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Ghost Storey
Read More…: Ghost StoreyUsually when thinking about how to write a summary of the day’s evidence, there are one or two moments or lines which have made an impression. I’m struggling to think of anything Susannah Storey said during today’s session worth reporting. I realise I’m not exactly selling what you’re about to read, but it did feel like a fitting anticlimax to fifteen long weeks of evidence. Storey is a high-flying civil servant – currently Permanent Secretary at DCMS. She was the first shareholder NED (non-executive director) on the Post Office board, serving from March 2012 to April 2014. At the Inquiry…
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Asleep at the Neil
Read More…: Asleep at the NeilNeil McCausland was a non-executive director (NED) at the Post Office. In fact, he was the Senior Independent Director (SID), responsible during board meetings for robust examination of the executive’s actions and responsible outside board meetings for doing his research, marshalling the opinions of the other NEDs and communicating them to the Chair and executive as appropriate. It is quite clear from his evidence today he was nowhere near as dreadful as his successor, Ken “I don’t” McCall, who has already given evidence to the Inquiry. To be fair to this article’s headline, SIDs and NEDs are nowhere near the…
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Clark and Cable: Responsible for everything, accountable for nothing
Read More…: Clark and Cable: Responsible for everything, accountable for nothingTwo Secretaries of State, whose tenure in office covered significant periods of the Post Office scandal gave evidence at the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry today. They are the most senior ranked and last politicians to give evidence in this phase, and some of what they had to say was illuminating, but not much. Vince Cable was business secretary during the coalition government from 2010 to 2015. Greg Clark held the same post for the duration of Theresa May’s government, from 2016 to 2019. Clark made it clear he had no love for the Post Office given the way they…
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Second Sight’s final report
Read More…: Second Sight’s final reportEarlier this year I published Second Sight’s Interim Report, which was first published on the Post Office website on 8 July 2013 and removed several years later. Second Sight’s far more critical final report, formally known as “Briefing Report – Part 2”, was not published on the Post Office website when it was delivered to the Post Office on 9 April 2015. In fact, the Post Office issued a (ludicrous) rebuttal report and (ludicrously) tried to stop Second’s Sight final report from being given to its shareholder, the government. This delayed access to justice for hundreds of Subpostmasters. As soon…
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The Wine Gums vs The Blob
Read More…: The Wine Gums vs The BlobPutting together a list of Postal Affairs ministers a few years back I was reminded of a graffito written shortly after the 33 day papacy of John Paul I, which asked: “What lasts longer, a pope or a wine gum?” It seemed apt. At a time when ministers should have been getting a solid grip on the Post Office, they were being spun through the Business Department’s revolving doors, reliant on the misleading briefings they were getting from their own civil servants and the Post Office. Throughout this scandal, the tail was wagging the dog. Today it was the turn…
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A Trip down Misery Lane: Surviving the Post Office on BBC1
Read More…: A Trip down Misery Lane: Surviving the Post Office on BBC1Surviving the Post Office (co-produced and co-directed by Hayley Hassall, who has previously reported on the story) has something of the travelogue about it. Will Mellor, who played former Subpostmaster Lee Castleton in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, presents. Mellor calls his role in the ITV drama “more important than any other” in his career. In this documentary, the actor traverses England, first meeting Lee Castleton in Scarborough (“we’ve become friends”) and then setting off on an odyssey by train and car to meet several more former Subpostmasters and/or their spouses/children. The one person interviewed who…
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Furious Swinson claimed Paula Vennells deceived her
Read More…: Furious Swinson claimed Paula Vennells deceived herDuring her evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry former minister Jo Swinson today highlighted the mendacity of the Post Office and what she saw as the conniving “duplicitous” behaviour of her chief civil service advisor. It all centres on the first Clarke Advice, the legal document written in July 2013 which was kept hidden from the government, MPs, campaigners and their lawyers until it was finally dragged out of the Post Office during the Court of Appeal hearings in 2021. The Advice informs the Post Office that it has been using an unreliable witness (Gareth Jenkins) in its…
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Ed Davey: Chocolate Teapot
Read More…: Ed Davey: Chocolate TeapotI lost patience with Ed Davey at around 2.30pm this afternoon. It was when Jason Beer read into the record the sheer number of red flags being waved in Ed Davey’s face about the Post Office’s behaviour and its dodgy Horizon IT system from the moment he took office. On 20 May 2010, the day Davey was appointed, Alan Bates wrote a letter on Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance headed paper. It read: “We are an independent group of ex and serving subpostmasters who have suffered at the hands of the Post Office and their Horizon system ever since it was…
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Pat’s Proof Points (and other McFadden Mantras)
Read More…: Pat’s Proof Points (and other McFadden Mantras)Former Post Office minister (2007 – 2010) Pat McFadden didn’t have to say much to the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, but he did have to say something. Being a campaign-hardened and experienced politician, he had no qualms about saying very little lots of times. McFadden was asked (in a number of ways) why he did nothing to help Subpostmasters, despite receiving clear information from his fellow MPs and detailed allegations from the journalist Rebecca Thomson, sent in the form of an email whilst she was putting together her seminal investigation for Computer Weekly, which broke this scandal in 2009.…
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Comical Ken and Captain Kelly
Read More…: Comical Ken and Captain KellyKen McCall was brought into the Post Office in 2016 as a non-executive director (NED) because the Post Office chairman Tim Parker thought he would be a “good fit”. We were told this was because of McCall’s experience running a delivery business (TNT) in China and being responsible for EuropCar and its IT function in Europe, but it may well have been because he was a mediocre talent joining a mediocre board. McCall did no due diligence before joining the Post Office (for due diligence, read “basic Google search”) and was entirely unaware when he accepted the job that there…
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