answered by Jane MacLeod, who was general counsel at the Post Office from 2015 to 2019 at a time when the Bates v Post Office Ltd case was ongoing.

Beer confirmed that MacLeod is not cooperating with the inquiry. He told Cameron “We are not going to hear from her. She lives abroad and won’t cooperate.”

[Youngian]

Where abroad, a banana republic that doesn’t do extradition treaties?

[Watchman]

Baroness Bra’s tax haven island?

[Youngian]

New Zealand apparently. Courtesy of the Royal Mail’s slimeball Mr Fixit.

Secret tapes obtained by ITV News previously revealed Chris Aujard was warned by independent investigators of 'wrongful and unsafe' guilty pleas. ITV News Investigations Editor Daniel Hewitt reports https://www.itv.com/news/2024-04-24/for ... at-inquiry

[kreuzberger]

On a day when the tables might just have been turned in favour of the beaten, the bruised, and the battered, it is so sweet to savour the tears of the venal vicar.

This porcelain, mild-mannered veneer was also deployed by the likes of Harold Shipman. That nice Herr Eichmann might be a stretch to cite here, but the hurt she has caused cuts deep into the individuals about which she cared not one jot or tittle.

She's a fucking psychopath.

[AOB]

Jammy, spawny fucker with that election announcement timing. Buried down the news agenda now ahead of day 2.

[AOB]

BBC challenges ex-Post Office lawyer in Australia


Another hard-faced member of the Post Office Reich.

If the hacking group Anonymous are at a loose end they could serve a small amount of the justice that people like this are unlikely to face by making their lives impossible for a while by hacking the fuck out of every aspect of it. See how they like their lives being made a misery of.

[AOB]

Post Office campaigner Alan Bates given knighthood

[Bones McCoy]

Post Office campaigner Alan Bates given knighthood

Telling that he get's a gong on the King's list and not the PM's list.

Yeah, I know it's really all committees etc, but optics, gentle readers.

[Abernathy]

Also rather neat in that Alan Bates previously refused an honour on the grounds that it wouldn't be right since Vennells held a CBE. Now she has had to give it up, he can be properly rewarded.