Shocking scandals are are a blight on Blighty
IAM NOT one to do down Blighty: if there is such a thing as a national character, ours is an extremely decent one. You don’t need to travel too far beyond these shores to discover this is not always the case. But there are two stories doing the rounds at the moment that really do shake your faith in British human nature and they are these: the ongoing scandal of the Post Office and the behaviour of the water companies.Why is no one involved ending up in court?
The appalling saga of the persecution of completely blameless postmasters was shocking enough, but just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it has now emerged that a 2016 report by Sir Jonathan Swift KC was not only critical of Post Office’s treatment of sub-postmasters – essentially bullying them into pleading guilty – but also raised concerns about the faulty Horizon software.
And yet still the prosecutions went on. This was actively wicked: ruining lives, reputations, relationships, bankrupting people and destroying families in the actual knowledge that something was badly wrong. How on earth can this be?
Meanwhile, we are the sixth richest country in the world and yet we have water companies that are not only pumping raw sewage into our rivers but are now, after the wettest winter in years, warning about water shortages and hosepipe bans. And for why? There’s been no shortage of rain but infrastructure is in such a terrible shape that huge amounts are lost due to leakages. And yet in both these cases, bar erstwhile Post Office head Paula Vennells losing her CBE, absolutely no one has been held to account.
FRANKLY, anyone in authority in the Post Office who continued these prosecutions in the knowledge they were flawed should be in jail. And the same applies to water company executives who knowingly allow human effluent to taint our rivers and lakes. Britain is still the best place to live in the world (hence all those people trying to get to these shores) and I’d still trust my fellow countrymen implicitly. But these two stories go beyond scandal: they taint the rest of us by association.The people responsible should be charged for their crimes and such outrages should never, ever be allowed to happen again.
“If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.” Mark Twain