The U.K. has been consumed by a scandal involving the use of faulty accounting software, Horizon from Fujitsu, used by the Post Office to accuse postmasters and postmistresses of stealing funds. Under U.K. law, the Post Office is empowered to prosecute alleged offenders directly. Between 1999 and 2015, an astonishing 700-750 hardworking and conscientious managers of local community post offices, often the pillars of society and the very backbone of small businesses in the country, were convicted. Their protestations of innocence and suggestions of glitches in the software were dismissed: the computer does not lie, the courts were told and they accepted the infallibility of technology. Many were coerced into pleading guilty because they could not afford to fight a state behemoth. They lost the respect of their peers, many were ruined financially, several went to jail and some committed or tried to commit suicide.
It was only in 2019 that High Court Judge Peter Fraser cleared the postmasters and pinned responsibility for the financial discrepancies on the software. The Criminal Cases Review Commission has described the scandal as the “biggest single series of wrongful convictions in British legal history”. But the scandal wasn’t over yet. Their efforts to overturn the wrongful convictions and receive reparations have been painfully slow and around 70 claimants died in the interim with their names still not cleared. As of January 2024, just 93 convictions have been reversed and only 30 people have received any compensation.
Although the scandal has been bubbling away under the radar for more than 20 years, a four-part ITV dramatisation that screened recently finally caught the public attention, and then some. Mr. Bates vs the Post Office tells the sorry tale through the eyes of one brave man Alan Bates, unflinchingly supported by his wife Suzanne Sercombe, who kept fighting the entire system and establishment to clear his name, exonerate their colleagues and indict the senior executives. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to introduce a bill this year to exonerate all the postmasters convicted through the dodgy Horizon-based evidence.
The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into potential fraud, perjury and perverting the course of justice.
There are many parallels of this scandal with the Covid saga over the last four years. In what follows, I draw in particular on comments on the Horizon scandal in two recent articles in the U.K. Telegraph by columnists Allison Pearson (which attracted nearly 5,000 online comments) and Allister Heath (2,600 comments), and a third article in the Conservative Woman by Professor Angus Dalgleish.
The first obvious parallel is the blind faith in computers and technology that was untested in the real world. The two equivalents in the case of Covid are the elevation of mathematical models to science and the use of unreliable PCR tests, especially with elevated cycle threshold counts. The PCR machine can be made to run multiple ‘cycles’ (like a washing machine) to keep amplifying the target viral material in the sample to make it detectable. The Ct value, the number of cycles it takes to detect the virus, becomes increasingly less accurate beyond 25-28 Ct yet in some cases it was raised up to 40 and those who tested positive were treated as Covid cases.
Another parallel is in the awarding of state gongs to the perpetrators of mass cruelty. The then-CEO of the Post Office Paula Vennells got a CBE for her services to the Post Office (she has since bowed to public pressure to hand back the honour), while the number of health officials and scientists receiving honours have been sickeningly high.
A third is in the refusal of ministers and parliamentarians to listen to the ordinary people desperate to get their honour and lives back.
The Post Office Minister at the time, Sir (another one) Ed Davy, refuses to accept responsibility and instead blames it all on civil servants: they lied to him on an industrial scale! In fact it is the complicity of all the top institutions and their smug and self-righteous senior personnel – from cabinet ministers to judges, lawyers, executives, investigators, the Post Office board and the Fujitsu board, the engineers and technicians – that has been so sickeningly repeated in the Covid years.
It seemingly did not occur to anyone to ask why over 750 managers with hitherto unblemished records were suddenly all committing financial fraud at the same time, which coincided with the mass rollout of a new accounting software to Post Office branches across the country. No one seems prepared to stand up for the victims of the wrongs and the harms.
And no one still today is prepared to inquire into the dramatic explosion of reported adverse events and excess deaths that coincide with lockdowns and mass vaccinations. They too have encountered unconscionable delays in having their cases investigated and compensation awarded. In a related vein, very few countries seem prepared to take back healthcare workers and civil servants dismissed for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates.
A fourth commonality is the role of Andrew Bridgen MP, crying in the wilderness in both tragedies that something wrong was happening to the Horizon- and vaccine-injured that needed to be looked at. While his name has become familiar in the time of Covid, he had the conviction and the courage to act on it in trying, in vain, to highlight the plight of the postmasters for many years.
A fifth common theme is the class divide, where the rapacious political, bureaucratic and business elites got the financial and social rewards but the harms, pain and suffering were borne by the workers. The rewards – promotions, bonuses, honours – for ruining so many innocent, decent, honourable lives really stick in the craw.
A final common theme is that justice will not be seen to be done and the sense of justice will not be appeased unless many of the top people responsible are put behind bars. There will be no emotional closure for the victims and their families and no effective deterrent to future wrongdoing by jumped-up and condescending members of the ruling class without full and transparent criminal justice accountability. As Heath writes, the postmasters, “the best of Britain, were persecuted by the worst of Britain: the overpromoted corporate-bureaucratic class, the useless apparatchiks of Britain’s Kafkaesque bureaucracies, the unaccountable arms-length bodies, the out of control lawyers, the civil servants and the subsidy-hungry corporations”.
What we need to close this particular circle is both a proper inquiry and a human-interest personalised TV dramatisation of the Covid-related injustices inflicted by the unholy collusion between the different components of Big State, Big Pharma, Big Tech and the mainstream media.
Ramesh Thakur, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University, Senior Research Fellow at the Toda Peace Institute, and Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. His new book, Our Enemy, the Government: How Covid Enabled the Expansion and Abuse of State Power (Brownstone Institute, 2023), is out now. This article was first published by Spectator Australia.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Horizon x 1,000
no actually x 10,000
Literally nobody in power gives a toss for ordinary people.
The sentencing of the killer of those poor people in Nottingham and the abominable way their families have been treated being another instance.
I’m afraid unless you’re one of the elites you’re on your own now.
” The first obvious parallel is the blind faith in computers and technology that was untested in the real world.” While blind faith in technology is rife amongst those who know least about it – ie politcians and civil servants, It is clear to me that amongst those who did know, there was deliberate fraud.
” The two equivalents in the case of Covid are the elevation of mathematical models to science “ UCL’s Ferguson was chosen for his readiness to provide absurdly exaggerated fraudulent scenarios to underpin policy. He had done it before with absurd predictions in the 2001 Foot and Mouth scandal and the 2009 swine flu outbreak. His code is an amateurish academic bodge that cannot output consistent results for the same initial data set. Even after being tidied up by GitHub for publication. Climate models on which the whole cliamte change scam rests are little better.
“….. and the use of unreliable PCR tests, especially with elevated cycle threshold counts. The PCR machine Ct value, …increasingly less accurate beyond 25-28 Ct yet in some cases it was raised up to 40 and those who tested positive were treated as Covid cases.” Yes and in Wales amongst other places the threshhold was set at 45 – revealed by a FoI. Ct45 is 131,000 times more sensitive than Ct28, or 35 billion amplifications
Spot on.
The usual suspects created an entirely false ‘pandemic’ narrative by means of absurdly high recommended pcr cycle thresholds (Ct) from which they will, no doubt, have profited handsomely:
‘The WHO and Drosten recommend a Ct of 45 cycles and, reportedly, presently the German health officials do as well.’
‘In simple English, the entire edifice of the Gates foundation, the Merkel government, the WHO and WEF as well as the case for de facto forced untested vaccines, rests on results of a PCR test for coronavirus that is not worth a hill of beans. The test of Drosten and WHO is more or less, scientific crap.
Coronavirus Scandal Breaking in Merkel’s Germany–False Positives and the Drosten PCR Test
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/12/coronavirus-scandal-breaking-in-merkels-germany-false-positives-and-the-drosten-pcr-test/
‘Right at the start of the Corona crisis, Landt and his Berlin-based biotech company were producing Corona test kits for 1,500,000 Corona tests per week, and by February they had already tripled their sales.
In the meantime, he has probably reaped gigantic profits from these tests. It is somehow doubtful that Landt will pocket the entire economic success and that Drosten will only benefit in his reputation.’
https://principia-scientific.com/christian-drosten-the-fraud-behind-covid-19-pcr-testing/
I remember local NHS briefing notes on PCR testing referencing Drosten’s recommended Ct of 45 cycles (although, unsurprisingly, difficult to find those notes now……):
‘The most common FOI asked if there was a cycle threshold for positivity. In those that responded, the Ct for a positive result varied from 30 to 45.’
PCR Testing in the UK During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic – Evidence from FOI Requests
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.28.22274341v1.full
The main scientific protagonists, Drosten, Farrar, Whitty, Pantsdown, are all remarkably unattractive individuals in deed and most else, would lend themselves extremely well to a TV hatchet job, so that must, indeed, only be a matter of time; a nice little earner itself for some buccaneering TV drama team…….
” The two equivalents in the case of Covid are the elevation of mathematical models to science “
Then we must include Global Boiling, or whatever it’s called.
“The data don’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations [for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions] upon the data. We’re basing them upon the climate models”
Chris Folland [UK Meteorological Office]
“Rather than seeing models as describing literal truth, we ought to see them as convenient fictions which try to provide something useful.”
David Frame [Climate modeler, Oxford University]
Blair, who gave Horizon the green light, was apparently warned that the system was unreliable but he decided to go ahead anyway so he didn’t offend the Japs.
It’s plausible that the people who authorised AstraZeneca and the mRNA jabs KNEW that they would cause serious adverse effects for some people, but decided to go ahead anyway.
The PCR “test” is actually an extreme fiction. First it doesn’t amplify Covid-19 as that has never been found at all in any verifiable way. It does amplify a very small section of genetic material (45 cycles = 3.5 followed by 13 noughts, about a million billion times) and then if detected, by a simple antigen test. Note that the actual test sequence comes from China and cannot be shown to detect active infection in any way, in fact at more than about 20 cycles shows nothing useful, as mentioned above. The lateral flow test is again useless, and usually shows positive for any infection after any symptoms have gone, again from China!
‘Our enemy, the government….’
Socialist fascism.
Both scandals are the result of similar underlying causes but there the similarity ends. With Horizon you could conceivably do the following:
None of these things will happen most probably, but it is just about plausible. What isn’t plausible is a similar set of outcomes for “covid” because the scam involved every powerful institution on planet Earth, virtually, and was enthusiastically embraced by hundreds of millions of people, at least, if not billions (I’d like to think people in poor countries didn’t care much). Those people are still in power, or if they are not in power the opposition was also on board. From what I am aware of, mainstream political opposition to the “covid” scam was limited to some sections of the US Republican Party and perhaps one or two other countries. Where’s the incentive to dig the drains up?
True enough, but that is no reason to not try to do something against the evil perpetrators, because they killed (directly) about 100,000 people in the UK, in various ways, many of which being cruel and unusual as the US would say. As it is normal to apply huge Police resources to murders, deaths from unknown causes etc., it is impossible to ignore. But they are certainly trying to circumvent any justice because the “Enquiry” (actually a cup of tea with friends) is not allowing anything to be discussed which does not match the already written report. Note too that the Grenfell report has yet to be published because it is absoloutely damming to so many people in public life that a new prison would have to be built to hold them all. I estimate we would need 10 new prisons for the Covid mess.
Well of course we all struggle on in our own way to try and get things back on track. But to think anything significant could possibly result from any “inquiry” in our lifetime seems like hopium to me. The entire establishment was involved, including the political “opposition”. Who stands to gain from this? Who will “administer justice” when those who were meant to uphold the law were all in on it – politicians, police, media. There’s no “other side” who at the time called foul and could now prove they were right. Nobody called foul, except a few lone voices.
Not just the Covid scam, need something similar to highlight the Climate scam driven by very questionable models
I get the feeling that you might not like them very much.
I’d add the captured MSM and The RPTB to your list though.
The biggest scandal yet to break is Net Zero. I anticipate global temperatures to start decreasing over the next five years or so, which will be very hard for our esteemed political classes to explain given that CO2 concentrations have and will continue to increase. That level of dissonance between theory and observation would surely register amongst even the dimmest of them. We shall see.
No, it won’t be hard. It will be difficult, yes. Trump delayed them quite a lot, as has Elon’s acquisition of Twitter. I am firmly convinced that they have access to accurate climate models that they keep secret, and they feed us propaganda models. I think it’s nearly impossible to live in a world where you can train an AI model to create video and audio to a level that it gets hard to discern from reality, and to rely on climate models that are out by several orders of magnitude from reality. It’s not in the realm of possibility.
So I am sure they have accurate models of the climate and that they have known for at least a decade, perhaps more, that the warming peak is going to be now, in 2020-2025. This is why both Trump and Brexit were so demonized and they still are. Trump got in the way of their plans to install someone in the White House that will play ball with the EU, just like Biden is doing currently. The UK staying in the EU was also required for easier control over the UK. The plan was for them to start shutting down oil production and to manufacture an energy crisis, just like Biden and the EU did with the war in Ukraine. They would claim that this crisis was global. I mean, look, energy costs are high in the EU, in the US, in Australia, everywhere. It’s global, amirite? But, of course, all of these places are under WEF control.
But then Trump happened. And he wouldn’t play ball. Quite the opposite. So they couldn’t go ahead with their plans. You can’t have a global energy crisis if Trump’s America is paying a buck fifty a gallon at the pump. So that set them back 4 years. Come 2020, they couldn’t afford to lose 4 more years. Trump needed to be kicked out at all costs. And not only that, but they needed to drive it into people’s minds that anyone like Trump will be destroyed completely if he were so much as to come near the White House. So covid happened. And mail in ballots happened. And then J6 happened. And as much as I hate to say it, Trump and Republicans were caught with their pants so far down, they’re still trying to pull them up.
And now that (the new world) order was restored in the White House, that the UK was being adequately punished for voting for Brexit, and all the Western world back under their control, they needed to put their plans on steroids. Worldwide lockdowns. Energy crises. Air travel being made inaccessible to most. 15 minute cities. ULEZ everywhere. Cars being forcefully phased out. EVs being pushed like mad. Everyone being shifted onto heat pumps. Solar panels and wind turbines everywhere. The economy no longer mattered. All that mattered was that in the short 4-6 year window that they got, the change will be apparent to all, so that come the year when the temperatures will plummet, they’ll say: “See? We told you. We cut away your freedoms. We cut away your gas and your petrol and your diesel. We cut away your food and farming. We cut it all away and now the hundred year old trend is being finally reversed. All because of our actions. Now we need to keep this going with MORE restrictions!”
And the media will help them.
And celebrities will applaud for them.
And people will believe them.
Unfortunately, many of the same people that are crying out to hold the whole system accountable for the Post Office scandal are also firmly convinced that the system is perfect and can make no mistake when it comes to COVID. Imagine you hire a handyman to do some work around your house and he completely wrecks your home. You complain, you sue, you ask for your money back. And then you call on him for another job, and he wrecks your home again. And then you keep calling him for new jobs and he keeps wrecking your home. Does that sound like madness? Would anyone do that with a handyman? Then why are we doing it with our government?
The problem there is that the only party wanting to fix things is Reform, and they cannot get any MPs because of first past the post elections. We need PR now, then at least we stand a chance of surviving.
“In the managerial state, no one is ever held accountable because accountability requires two elements missing in managerialism. One is a moral duty to the stated goal of the institution…
Instead, they have a managerial spirit, which means no shame is possible.
The other element for accountability is clear responsibility. Managerialism is primarily about shifting responsibility from individuals onto collections of managers with a shared interest in controlling the organization. It is the magic trick of managerialism that collective error is never the fault of anyone in the collective. Managers socialize failure onto the abstraction that is the system, while privatizing the benefits onto the individuals within the managerial system.
This is why reform of managerialism is impossible. Reform starts by holding people responsible for the results. Managerialism evolved to prevent this so the reformer is either repelled by the system or consumed by it.” https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=31503
Modern Lamposts no longer carry the crossmember whereupon the old gaslighters used to position their ladders.
This means that two persons per lampost is no longer easily available.
I have no doubt that the powers that be had this very much in mind when they got rid of gaslamps.
Plenty of trees in central London
The risks in that were always present throughout the Horizon episode have never been borne by the powerful, the wealthy, and the well-connected. Instead, they have been offloaded onto the weak. Firstly, onto the Postmasters and mistresses, and now onto the taxpayer.
The primary objective for all governments is to look like they are in control of events, even if they aren’t. In the 21st century, the government couldn’t make the excuse that Edward III’s made when the plague was approaching England, that ‘God was terrible in His judgments’. What could a mere government do against the Almighty?
Today, the buck stops with government. Hence, the great efforts made to appeal to science – like God: ubiquitous, invisible, only-wise – during the Covid period of national derangement.
New Rasmussen poll.
Public Health is finished.
Thanks for the clip. I see that it agrees with my attitude in my age group etc. As you say, confidence is down the tubes.
“Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to introduce a bill this year to exonerate all the postmasters convicted…”
Why does it require a bill? The convictions can be overturned in the courts.
I think the reason is that it would take too long, and possibly too expensive.
I put in a request to play myself in the proposed documentary, not dramatisation…
We will never get a proper Inquiry. The Establishment has already circled the wagons, to protect itself.
And none of the MSM will dare produce a Docu-drama about the Covid Scamdemic and the Jab injuries. Because they were ALL complicit in encouraging it.
All we can hope is that sufficient sheeple slowly learn the truth through a combination of the personal experiences of their friends and family, and the alternative media.
Yes indeed. Very much to the point. There is another issue which I think might fall into the same category – the Lucy Letby trial and conviction. There is extensive coverage of this in the Law, Health and Technology Substack. This is quite long, with over 20 detailed posts starting here: https://lawhealthandtech.substack.com/p/scepticism-in-action