Post Office Scandal - Press Desperate

Today’s headlines from our free and fearless press show a realisation among those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet that the Post Office scandal, where more than 700 sub-postmasters have been falsely convicted of theft, false accounting and even fraud, was now very much a thing. So the readership of those papers needed to be instructed what to think about it.

Why oh why oh why oh why ...

What actually happened was that supposed shortfalls at Post Office branches were down to its own Horizon accounting software. As the Wiki entry tells, “In 2019, the High Court ruled that the Horizon system was faulty and in 2020 the government established a public inquiry. In April 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed 39 convictions”. And there was more.

“As of January 2024, some victims are still fighting to have their convictions overturned and receive compensation, the public inquiry is ongoing, and the Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office for potential fraud offences”. And then “A four-part television drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, was broadcast on ITV in January 2024, after which the scandal became a major news story and political issue”. It was on telly! So the press woke up.

And while the Guardian is playing it straight, telling readers “Ministers have drawn up urgent plans to clear the names of hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of theft and fraud in the Horizon IT scandal as the Government scrambles to get on the front foot over the major miscarriage of justice”, others have decided to find someone to blame instead.

Free sheet Metro, having discovered a petition out there calling for former Post Office boss Paula Vennells to be stripped of her CBE, and nothing to do with it being a part of Associated Newspapers you understand, has screamed “Outrage over scandal boss … 1m Say Strip Post Office Paula Of CBE”.

Would anyone care to blame anyone else? Well, the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, would. “Ex-minister Sir David Davis says probe into fraud is ‘long overdue’ … WHY ARE POLICE ‘FAILING TO DELIVER’ ON POST OFFICE SCANDAL?” Except that the Met are investigating the Post Office, which is why those quote marks are needed. Any more Ron Hopefuls?

... oh why oh why oh why?

But you already know that this particular honour has gone to the Daily Mail, which has gone Full Dacre today. “SHAMELESS … As national revulsion over Post Office scandal mounts, former boss STILL clings to her CBE and Lib Dem leader REFUSES to step aside”. Ed Davey represents a party of which the Mail does not approve. So He Done It. He should do what the Mail says.

There has even been a characteristically judgmental and dishonest intervention by tedious and unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn. So far, there have been four articles published in the past 24 hours which instruct anyone reading them to consider the Lib Dem leader to be A Very Bad Person Indeed. What none of them tell you is the Mail’s role in the scandal.

And that’s because the Mail didn’t so much as raise a peep for all those years when the only ones doing the serious investigative journalism were the likes of Computer Weekly magazine, and Private Eye. The Mail is actually capable of investigative journalism - their main problem is that this skill set usually only gets deployed when the paper wants to dig up dirt on those it dislikes.

Photo of someone’s house? What it’s allegedly worth? Photo of their car? Any unspent points on their driving licence? Any convictions? Any debt problems? Where they bank? How they voted in the 2016 EU referendum? Any religious or other affiliations that the Mail deems A Very Bad Thing? But no interest in picking up the Post Office scandal for year after year. Until it’s on telly.

Once again, actually dealing in news evades the Mail. Followed by the usual spiteful blame game, along with no acknowledgement whatsoever of those who fought to expose the facts. The Mail titles sum up the state of the London centric press: it’s only worth covering if there’s an opportunity to give anyone not out there on the right a good kicking. Why the country is screwed.

Computer Weekly remains on the Post Office’s case. Unlike the Daily Mail.

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