Since my first election as your Member of Parliament in 2015 I have been aware of the terrible situation regarding the Post Office, the Horizon IT programme and the impact on postmasters and mistresses. Constituents have been to see me to share their experience and the dreadful toll it has taken on them. This has been a live Parliamentary and political issue for a number of years. By the time I was elected the alarm bells had been well and truly rung and I made several representations on behalf of constituents to Ministers.
I believe there are some key lessons which must be learned from this. The first is, and this seems strange in this social media and streamed services world in which we live never underestimate the power of TV broadcasting into the sitting rooms of the land to pack a punch, make a point and force people to sit up and take notice. TV remains a strong communication tool.
The second lesson is, and this is so important as we move into an AI dominated world, NEVER EVER EVER believe that IT programmes are infallible. They are not. It is basically the creation of man and man is a flawed species. The greatest part of the scandal is that Post Office bosses could not believe that their new shiny and expensive system could make a mistake. It was perfect and incapable of error. That was the error of the Post Office bosses. We must never forget that IT is our servant. Woe betide it becomes our Orwellian master.
The third lesson is listen to your workforce. It, with the benefit of commonsense hindsight, seems perverse that they were ignored given the numbers of so-called false accounting and fraud that was supposed to be taking place. We have to ask how in the name of Heaven did an organisation of the heritage and history as the Post Office, not say to itself: “mmm, interesting. Hundreds of our people, who have worked with us for years without error or blemish, now seem to be defrauding us and are criminals. We haven’t had any problems with them before until that new IT system we have brought in. Old fashioned audits and inspection have not identified problems before. I wonder if there’s a fault with the IT system software???” It really does beggar belief that no one appears to have asked that final question. Perhaps it was a case of a corporate Emperor’s New Clothes?
Perhaps the most important lesson is that Ministers should never take no for an answer. The current Lib Dem Leader Sir Ed Davey’s errors of judgement have been compounded by his point-blank refusal to apologise to the post office workers for his lack of action. Anyone with an ounce of commonsense would get involved with an issue if lots of MPs are raising it with you. MPs don’t trouble Ministers for the sake of it. Davey’s lack of response, his dismissal of requests for help from post masters adds insult to the injury. Regular readers will know I am not particularly politically tribal in these articles but Davey’s inaction and current reaction (go into hiding, pop out and then fail to say sorry) has made my blood boil as much as it has the hundreds of constituents who have contacted me to tell me how furious they are.
