The Post Office scandal - the canary in the corrupt British political coal mine

In a true 'shit hit the fan moment' I see the Post Office scandal as a metaphor for the British public ire at our politics. Here's why and what I believe can be done.

As I read more about the Post Office fiasco/scandal the Land of Confusion lyrics spring to mind:

There's too many men, too many people
Making too many problems
And there's not much love to go around
Can't you see this is the land of confusion?

But then so does the GapingVoid cartoon I bought many years ago, shown above and which hangs proudly in my dining room.

It’s astonishing that in 2024 it took the TV dramatisation of a 24-year tech problem to explode into the public consciousness. As a former tech media person I’ve found most of the commentary severely lacking yet an excuse by many to avoid investigation. The basic technical problems encountered in the Post Office case are not that remarkable nor are they unexpected. A former colleague of mine made a good living exposing tech cockups although I had the view once you’ve told the same story half a dozen times - albeit with a different cast of characters - then it’s kind of boring. That’s largely what happened with the Post Office story, despite regular exposes from the likes of Private Eye.

What makes the Post Office case remarkable is the scale of human destruction which was largely hidden from the public. I see this case a bit differently from the scattershot outrage thrown around by a media that was as complicit as anyone else in failing to recognise the scale or extent of the damage caused.

It seems to me that the public outrage is a proxy for the pent-up frustration at the state of our politics expressed by many people I meet. This matters as we enter a year when it is almost certain that we have an opportunity to change the complexion of our government.

Too often, I meet people who think that our government doesn’t care about the people it is meant to support. Too many of those same people have lost faith in any political representative or party. I can’t blame them, especially when they see the uber-wealthy who support corrupt governments pontificating earnestly about trust. In a recent op-ed, prof Robert Reich said this:

Senior executives of America’s largest corporations have spent this week in Davos, Switzerland, at the annual World Economic Forum, whose 2024 theme is “Rebuilding Trust.”

Hello?

It’s hard to come up with any group of Americans, outside of Trump and his congressional loyalists, who have done more to destroy public trust than the senior executives of America’s biggest corporations — corrupting democracy by pouring money into political campaigns, fighting unions and suppressing wages, monopolizing their markets and price-gouging consumers, and siphoning off almost all gains to shareholders.

How does this apply to the UK? The procession of officials parading belated apologies, faux sorrow, or outright bullshit at the Post Office scandal inquiry provides a lens into the ‘screw you’ (sic) attitude of large-scale business, abetted by a compliant media and a government that looks the other way.

Add in the fact that wealth inequality has grown exponentially over the last 40 years on both sides of the Atlantic, that sewage as water is a daily and ongoing topic of media filler, that our public services are fundamentally broken, and yet the market for luxury yachts is growing and is it a surprise that our people are truly fed up? Is it any surprise that the cork of pent-up frustration has finally popped in the guise of the Post Office scandal?

At a high level, Peter Geoghegan expressed it well when he wrote of the current UK government’s response in The parable of Britain’s ‘anti-corruption champion:’

The most remarkable aspect of the Conservatives’ paper tiger approach to tackling corruption is the complete refusal to do anything about dirty money in politics.

The last anti-corruption strategy said almost nothing about political donations. Since then the Conservatives, increasingly reliant on dark money, have neutered the Electoral Commission. 

Now we head into a general election - one in which record sums of money are already being raised - with no law enforcement body overseeing political donations and new election laws that make it even easier to funnel cash anonymously into British politics.

What does this mean going forward?

Populists jumped into the growing malaise during the Brexit debate. It was a debate I watched from afar and during which I believe the UK failed its collective IQ test albeit on a flawed set of assumptions aided by a lathering of lies convincingly told by a cabal of goons whose main purpose was to try and reshape the UK into their whacko image. They almost succeeded but in doing so cleaved open long festering wounds while also feeding the myth of a long-dead empire headed by and benefitting entitled little Englanders.

Today, the remnants of that same bunch of goons are portraying their latest wheeze -aka the Rwanda plan - as necessary to comply with the ‘wishes of the people.’ On what planet do these people think the British majority live? It’s not one widely supported by any opinion poll I can find. Instead, it is a thinly veiled attempt to cling to power by any means possible, however corrupt those means have to be and however much hatred is stirred up in the process.

Is the alternative any better? I have to believe so. As we head into what undoubtedly will be a messy at best and gruesome at worst election period, I believe now is the time for a progressive opposition to street fight like it’s never done before. As a Labour activist in a traditional Tory ward constituency, I will use this period to counter the lies our government has peddled that have neutered our public services to the point where my local council is at extreme risk of running out of money.

Tories will finger-point at what they term ‘vanity projects’ but fail to recall the £350 million our council has lost to Tory austerity measures. They will try and talk up waste but without recognising the specific problems of deprivation our council’s citizens face. For the avoidance of doubt, local deprivation is evidenced by ongoing case studies in academia stretching back to the 1970s, the continuation of which was a major part of my 1993-96 sociology degree course. As recently as 2022, the University of York said:

A major study of children aged between seven and ten in Bradford has revealed 90% are exposed to issues affecting their wellbeing such as bullying, a lack of three meals a day, no internet access at home and constant worrying about money.

Tories will fail to recognise the massive growth in social care need and the associated explosion in costs that we face. Instead, it will bleat about how the wealthier parts of our community get little to nothing back by way of services from the Council Taxes paid and that therefore these parts should be hived off to better manage their own services. Good luck with that given that the Tory government has told local Tory MPs it isn’t going to happen. You might ask why.

And let’s be clear, my local council is far from alone. This is from The New Statesman:

Since 2021 five local authorities have declared themselves effectively bankrupt, with a raft of councils warning they may have to do the same. Exclusive polling of English councillors by New Statesman Spotlight revealed that a quarter of councillors believe their council will soon go bankrupt.

Why should this matter when set against the topic of corruption?

Once our local councils run out of money then short of significant central government support (which even under a change of government is highly unlikely in the short term), the only realistic way they can raise funds is through asset sales or rack rate borrowing. These sales will almost certainly be at firesale prices and guess who benefits? None other than the asset-owning uber-wealthy class. Is that corrupt? I think so when alternatives can be found.

But I also think there are solutions a new government could put in place that would significantly improve the sense of hope this country needs and at very little real cost. For example and in no particular order:

1. Appoint a high-profile anti-corruption champion with a Cabinet seat and teeth to implement change rather than simply reporting.

2. Bring in real experts and not the coin-operated consultants offered by the Big Four across the range of disciplines in most need of help.

3. Reallocate central funding for local authorities based on need rather than what appears to be an arbitrary doling out of funds designed to shore up political positions. hint: this was a promise made in 2017 but it has been kicked down the road and may never happen under the current government.

4. Engage meaningfully with the real engines for growth - the small and medium-sized businesses - that see firsthand the full force of economic decisions rather than relying upon the hedge fund managers who profit from producing nothing other than their wealth derived from skills at spread betting.

5. Engage directly with those charged with social service delivery rather than relying almost exclusively upon manager reports. It is a known fact that the further away from the coal face you are, the less reliable the information you get. (As an aside, that’s a feasible defense for some in the Post Office fiasco.)

6. Fix government procurement. In case after case over many years, the Post Office included, the UK government has shown a spectacular ability to give away assets or engage in contracts that are short-term cheap but long-term costly. This is also true at the local level. Recognise that the private sector is very good at negotiating deals that are loaded with ‘gotchas’ as circumstances change. Get decent lawyers who understand this dynamic.

7. Put people in ministerial positions for minimum terms. Chopping and changing ministerial responsibility is a surefire way to guarantee chaos and the opportunity for corrupt practices to slip under the radar. That means finding people with real talent that’s relevant to their position and/or providing them with a 100-day boot camp that gets them up to speed before they are permitted to take a single decision.

In my view, these are all matters that a government can execute - with varying degrees of difficulty - that, when communicated correctly, demonstrate how a government with integrity puts citizens first. In short, let’s have a government that cares.