The Post Office has reportedly inked a £180 million deal to continue using Fujitsu’s scandal-hit Horizon system for another five years. The Mail has more.
Japanese firm Fujitsu’s faulty software was behind more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted after shortfalls were incorrectly reported on their accounts.
The Post Office had been looking for a replacement system for next year, but it is now expected that Fujitsu will continue operating in branches for five more years. …
Richard Trinder, who manages the campaign group Voice of the Postmaster – which supports victims of the Horizon scandal – said: “We want the new system to be the right one when it does come in, so we understand that there needs to be a new system.
“However, it would have been nice to Fujitsu to do this work for free and donate the £180 million to victims of the scandal.”
Fujitsu’s current contract was due to end by March 2025, the deadline which the Post Office had hoped to replace its IT system by.
But it was reported this week that the Post Office has pushed this deadline back to 2030. It also asked for £1 billion of additional public money from the Treasury as it finds it difficult to create a sufficient in-house system.
It comes as the huge police inquiry into the Post Office scandal will use 80 detectives and be on the scale of a “major murder or terrorism investigation” it was reported this week.
While over 20 potential suspects at both the Post Office and Fujitsu have already been identified, decisions on whether charges will be brought are unlikely before 2026, the Guardian first reported.
And while the police have already asked for extra funding from the Government to the tune of £6.75 million to fund the huge operation, investigators are yet to be recruited to staff the probe, it added.
Worth reading in full.
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What a bunch of weirdos.
Wtf as sexuality it got to do with running a museum? Ffs!
“–and I said to the manager, with all the dignity I could muster, “is this any way to run a ###king ballroom?” Derek & Clive.
The key is to repeal the legislation that, rather than seeking equality and to eradicate discrimination, is in fact intentionally causing different treatment of people and encouraging discrimination.
The concept of ‘protected characteristics’ must go. I used to understand and support the thinking behind the ‘hate crimes’ laws, now they are being used to cause further division and strife. The simple fact is, everyone should be able to walk down the street safely, be able to work in an environment without bullying, threats and unfair treatment by colleagues and managers, etc.
Years back, one New Year’s Eve in Nottingham a young man got kicked into a coma by 3 thugs. If I remember correctly, all parties were white and the thugs did not know the poor lad, just attacked him (a not uncommon occurrence in Notts at the time). He was in a coma for at least 3 weeks. For him and his loved ones, the crime was an abomination, the idea of ‘hate crimes’ implies that as long as it was just a random attack, it somehow wasn’t that bad. No, it was still appalling. No one should have to suffer such an attack, regardless of motivation.
Reading the above article, ‘to combat ableism’ stood out. I take that as being intended as a perjorative, indicating that it is only right and fair to discriminate against someone who is ‘able-bodied’ in favour of someone who is not, to make someone feel bad because they do not suffer a disability. What a load of codswallop. Just like the BLM movement, which has zero concern in actually eradicating discrimination based on race or skin colour, it merely wishes to switch roles. People inherently have biases, all the current legislation does is seek to give specific groups permission to discriminate, while punishing other groups for discrimination.
Let us go back to basic fundamental rights for all and do away with the ‘protected chacteristics’. The original idea undoubtedly meant well, but human nature will out and all it’s done is led to abuse and discrimination, just giving different groups the upper hand.
As for being ‘phobic’ – totally, I am completely lunacy-phobic and fear for a society that lets unhinged do-gooders make up rules.
Three quotes from Thomas Sowell seem appropriate:
‘ Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.’
“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”
“If you believe in equal rights, then what do “women’s rights,” “gay rights,” etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.”
Excellent.
The concept of protected characteristic must go because it implies that discrimination/ unfair treatment is ok when it’s not happening because of a specifically protected characteristic. For instance, its perfectly ok to discriminate against foreigners as nationality is not a protected characteristic. Any time I go into a shop, the owner may cry Out with you! I hate Germans! and that’s perfectly legal insofar this equality act goes.
The UK urgently needs a T-Blexit — get rid of the poisonous legacy of Tony Blair.
I think you could make a case for saying that discrimination based on anything immutable is wrong that anything immutable should therefore be a protected characteristic. That’s the logical endpoint for this kind of thing. I think where it started was discrimination based on race because everyone thought that was bad and it did happen, and has been extended since mainly to various “victim” groups that shout loudly or on whose supposed behalf various grifters shout loudly. You then need to define “immutable” and that’s where the trouble starts. You can try to make an exhaustive list, or leave it open for courts to decide each case and build up case law. Sounds horribly complicated. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t like the idea that businesses can refuse to serve me because I am Literally Hitler, on the other hand I don’t like the idea of telling small businesses/sole traders that they are not free to choose who to do business with.
But going back to the original theme of the article, “trans” people (whatever they are) are not discriminated against. They want special treatment (the right to use opposite-sex toilets).
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to require small businesses/ sole traders to treat prospective customers fairly, ie, judge them on their actual behaviour and not on their membership of some vaguely defined, huge group like black people, and be willing to do business with them provided they’re able to pay for this. OTOH, is there actually a problem this law addresses? Or was it created to cause problems like spurious litigation or forcetransing museum visitors who certainly didn’t come to the museum to be lectured on gender theory? In my opinion, the latter seems more likely and that’s why I think this law ought to be repealed.
“I think it’s perfectly reasonable to require small businesses/ sole traders to treat prospective customers fairly, ie, judge them on their actual behaviour and not on their membership of some vaguely defined, huge group like black people, and be willing to do business with them provided they’re able to pay for this.”
I think there’s a lot to be said for this argument. Would you be happy to do work for people you believed to be enemies of yours – I don’t know, think of someone you really think is damaging to the world, Fauci, whoever – or would you want the legal ability to refuse? I don’t know what I would do. My firm does work for corporations I think are pretty rotten.
I think the original purported intention of the law was to extend the protection based on race (which I guess was a real issue at some point) and encompass other “minority” groups, but as time has gone on I think the problems it is meant to prevent are vanishingly rare and it has morphed from “treat everyone equally” to “treat us as special”.
I think there’s a lot to be said for this argument. Would you be happy to do work for people you believed to be enemies of yours – I don’t know, think of someone you really think is damaging to the world, Fauci, whoever – or would you want the legal ability to refuse?
I wouldn’t want to run a business at all. But as an abstract consideration, I’m not invested with any authority to punish anyone for anything. That’s for the proper authorities to do. And hence, assuming I was running some kind of business that’s open to the general public, Fauci or whoever else who hasn’t been formally declared an outlaw (or something like that) is just another customer: For as long as he behaves himself while interacting with me and is willing to pay for whatever service I might have on offer, he can reasonably expect to be treated just like another customer. After all, this is not about me inviting into my familiy (I don’t have, save for parents and siblings) but just a very limited-time professional relationship. And that ought to be professional, regardless if I personally like the guy or don’t.
Fair enough. If one of us here said that we would not want to provide Fauci with a service, as a sole trader, because we believe he is evil, would you say we should be compelled not to discriminate against him by force of law? I’m not sure what I think – interested in your view.
If such a law existed, I’d consider it reasonable (as opposed to the Equalities Act). But whether or not such a law should exist is an entirely different question. I think it certainly shouldn’t exist unless it demonstrably addresses a serious problem which cannot be solved in another way. By default, the state ought to stay out of the private lifes of its citizens and this includes (per definition) private business relations.
All very good points. I think in general there is no “serious problem”, though during “covid” plenty of business would have been even keener to not serve people who were not wearing face nappies or not “vaccinated” had it not been for the current laws. You could also argue the current laws and the laws that came before set a tone which removed the “serious problem”. But in general these days I would tend to favour the state getting its nose out of our business.
The problem with the so-called Equalities Act is – a typical misnomer – not about ensuring equal treatment at all. It defines a pretty narrow set of groups which deserve special treatment as they’re especially empowered to flood others with lawsuits in case they don’t receive it. In the real-world, people are discriminated against because they’re foreigners, left-handed or red-haired. And all the Equalities Act has to say to that is Fine with me!
Decoding the protected characteristics yields the following, especially empowered groups: babyboomers, disabled, transvestites etc, gays, pregnant bodies wirth female sex organs, extraeuropeans, muslims, unpregnant bodies with female sex organs, gays. This is pretty much the intersectional victims list. Insofar the wording seems more general, it’s not meant this way: It’s ok the declare an event or a support program as for black people only because discriminating against indigenous Europeans is not racism as everybody know only these are the racists.
Law is also singularly useless to deal with real-world discrimination. All it enables people to do is to start lawsuits which is an expensive and time-consuming business incapable of addressing grievances which cannot be solved by either payments or imprisonments. Eg, (real world example) assuming I get thrown out of a night club because a gay English guy who grew tired of me rejecting his physical advances punched me in the face, can I prove that the doormen acted on his behalf without even asking me a single question because they’re prejudiced against foreigners? And the answer is Despite this almost certainly the case, I cannot prove this. Even if I could, of what use would it be to me? Fluctuation among doormen is high enough that another guy who’s unaware of the backstory will do this again to me the following week. And I certainly can’t get my ruined evening back.
Legislating against real or perceived social ills may make some people feel good because They Did The Right Thing™. But that’s all it’ll accomplish in practice.
Yes, I would agree with all of that and it sets out very eloquently how bad an idea it is for the law to try and micromanage people’s behaviour beyond things that have been considered criminal throughout the ages – murder, theft, rape, serious assault.
The law of unintended consequences comes to mind.
Make that intended consequences. The people who sank all these law mines knew perfectly well how this would enable them to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish.
In what ways are “trans” people (whatever they are) not equal?
I don’t understand – why can’t museums just be museums, display their stuff, and allow members of the public to come inside and view it? That’s all they need to be doing, surely?
I’m pleased to read this as it has made me aware that perhaps my favourite theatres and other arts organisations may not be as pro woke trans ideology as they might appear, and that it may just be mainly a top down enforcement of guidance and rules which they feel have to be followed, to remain in favour, get funding, etc, rather than their own personal convictions.
I have many theatre friends and I never talk to them about the trans issue, as it’s too sensitive and controversial and would be an easy way to lose friends, but they don’t talk to me about the trans issue either, and perhaps at least some of them don’t talk about it for exactly the same reason.
Among my wider circle of theatre friends and colleagues, I know only one who has spoken in favour of trans people, a gay man whom I like, he doesn’t preach about the issue but mentioned once that trans colleagues in the LGBT community are going through a difficult time and we should support them.
And then it occurred to me that he was the only one, so why haven’t my other theatre friends said anything in support of trans people? I’m assuming now that anyone who says nothing, who doesn’t speak in favour of trans ideology, doesn’t agree with it, but, just like me, feels too afraid and coerced to say anything against it.
Amongst my other (non-theatre) friends, where we mutually trust each other to speak openly about the trans issue, all but one are against trans ideology, including those who are very pro gay rights and equality.
I only have one friend – a lifelong feminist – who has made it known to me that she is very pro trans, and she is very anti JK Rowling and very anti Graham Linehan now, both of whose work she used to love. We discussed the trans issue about three years ago, when I naively didn’t realise quite how very controversial it was, I gave her my honest opinion that I think puberty blockers can harm children and that many women don’t want self-identifying “trans women” in their changing rooms and other women’s spaces. We didn’t quarrel about it, but I think it has created an unspoken barrier to a perhaps closer friendship developing. I wouldn’t dare tell her that I travelled to Dublin to the Let Women Speak event last Saturday, and that I was thrilled to speak to Graham Linehan there for a good 2 or 3 minutes! If it had been some other “non controversial” acclaimed writer, it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d want to tell her about and that she’d be interested to hear.
I’m sure many people have similar experiences of not wanting to talk with friends about the trans issue, it’s like “Don’t talk about religion or politics”.
Show us where the campaign is please 🙏