Sir Keir and Sir Ed are at heart of Post Office knightmare – they looked other way instead of helping the little people
WHO in this country will look out for the little people, the people without power?
The people without money, the people without knighthoods? But also the people who do the hard grind to keep our nation afloat?
One way or another they get shafted, every time.
The politicians and bureaucrats make decisions which ruin their lives.
Maybe bankrupt them.
In the worst cases, drive them to suicide.
But there is nobody to listen to their justifiable complaints until it is too late.
That’s what’s happened with our forlorn and bullied army of sub-postmasters and mistresses.
It took an ITV drama to fully wake us up to what has been one of the greatest miscarriages of justice this country has ever seen.
A misjustice based upon absolute, consuming stupidity.
More than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses had their lives destroyed because the bigwigs in the Post Office, in government and in the Crown Prosecution Service believed in something which was beyond the bounds of probability.
A new computer system was introduced.
And, overnight the Post Office “discovered” that hundreds of its employees — the people who provide a vital service for our towns and villages — were robbing them blind.
They, and the CPS and government, didn’t stop to think: Um, that’s a bit unlikely, isn’t it? Might it not be the computer software that’s at fault?
And when this suggestion was put to them, they dismissed it out of hand.
Nah, bang ’em up.
Who is this “they”? Well, obviously the Post Office bureaucracy and its God-bothering then boss Paula Vennells.
As the chaos unfolded, she continued to trouser her millions of pounds.
And in 2019, incredibly, she was awarded a CBE. Why?
She’s now handed it back. Big deal.
But then there’s Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey.
God only knows why he was knighted.
But anyway, he was the postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012.
He refused a meeting with sub-postmaster and campaigner Alan Bates, saying it wouldn’t achieve anything.
Conspicuously failed
He sided with the Post Office bosses, being too lazy or thick to recognise the sheer ridiculousness of the scenario they were putting forward.
Davey is famous for one thing.
Demanding people must resign.
He does it all the time.
So why hasn’t he resigned as party leader?
Why hasn’t he handed back his knighthood?
He says he has no intention of doing either.
He is a hypocrite.
He is partly responsible for the miscarriage of justice.
He should apologise and stand down.
But then there’s another party leader.
Another bloke who has been knighted.
That’s Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party.
Right at the heart of the crisis, Sir Keir was the Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013.
Was he not sufficiently interested in discovering why so many Post Office employees were suddenly being brought before the courts?
Did the champion of the ordinary man not have one or two doubts about these mass prosecutions?
Nope, apparently not — and ever more prosecutions went ahead.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of Tory politicians, too, who need to hold their hands up.
But Davey and Starmer are purportedly politicians who are there specifically to look after the powerless and the moneyless.
They conspicuously failed to do that.
And yet neither one of them is likely to face consequences.
It’s always the poor who face consequences.
Some things in this country never change.
BERK of the Week is sports minister Stuart Andrew.
He has demanded that social media sites “take action”.
To stop people like Joey Barton saying they are not keen on female football pundits.
Now I don’t agree with Joey.
But do you remember the concept of freedom of speech, Mr Andrew?
Where people are allowed to say what the hell they like?
My suspicion, incidentally, is that football fans would prefer pundits selected for their knowledge of the game and ability to communicate.
Not because of their race, religion, gender etc.
And some of us suspect that isn’t happening right now.
KHAN HE WASTE MORE?
WELL done, Sadiq Khan.
You’ve done the impossible, Mr Mayor – you’ve managed to make London officially the slowest city in the world, according to a study by TomTom.
That’ll be all those 20mph zones, cycle lanes which take up half the road and so on.
You know, I’m still miffed at that New Year’s Eve firework display.
Maybe next year Khan could sit on top of the London Eye and burn £50 notes, one after the other.
It would take him half an hour or so to get through the £3million which the fireworks cost.
But we’d sit there, watching, absolutely rapt. Terrified he might at some point fall off.
WELL, ISLE BE DAMNED
I AM still trying to process the information that Sir Stephen Hawking turned up to parties at the home of paedo Jeffrey Epstein.
It all seems to be true, sadly – though he was there totally innocently, after attending a nearby conference on gravity.
I read A Brief History Of Time twice, and there was no mention of young girls in it, just stuff about gluons, particle duality and the luminosity of Cepheid stars.
Unless it was all a complex metaphor.
God forbid we ever discover that other, similarly revered, national institutions hung out with Epstein and his abused young women.
David Attenborough, peering through foliage at the dance floor and speaking in a hushed whisper?
It is all too horrible to contemplate.
HUGE congrats to Rachel Meade.
She is a social worker who has just won a case against the council she worked for.
The court found that Westminster council discriminated against Rachel because of her totally sane views on transgender issues.
They bullied her and gave her a final written warning.
Her victory in court is a triumph for freedom of speech.
Was it a privates party, Gill?
I WAS fascinated to read that Gillian Anderson wore a “subtle vulva dress” to some ghastly Hollywood awards bash.
I must get one for the missus. It’ll go down well up here.
They’re absolutely mad on subtle vulvas in my neck of the woods.
“Ow pet, love your m*nge dress. Know where I can get one?”
I wonder if I could persuade a tailor to make me a suit adorned with the male equivalent?
COVID’S SHOCK ’N’ FLAW
THE Covid modelling programmes which kept us under lockdown throughout 2020 were mathematically flawed.
That’s the verdict of a professor from Birmingham University.
Those models at the time suggested that a first wave of Covid would infect 80 per cent of the population.
But this failed to take account of the fact that not everybody has the same number of social contacts.
So, there’s people like Graham Norton who are very sociable.
And spend their lives jabbering inanely at hundreds of showbiz friends.
And then there’s miserable bastards like me, who venture out only to take the dog for a walk. And I do that reluctantly.
Anyway, this prof reckons the first wave of Covid could have infected only 20 per cent of the population.
Make sure someone gives this bloke a call next time we’re struck by a virus and the Sage people are going doolally.
CHAMPION athlete Paula Radcliffe has spoken out on the issue of trans competitors in women’s sport.
The marathon runner said the debate had got very nasty. And that it was “complicated”.
She added: “We’re all people, after all.”
Yes, indeed. And half of us are men and the other half are women.
The men are born with a nutsack, the women are not.
So it’s not TERRIBLY complicated, is it, Paula?
BOSSES in the NHS are offering staff free meatless meals for this latest idiocy, Veganuary.
And this is happening in a week when nutrition experts warned of “irreparable” damage of a total vegan diet.
They say babies raised vegan will grow up shorter, with less dense bones and suffering nutritional deficiencies.
But I suppose none of that matters to the NHS bosses, who want to be seen as right-on.