Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[najaB]

Censor the media? First step down a very dangerous road.

Have to agree there. The only 'solution' (such as it is) lies in teaching people how to think critically and recognise bias.

 

[takno]

Have to agree there. The only 'solution' (such as it is) lies in teaching people how to think critically and recognise bias.

Every so often a country realises that this sort of thing would be a good idea and goes ahead with it. Then they get the next set of Pisa scores back and, because Pisa scores reward students for empty rote learning, that country is judged to have "fallen down the education league tables" in all sorts of hand-wringing articles in the press. Instead of challenging this as mass global stupidity from a stupid global organisation, they just look crestfallen and promptly back out to wasting everybody's time teaching nothing very useful again. For prime examples see Sweden and Scotland.

 

[jfollows]

Censor the media? First step down a very dangerous road.

Exactly right.
We as a society have got much more hung up about what people say rather than what they do, over the last 20 years. Better that we help and teach people to be more critical and less accepting about what others say, and let people say what they want to say.

 

[Busaholic]

I am waiting for them to start claiming that Starmer is at fault for not intervening while he was DPP: I am not sure if he had the powers to do so, but who in the Telegraph, Sun, Mail, etc. is going to worry about little details like that.

Judging by the You Tube stuff Google decided I should have the chance to view last night, two scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel TV stations in this country are already pushing this line, so about thirty people may have lapped it up.

 

[DerekC]

All the people I have spoken to in the last couple of days (and the majority are over-60 "natural Tory voters") think that the government trying to blame Ed Davey and Kier Starmer is a not-very-funny joke. And in any case, didn't the Post Office use its powers to launch its own prosecutions? So presumably didn't have to persuade the Crown Prosecution Service to charge the sub-postmasters.

 

[Gloster]

All the people I have spoken to in the last couple of days (and the majority are over-60 "natural Tory voters") think that the government trying to blame Ed Davey and Kier Starmer is a not-very-funny joke. And in any case, didn't the Post Office use its powers to launch its own prosecutions? So presumably didn't have to persuade the Crown Prosecution Service to charge the sub-postmasters.

Apparently a few, figures vary from eleven to thirty-eight, were prosecuted by the CPS and as Starmer was DPP was in charge of it for a while, although we don’t know if the dates coincide, he must be GUILTY. It is also possible that the CPS required a higher standard of proof than the Post Office, although I can’t state that for certain. But the accusations and hints against Starmer have already started.

 

[JamesT]

All the people I have spoken to in the last couple of days (and the majority are over-60 "natural Tory voters") think that the government trying to blame Ed Davey and Kier Starmer is a not-very-funny joke. And in any case, didn't the Post Office use its powers to launch its own prosecutions? So presumably didn't have to persuade the Crown Prosecution Service to charge the sub-postmasters.

Some prosecutions were carried out by the CPS rather than the Post Office. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/post-office-scandal-keir-starmer-b2476524.html

The CPS said on Wednesday night that it prosecuted 11 cases that “involved evidence connected to Horizon” – three resulted in convictions while Sir Keir was in charge.

The CPS does have the power to take over prosecutions, though they don’t automatically know about private prosecutions.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Apparently a few, figures vary from eleven to thirty-eight, were prosecuted by the CPS and as Starmer was DPP was in charge of it for a while, although we don’t know if the dates coincide, he must be GUILTY. It is also possible that the CPS required a higher standard of proof than the Post Office, although I can’t state that for certain. But the accusations and hints against Starmer have already started.

Post Office voluntary stopped prosecuting using its own powers from 2015 so guess CPS took over from there

 

[JamesT]

Post Office voluntary stopped prosecuting using its own powers from 2015 so guess CPS took over from there

Starmer was DPP from 2008 to 2013, as the CPS have said some of the prosecutions were during his time, they must predate 2015.

 

[najaB]

Eleven out of almost a thousand. Yup, definitely all Kier's fault.

 

[class ep-09]

Eleven out of almost a thousand. Yup, definitely all Kier's fault.

Not to mention that these 11 were among thousands of other prosecutions that Starmer had no idea about , being dealt with CPS at that time .

 

[nw1]

Have to agree there. The only 'solution' (such as it is) lies in teaching people how to think critically and recognise bias.

For point of clarification: I am not talking about blocking legitimate criticism of a government or the opposition. I'm talking about cases where the printed media is repeatedly and blatantly using a heavily biased viewpoint to launch baseless attacks on its political opponents. This is very obviously and repeatedly happening in a majority of the main UK "news"papers, and has perhaps led to one party (it's the Tories, but the point would stand if it was Labour or anyone else) dominating the UK scene to a disproportionate extent.

Such as, for example, disproportionately blaming Davey for the Post Office scandal even though there have been multiple ministers, some Tory, in charge since the scandal happened. Or blaming Davey while the Tories did nothing until the scandal was properly exposed. All this "Rishi The Hero" nonsense. I don't believe Sunak gives a flying fig, really, otherwise he'd have done something already in the 15 months he's been in power.

Thinking about it, it would be difficult to differentiate in some cases between legitimate criticism and blatant bias, though. And I will admit to being particularly incensed yesterday by the Telegraph's treatment of Davey and the attempt to use the Post Office scandal to make the Tories look good and the Lib Dems look bad - so I was perhaps a bit more militant on the issue than I would have been otherwise!

 

[jon0844]

Not to mention that these 11 were among thousands of other prosecutions that Starmer had no idea about , being dealt with CPS at that time .

I refuse to believe Keir Starmer didn't personally oversee every single case... Sack him now!

 

[nw1]

Every so often a country realises that this sort of thing would be a good idea and goes ahead with it. Then they get the next set of Pisa scores back and, because Pisa scores reward students for empty rote learning, that country is judged to have "fallen down the education league tables" in all sorts of hand-wringing articles in the press. Instead of challenging this as mass global stupidity from a stupid global organisation, they just look crestfallen and promptly back out to wasting everybody's time teaching nothing very useful again. For prime examples see Sweden and Scotland.

Not sure what Pisa scores are... but I'm sure that the press ranting about it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that critical thinking would lead people to see many newspapers for what they really are.

Of course, league tables are basically the work of the devil.

 

[JamesT]

Not sure what Pisa scores are... but I'm sure that the press ranting about it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that critical thinking would lead people to see many newspapers for what they really are.

Of course, league tables are basically the work of the devil.

Programme for International Student Assessment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.

 

[Lost property]

I think it's fair to say, that, with the very real probability of Starmer becoming the next PM, in the run up to the GE, the proverbial "no stone will be left unturned " approach to smearing him, or trying to, by certain media...notably the Mail and the Express with the former having already started with their "Beergate " campaign.....which failed.

His time as the DPP will doubtless be subjected to what the above will call "detailed investigation ! " although how factually accurate (precedent setting isn't something they are noted for) these " revelations" will be could best be termed....minimal .

 

[najaB]

His time as the DPP will doubtless be subjected to what the above will call "detailed investigation ! " although how factually accurate (precedent setting isn't something they are noted for) these " revelations" will be could best be termed....minimal .

Their attitude will, no doubt, be: "It doesn't have to be true, it just has to stick!"

 

[jfollows]

For point of clarification: I am not talking about blocking legitimate criticism of a government or the opposition. I'm talking about cases where the printed media is repeatedly and blatantly using a heavily biased viewpoint to launch baseless attacks on its political opponents. This is very obviously and repeatedly happening in a majority of the main UK "news"papers, and has perhaps led to one party (it's the Tories, but the point would stand if it was Labour or anyone else) dominating the UK scene to a disproportionate extent.

But that's just it - who gets to decide what's "legitimate criticism" or not? The government itself? You? The DPP?
For sure, there are gullible people who believe this tripe, but many - probably most - people know where the papers are coming from, and discount these stories accordingly.
And, even if not, the cure is many times worse than the disease. Our press is constrained too much already, in comparison with the press in the USA for example, and doesn't need reining in any more. And I'm someone who generally doesn't agree with the sort of stuff you're talking about, too, but I don't read most of it and laugh when I do or see it reported.

 

[Gloster]

I think it's fair to say, that, with the very real probability of Starmer becoming the next PM, in the run up to the GE, the proverbial "no stone will be left unturned " approach to smearing him, or trying to, by certain media...notably the Mail and the Express with the former having already started with their "Beergate " campaign.....which failed.

His time as the DPP will doubtless be subjected to what the above will call "detailed investigation ! " although how factually accurate (precedent setting isn't something they are noted for) these " revelations" will be could best be termed....minimal .

They have already started. A couple of days ago the S*n did a hatchet job on Starmer for doing pro bono work in the Caribbean for some thoroughly unpleasant murderers, but glossed over the fact that he did it in order to oppose the death penalty.

 

[takno]

Their attitude will, no doubt, be: "It doesn't have to be true, it just has to stick!"

Give it a week and it will probably turn out that Lord Big Dave had shares in Fujitsu.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Just occurred to me that the coalition government had three ministers responsible for the post office during its time.

Davey, then Norman Lamb, then Jo Swinson

All Lib Dems

All in a conservative dominated coalition

Am I being overly cynical or did the Tories know what might be coming down the line and want to use some Lib Dems as fall guys?

 

[takno]

Just occurred to me that the coalition government had three ministers responsible for the post office during its time.

Davey, then Norman Lamb, then Jo Swinson

All Lib Dems

All in a conservative dominated coalition

Am I being overly cynical or did the Tories know what might be coming down the line and want to use some Lib Dems as fall guys?

I think that's a stretch. It's quite normal for specific roles are allocated to the parties at the start of the coalition, and then always filled by their members. In this case I imagine Lib Dems were given the role because it was considered one of the least consequential ones.

 

[SuspectUsual]

It's quite normal for specific roles are allocated to the parties at the start of the coalition, and then always filled by their members

Agreed

In this case I imagine Lib Dems were given the role because it was considered one of the least consequential ones

Or one of the most consequential ones in the future, but not in a good way

 

[JamesT]

Or one of the most consequential ones in the future, but not in a good way

The prosecutions started in 1999, Computer Weekly started running stories about it in 2009. I don't think the Tories were in any special place to know about the issues compared to any other party.
Interestingly, I don't think I've seen anything saying who the responsible minister was before the coalition started.
The focus is on Ed Davey etc. because they were in charge when Alan Bates and others were trying to get help with this. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...c?shareToken=c5ebd0e880628709a5f84719cedd9d24 (copying article prohibited by T&Cs) summarises years of correspondence where the various ministers basically responded with "Go away, this is between you and the Post Office, nothing to do with Government".

 

[jfollows]

Responsible ministers:
Margaret Beckett 1997 to 1998

Peter Mandelson 1998 to 1998

Stephen Byers 1998 to 2001

Patricia Hewitt 2001 to 2005

Alan Johnson 2005 to 2006

Alistair Darling 2006 to 2007

Pat McFadden 2007 to 2009

John Hutton 2007 to 2008

Peter Mandelson 2008 to 2010

Edward Davey 2010 to 2012

Norman Lamb 2012 to 2012

Jo Swinson 2012 to 2013

Jenny Willott 2013 to 2014

Jo Swinson 2014 to 2015

Anna Soubry 2015 to 2016

Margot James 2016 to 2018

Andrew Griffiths 2018 to 2018

Kelly Tolhurst 2018 to 2020

Paul Scully 2020 to 2022

Jane Hunt 2022 to 2022

Dean Russell 2022 to 2022

Kevin Hollinrake 2022

 

[takno]

Responsible ministers:
Margaret Beckett 1997 to 1998
Peter Mandelson 1998 to 1998
Stephen Byers 1998 to 2001
Patricia Hewitt 2001 to 2005
Alan Johnson 2005 to 2006
Alistair Darling 2006 to 2007
Pat McFadden 2007 to 2009
John Hutton 2007 to 2008
Peter Mandelson 2008 to 2010
Edward Davey 2010 to 2012
Norman Lamb 2012 to 2012
Jo Swinson 2012 to 2013
Jenny Willott 2013 to 2014
Jo Swinson 2014 to 2015
Anna Soubry 2015 to 2016
Margot James 2016 to 2018
Andrew Griffiths 2018 to 2018
Kelly Tolhurst 2018 to 2020
Paul Scully 2020 to 2022
Jane Hunt 2022 to 2022
Dean Russell 2022 to 2022
Kevin Hollinrake 2022

Definitely a top-quality important brief that ministers take entirely seriously and have a good chance to get on top of then. Looking back on The Register (which wasn't a particularly investigative site, but was generally quite keen to reprint the investigative work of others when there was an opportunity to put the boot in), the first time it was mentioned there was 2013. That definitely leads me to change my timeline of when I thought I'd heard about it.

I think the difficulty from a political perspective is that you have to have some degree of faith in established institutions like the courts and the Post Office. Expecting a minister to react to a small number of letters, which quite possibly never even made it to their red box, is a stretch. They were certainly not in a post where you could expect them to react by questioning some deeply weird and not-well-known principles in the English justice system.

Fundamentally while there clearly was a problem with a combination of dishonesty/perjury and laziness at the Post Office, the bigger problem lies with courts allowing dishonest and lazy institutions to prosecute cases, and making assumptions about the automatic validity of computer output. If you're going to start throwing flak around ministers then the ministers in charge of the justice system are the ones to blame. In practice It think the problem lies with promoting and applauding people for not bothering to check things and for having a casual indifference to the truth, and I don't think any single minister should be held responsible for that.

 

[ainsworth74]

I'm far from convinced that it is sensible to go too far in "controlling media bias" and "party political propaganda", who is the arbiter of what is or is not biased? What is or isn't propaganda? That being said I do think that we need to look quite seriously at better press regulation, in general, and the relationships between the media and politicians (it doesn't seem quite right that sitting MPs also have current affairs programmes on TV or radio) as well as press ownership itself.

Some changes I would be keen to introduce, across all forms of news media be that TV, radio, newspaper and, at least for UK based, website would be to toughen up on corrections. If the Daily Express publishes a front page headline that "KEIR STARMER SAYS THAT SKY IS ORANGE" then when they run the correction that must also appear on the front page with exactly the same prominence. If Sky News run their lead story on their main 5pm show saying that "RISHI SUNAK TODAY ANNOUCED THAT ALL LABOUR MPs ARE TRAITORS" then when they run the correction it must be the lead story on the next 5pm show. No tucking corrections away on page 94, they get exactly the same prominence as the original false story.

I do think we need to look again at Press Regulation, IPSO has always felt a little bit too close to the media and a little bit too toothless. I don't want a Government (or quasi-Government) regulator that ways like the death of a free press but it feels like IPSO (or something similar like IMPRESS which is considerably smaller but appears to be more potent) needs some more teeth giving to it.

Finally I do think that ownership is an issue. The Press Gazette have interesting figures based on published circulation and, for those papers that stopped publishing their circulation, some guesstimated circulation figures about just how dominant some media groups are in the daily newspaper market.

DMGT acquisition of Telegraph could give it 50% daily newspaper market share

A DMGT purchase of The Telegraph would put the Daily Mail publisher near majority market control, according to Press Gazette analysis.

pressgazette.co.uk

How many copies of national newspapers are sold in the UK each day?​

Four of the UK’s national daily newspapers no longer report their circulation figures to auditor ABC, so we do not have official figures for their daily sales nor the overall size of the market.

To estimate these, Press Gazette used figures provided by those newspapers that do report to ABC to calculate an average rate of year-on-year circulation decline across the industry – approximately 16%.

Press Gazette combined that annual attrition rate with the number of years since those papers last reported figures to estimate their current circulation.

DMGT (the group behind the Daily Mail, Metro, The i and others) owned by Lord Rothermere have just shy of 50% of the daily circulation, News UK (The Sun, The Times and others) owned by Murdoch is around 20% whilst the Telegraph Media Group (funnily enough the publisher of the Telegraph) until recently owned by the Barclay brothers but currently owned by Lloyds Bank with future TBC (with some reports that an Abu-Dhabi backed bid could win, or the DMGT might try and buy it) is around 5%. So 75% of the daily circulation of newspapers are owned, or could be owned, by three groups (perhaps two if the DMGT bid was to win). The proprietors of which are not exactly renowned for their centrist views and lack of outside agenda!

I'm not sure I want to go around insisting that DMGT and News UK must now go around selling off titles willy nilly but it feels somewhat unhealthy for quite so much of our newspaper circulation to be in the hands of quite so few people. It certainly seems like we need to have a broader conversation about who owns newspapers and how much of the market they can own at one time. Seems to me that DMGT and News UK should be automatically disqualified from buying any more national newspapers at the very least!

Whilst daily circulation is not the be all and end all it is worth noting that of course the newspapers have an outsize influence. BBC and Sky have programs everyday covering the next days front pages, social media amplifies the stories they run (to the benefit of the Guardian in particular to be fair whose circulation is tiny ), the MailOnline (the Daily Mail website) is big in the UK and even has significant international reach, etc etc. When newspapers try and make something a story before too long the rest of the media are almost bounced into covering as a result.

The influence of newspapers can be overstated, I'm not especially convinced that the Sun rowing in behind Blair won him the 1997 election and the Sun switching back to the Tories lost Brown the 2010 election. But certainly they can help set a tone and a mood and that power being in the hands of so few, whilst having quite a weak regulator does not seem a health position to be in.

 

[Greetlander]

I've never been to Australia, but your posts in this thread are the best adverts I've ever seen for staying away.

Australia - like many liberal democracies - has its problems. It is however a magnificent country, even though the hard right is very shouty and gets a pretty easy ride from the media. Please come and visit.

 

[nw1]

Australia - like many liberal democracies - has its problems. It is however a magnificent country, even though the hard right is very shouty and gets a pretty easy ride from the media. Please come and visit.

I've not been - though I have a friend there - but in some aspects, perhaps, it looks considerably better than the UK (while in others I'm sure it's worse). From reports on here, train services within the Sydney and Melbourne regions seem very much better (and cheaper) than the UK for example; out in the sticks they dry up but I suspect the population is very low there anyway.

 

[SteveP29]

Having clicked the link (so you don't have to), the author is Kwasi Kwarteng.

Remind me who it was that said "you can't buck the market"...

You can't buck it, but if your name's Kwasi, you certainly can F*** it

I do hope that when Rishi inevitably sorts out all the Post Office victims, to get their names cleared, he isn't treated like some sort of hero.

This Government has done little to help throughout and Rishi had to be asked multiple times if he'd do something and just gave his usual pre-programmed robotic answers (just as he did when bragging about how much money is being spent on dealing with flooding, despite it being less and less year on year).

Only now that he thinks doing certain things might help him seem electable will he act.

He's only 'caring' about it now because we have a General Election in the next 12 months.
In a vain attempt to get re-elected
He's a Tory, he cares nothing for you, me or the rest of the country, he cares about money, power and getting your vote (and not being thankful for it)

From a political point of view I'm not sure there's any mileage in it, and there's so little left of the Post Office that it's barely worth looking for reforms. Most likely somebody on the nutcase benches will have a punt at arguing that it should be privatised, but even Rishi is unlikely to go for that.

Step forward the shaved ape, Mr Johnathan Gullis, he'll shout about anything, just tell him what to shout and he'll shout it

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Jan 2024 ==

Out of interest, do you think there are any changes to the law that could usefully be made that would help? From my knowledge of the story, it looks like at least some staff at the post office must have acted fraudulently in pursuing prosecutions while withholding information that would have revealed the prosecutions to be baseless. Is that kind of thing not already adequately covered by various laws? (I imagine the difficulty prosecuting anyone at the Post Office for this will be due to the length of time that has elapsed and therefore the difficulty in getting sufficient evidence to show exactly who did what wrong - and that's not something that new laws are likely to solve).

The Panorama programme on the subject was repeated last night in wake of the developments in the HoC coming from the ITV drama.
One legal mind on it, I didn't catch his name, who was prevalent through the whole programme, said that the Post Office, were the victim, the investigator and the prosecutor.
How would the sub postmasters and mistresses ever get a fair trial?
There's one thing to change straight away, actual independent investigators carrying it out, instead of it being in house

He also said that many of them had been told that they would face charges of fraud from the Post Office and if they plead not guilty, they'd face the lesser charge of false accounting, they were screwed either way