As I Please

The Post Office scandal

Many others have had their say – here is what Holdenforth had and still has to say.

Initially we sought a platform via The Daily Mail.

“To The Daily Mail Reference The Post Office Scandal.

Full credit to Daily Mail for its vigorous campaign for justice for wrongly convicted sub post office managers. It now appears likely that a way will be found to secure compensation for all the victims fully and promptly. 

I would like to suggest one further action to enable this unhappy episode to be closed off. 

The register of those who held senior positions in the Post Office during the years in question is available. Why not list these names together with their respective reward packages.

This group includes the truly guilty men and women. It becomes clearer by the day that many in this category broke the law in order to preserve their lavish life styles.   

The public is routinely assured that huge rewards are essential to secure the services of the best people.

So – Holdenforth poses  the question – who at the top in The Post Office got what for doing what?

Paula Vennells might be quite relaxed about being stripped of her CBE. She might be rather more anxious about forfeiting the significant reward package collected her during her time at the top.”

John Holden

Sadly our letter was not published by The Daily Mail which was too busy harassing Ed Davey and Keir Starmer for ministerial ineptitude, presumably to settle some old scores.

We noticed that Adam Crozier was not named and shamed, possibly because he had control of an influential media outlet?

Holdenforth is pleased to note that more influential platforms than ours are now urging the same policy as that advocated in our letter to the Mail.

We would now urge anyone threatened in the future by odious menacing demands known to be false to adopt the approach of Private Eye back in 1971. Their reply to a solicitor – Goodman Derrick and Co – to a letter deemed to be demanding money with menaces was short and clear: “Fuck off”.

The approach worked then and Holdenforth suspects that it would be just as effective today.

A few additional points before we move on:

• Well done Kevin Hollinrake, the HMG minister now in charge of handling the scandal – Holdenforth likes the cut of his jib. Shout it from the rafters Mr Hollinrake that we know where they live and see how they like being on the receiving end.

• We beg HMG to abandon the languid Chilcot approach to the interminably protracted public enquiries so beloved by senile judges and rapacious lawyers. We will open the bidding at a maximum duration of three months on any public enquiry.

• Let us widen this point – when will the management sector of our society be persuaded to do the job which it is paid to do? The public is constantly assured that those in this sector are lavishly rewarded because they are burdened with huge responsibilities and stresses.

The Mones vs HMG

“We have been hung out to dry on PPE, the Mones moan”
Daily Mail January 2

Holdenforth noted that The Mones were fighting back after the initial setback of Lady Mone admitting to telling porkies to an interviewer.  As one might expect the facts as opposed to the gossip are not easy to come by but the gist of the defence now being put forward by “lying Baroness Bra” (soubriquet courtesy of doughty Mail reporter Guy Adams) and her husband Mr Barrowman is that they followed the rules laid down by HMG at all times.

More to the point – this issue will not be on the Pandemic enquiry for over a year.

Holdenforth thinks that the Mones have a point.

Holdenforth vaguely recalls that Kate Bingham was thought to have done a good job during the CV pandemic whilst Dido Harding was deemed to have turned in a shaky performance – or was it the other way round?

Holdenforth memo to Lady Hallett – chair of the pandemic enquiry – get a move on – we would like to see your completed report by the end of March, 2024 – repeat end of March, 2024. 

Currently her enquiry saunters along for say 35 hours a week. What about the other 133 available hours?

Dead Souls

“How ghost patients have boosted GP coffers by £955m”
“GP surgeries are being paid millions of pounds a year for patients who do not exist, figures show”
Daily Mail, January 2

Nice work if you can get it.

Even better if you can get it for not working.

The business model for this imaginative venture was described by Nicolai Gogol in his novel “Dead Souls” published almost 200 years ago in Russia. The hero of the novel, Tchitckoff, bought the souls of serfs who had died between one census and the next. He used these dead souls to raise cash.

There have been one or two changes in the past 200 years but you can see the similarities.

Charity queen with a colourful life dies aged 61

The charity queen in question was Camilla Batmanghelidjh who rose to national prominence some 20 years ago. The charity she founded and helped to manage was Kids’ Company.

The charity raised huge sums of money to provide support for young people suffering from abuse, poverty and trauma, all worthy causes. However unkind critics of the charity felt that Camilla was enjoying an expensive lifestyle funded by the charity although a lengthy and costly High Court case exonerated her of mismanaging the charity or its funds.

The lesson here – it is not easy for charity commissioners to ensure that monies raised for charity always find their way to the intended recipients.

Assisted dying

Holdenforth has long supported this cause. We are not anxious about the possibility that a tetchy deity will take a dim view of our seeking an early finish to life in this vale of tears

And we certainly do not seek to impose our preference for speeding up our time in the departure lounge on those resolved or at least prepared to endure a painfully protracted end to life.

And by the way – we have got our name down on the list of those who wish promptly to make an exit when all the signs are that their time is up.

A word on Fat Cats

“Wealth tax not the answer”
Headline in Daily Mail, January 9  

Mail Reporter Maggie Pagano argued against imposing a wealth tax on Denise Coates, the CEO of Bet365 who pocketed £270 million last year. Her point was that Pagano had paid every penny of tax demanded by HMG via HMRC and was in every way a law-abiding citizen.

Holdenforth can’t quite agree with Pagano. We acknowledge that there is a widespread passion for gambling in the UK – where is there not a passion for gambling?

We suggest that way to curtail the socially undesirable consequences of gambling is to reduce the huge range of outlets currently available – starting with Bet365

A possibly unseemly Fat Cat…

“Odey paid £29M before sex assault allegations
Daily Mail -January 12

The report below the headline noted that “Crispin Odey is understood to have pocketed £29M at his hedge fund last year before stepping down following sexual claims against him”.

The word is that Odey realised that the game was up and resolved to do a runner. However he thriftily paused at the company till  before exiting stage left and helped himself.

Is this one for HMRC to explore?

A stop press crisis – Tensions at the southern end of the Red Sea

A militant group based in Yemen is creating problems to companies pondering the hazards of using the Suez Canal and instead opting to use the longer and much more expensive route around South Africa.

Time was when the mere threat of sending a British gun boat to show who was boss would have done the trick.

Is that the case today?

Holdenforth thinks not.

Complicating factors

*A Tory Government without parallel in sheer ineptitude.

*“Corruption at home, aggression to cover it abroad – that is what the Tories offer you – extract from a speech by Winston Churchill – then a Liberal – in 1906 – no change there

*“We cannot control the beaches on our southern shores on which strangers land almost daily but we tail along behind the Americans in the pretence that we can control the Red Sea as we seek (as far as we can grasp) to get entangled in yet another war in the Middle east.” If Peter Hitchens is struggling – what chance has Holdenforth got?

* “Why Democracy is in Peril”
“Rebels are part of a global Islamist army at war with Israel and the West”
Apocalyptic warnings from Mark Almond in The Daily Mail

Almond is like a modern version of Joe, the fat boy in The Pickwick papers, the one who wants to make your flesh creep.

 * Holdenforth continues to be uneasy about the emergence of Cameron selected to lead the UK overseas in the global struggles that lie ahead

* Does Holdenforth have a point when he asserts that the Foreign Policy of the USA has two mission statements:

• Never give a sucker an even break; and,
• When you have them – your opponents – by the balls – their hearts and minds will follow.

* Holdenforth is mindful that our knowledge of the waterway between the Gulf of Aden in the South and the Mediterranean to the North is very limited. We do have a distant memory of a couple of weeks in Abu Zenima in 1992 as an advisor to the Sinai Manganese Company – but life in Egypt at the time was tranquil.  

* Finally and most importantly Holdenforth is currently faced with heavy demands on his time in his work as a carer for two octogenarians. Accordingly we will put THE MIDDLE EAST on the back burner to enable us to focus on the formidable challenge as we don our  caring hat.