Hero to Zero

How to go hero to zero in 30 seconds. I hired a large van for a week. From a company that had done a good job for me in the past. I had a lot of confidence in their offer. Fine their location had changed. Once the company was in Redhill in Surrey. The office was easy walking distance from my house. Now, they have an office in the small town of Dorking. So, it’s a short train ride away.

The Surrey towns of Reigate and Dorking are separated by about 8 miles. They both sit under the North Downs. The main A25 road links the two towns and probably has done for centuries. Without delays that’s about 20 minutes door to door. Normally.

Moving house is one of the most stressful events in life. That’s what we are currently about. It’s a move further West. It’s a move to take us away from the dreadful mess that the M25 motorway has become in the last couple of decades. From 3 lanes to 4 lanes, it’s got worse not better. Why do we think we can build our way out of traffic jams?

So, for the last week I’ve been driving a large van backwards and forwards from Reigate to Newbury. The hired van was everything I needed. Only about 7000 miles on the clock and plenty of space. If I had one niggle it was the need for a reversing camera. Beepers are just not enough.

The rental company, named after a famous starship, that went where no man has gone before, was topping my hero list. What I needed when I needed it and at a good price. With only a minor inconvenience when picking-up and dropping-off. Or, so I though.

Named storms are popular this year. Driving through one of them is no fun. Traffic slows and the inevitable bump or blown down tree holds everyone up. Nothing moves the way it does on a sunny day. It’s times like these when planning can be more guess work than science. Whatever a satnav calculates.

In my wisdom I thought – let’s try a cross country route home. Get off the habit of using the M4 and M25 motorways. Programmed the satnav and away I went. Leaving Newbury lunchtime thinking that getting the van back to the rental company by 5pm would be no sweat.

My route took me from Newbury to Basingstoke and then to the M3 motorway. Then towards London and coming off the motorway to take the Blackwater valley route to the Hogs Back. Those references are for Surrey residents because they will know what I’m talking about. Trundling along the Hogs Back I then hit the main A3 into Guildford. Now, my logic went like this. I’ll avoid the Wisley junction reconstruction or permanent hold-up by taking the main A25 all the way back to Reigate. So, I did. All going well until I reached the closure of that main road[1]. At that point I was committed to getting back to Reigate to unload my packing boxes. Can’t carry them on the train.

When road closures happen in Surrey, at rush hour the mess is insane. The diversion I took up over the North Downs and back down again onto the A217 road was miserably slow. What’s worse is that I knew I had to turn around and go back to Dorking to return the rental van. The clock was ticking. 

Anyway, enduring the tedious frustration of doing a short journey, by miles, over a long time wore away at my generally cheerful disposition. Thus, I was glad to get back to the rental company office in Dorking only about 20 minutes late, after 5pm.

I was committed to leaving the van and taking the train home. That trading estate rental office closes at 5pm. A dark and empty parking space was free, but nowhere could I see anywhere to drop the van’s keys? It seems inconceivable to me that an international rental company would not have a key drop. I searched the plot. There was nowhere. All there was an unhelpful notice on the door of the company’s office. So, I locked the van, kept the keys, and walked to the train station. Idea being to return the keys as soon as the office reopened next morning. Seemed logical.

Next morning, I got up early and set off for Dorking. Sadly, the closure of the A25 was still an on-going problem. All the rush hour traffic had the same issue to contend with on their way to work. This is why I’m happy to be leaving Surrey. A short journey turns into a tedious trek at the drop of a hat. The county’s roads are unable to cope with the levels of traffic. But, as planned I get to the Dorking office of the rental company at 8am when the office opened. Enterprise were still in my hero category as the van was inspected and the mileage typed into a company handheld device. I would have given them 10 out of 10. Job done.

In the warm, in the rental office, just as I thought the paperwork had been done – hold on a moment it’s charging you an extra day for a late return. Computers do these sorts of things. They have no awareness of the world other than the numbers they crunch. Unthinking beasts.

I’ll have a word with my manager. Those were the words spoken. Me being me, I though that’ll be no problem given the effort I’ve made to return the keys. Let’s face it if there was a drop box last night they would be doing exactly as they are now. Van returned in 100% condition and keys in hand.

Then to my surprise the office manager, who insisted on using my first name, says no we are going to have to change you for an extra day. In 30 seconds, Enterprise went from being my number one van rental choice to a huge bottomless zero. I argued the logic of my position and the unforeseen local conditions that prevailed. I outlined the best efforts that I’d made.

Then I got the most galling response – it’s company policy. I suggested that the office manager might use a little judgement or digression in this case. I hit nothing but a stone wall. The computer says so. The charge is the charge. No deviation possible. It’s astonishing that an office manager can’t make a reasonable judgement. If that’s Enterprise company policy I don’t want that kind of service. Other companies are available.

What didn’t help either was the prospect of the return journey in my car knowing that the main Reigate Road was closed. As per my prediction the short journey home again was awful.

Hero to zero – Enterprise. Hero to zero in 30-seconds. My future business will go elsewhere.

POST: This quote from the Enterprise website is meaningless. “We understand that things don’t always go to plan so, if you are running a few minutes late we won’t charge you for an extra day, we give you a grace period of up to 29 minutes to cover unforeseen delays“.

Part 2.

Change is always welcome. The above rental made me think twice about using the services of Enterprise. In my new town, they have a much more easy to get to office. It’s a 20 minute walk from the house. So, I ate my pride and booked a big van for a couple of days. The job was much the same as before. It’s all part of a house move that is lasting far too long.

Here I am renting from Enterprise Rent-A-Car once more. This time I’ll drop the label “zero”. From picking up the van to dropping it off everything worked as it should. My large commercial van took a heavy book case and a king sized bed from Reigate to Newbury without a hitch.

[1] https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/live-a25-traffic-updates-after-28495765

Democracy

It’s one thing to talk about elections in theory it’s another to talk about them in practice. Only one person knows when the next UK General Election will be held. It’s the privilege of one person to say so. Since the UK gave up on fixed terms, power rests with the Prime Minister.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 set a five-year interval between ordinary general elections[1]. The next UK General Election would have been scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024. Now, all of that has gone, within the life of a Parliament, it’s for one person to call a General Election at the time of their choosing. Imagine a race where one competing athlete gets to fire the starting gun. There’s no role for Parliament in deciding when a UK General Election will be held.

What we do know about this year is that there will be European Elections held between 6th and 9th June. I would say, mark the dates on your calendar. In fact, I will say mark the dates on your calendar, if you’re a European citizen living and working in the UK.

In this case citizens know when they will have the power to exercise their democratic right. They can plan accordingly. They can play a part in the process. They can weight-up the options.

Hundreds of millions of people in Europe can determine the nature of the next European Parliament. British citizens, because of Brexit will have no say in this huge application of democracy.

This is undoubtably a time when unity amongst European allies is of paramount importance. There are threats in numerous places around the globe. The need for close cooperation between the UK and EU is becoming ever more evident[2].

Foreign policy and defence interests have a great number of common threads that bind Europe together. Couple that with the uncertainty that exists in relation to future transatlantic links, then getting along better is an absolute necessity.

The naïve – go it alone – attitude of Brexiters has unravelled. A more pragmatic settlement is essential for mutual benefit as we move forward. Defence industrial collaboration is a must. It hardly needs to be questioned. Many of the large aerospace and defence enterprises that the UK military depends upon are established European companies. Collaboration is nothing new.

War in Ukraine came as an unexpected nightmare. This European conflict is likely to become ever more protracted. Much as the country might wish it was not so, there are limited ways in which the conflict can be resolved. Self-determination remains a core belief amongst western democracies. This must be backed up by force otherwise it becomes meaningless.

After Brexit, going forward the UK will have no say, and no veto, over how EU defence progresses. From here, it’s best that cooperation, collaboration, and influence go hand in hand.

[1] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06111/

[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-rishi-sunak-ukraine-war-europe-uk-inches-toward-eu-defense-projects/

Votes count

Sneaking past the national news this week was a change that is of more than a little significance.

For more than a decade, I did live outside these shores. All the time that I did, I continued to vote in local and national elections. At that time, I still had an address in the UK. What would have happened if I’d continued to live abroad, for more than 15-years, is that my right to vote would have been taken away. This so-called 15-year rule meant that millions of British citizens were excluded from voting.

During the referendum of 2016 a great number of British citizens living abroad were unable to vote for or against Brexit. At the time this was seen as a great injustice. This was especially true for those who maintained strong links with the UK.

Now, almost without anyone noticing, the UK is aligning itself with other major democracies in the world. The 15-year rule has been scrapped. Some people estimate that the change to the franchise could mean an additional 3 million British citizens will have the right to vote restored.

British citizens living abroad, who no longer have an address in the UK, can now register to vote in UK General Elections. Which is convenient given that one is imminent. Naturally, this still requires those who are eligible to know about the change and to register to vote.

Interestingly, it’s the Conservatives who promised to enact “Votes for Life” in three previous election manifestoes. It’s taken a long time but the reality of the extension of the franchise is now with us[1].

The ability to donate to political parties comes with these changes. Maybe that’s one reason that Conservatives were persuaded of the need to change voting rights for the British abroad.

There’s still a possible Brexit related uncertainty. Should they occur, each UK referendum has different voting rules. So, the general restoration of the franchise may not impact any future vote on the reversal of Brexit. That would be a matter for specific legislation.

Lifelong voting rights have both a plus and a minus. For most people who retain interests in the UK it’s a matter of natural justice. They may have UK pensions, pay taxes, or have family members that are directly affected by changes that British politicians can, and do make.

For those people who have completely severed ties with the UK it maybe argued that this restored right to vote is generous. However, there’s no obligation for those who have no interests in British governance to register to vote.

Given that the British abroad can all participate in national elections, it will be interesting to see if future UK governments take more interest in their situations.

Starting on 16 January 2024, if you are a British citizen living abroad, now is the time to act. Register to vote.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/voting-when-abroad

Distraction

The Rwanda debate is an enormous distraction. I know there’s a hard core rump of Conservatives who will jump on the deterrent argument in a microsecond. It’s nonsense. For people who are willing to risk their lives to cross the busiest shipping lane in the world, the possibility of deportation isn’t going to make an ounce of difference.

No, this is mainly lawyers, talking lawyerly talk about what lawyers might do. Then getting wrapped around the axial about what their colleagues may or not think. Trying to fly the dark flag of nationalism higher than anyone on the green benches. All the time with their eyes on the headlines of tabloid newspapers[1]. No surprises, no innovation and chance of making a difference.

The bill in Parliament has little to do with the practical realities of the problems that the UK faces. There’s also the pernicious euro bashing opportunity that some of the more unscrupulous MPs are only too happy to exploit. There’s nothing more they like than to point fingers at others to avoid taking any responsibility for the current situation.

A week in Parliament gets wasted. This is not unfamiliar when governments have run their course. They wander around concerned about making a show. Troubled about opinion polls. Wondering how to hang on to their jobs. This is not a good season for practical problem solving.

Sitting in a local cafe drinking coffee isn’t the best way to judge the public mood at the moment but isn’t the worst either. So, I’ll paint a picture. An unrepresentative picture. Ironically, the picture comes from the old town hall in this town. A place that, no doubt was the seat of much local debate and discission in past decades. Now a coffee shop for a major brand. Where isn’t?

To my right a gentleman, who must have been at least in his 70s, sat in a comfortable chair head down engrossed in the Daily Mail. One of the few people with a daily newspaper in hand.

To my left young people sitting over their studies. Flicking between their workbooks and mobile phones. Consumed by their mate’s chat. Busy with something but who knows what.

In front, a group of female friends taking the time to meet. Exchanging stories of the week. Families, children, distant relatives, work, money, holidays, in fact all the topics of everyday life.

Where does the Rwanda debate sit with this random selection of coffee shop drinkers? In my estimation only with the man who may have caught the headlines. The only consolation prize for the Conservatives is that one man maybe likely to be a regular voter. Goes out in all weathers and marks his cross in a box.

Now, I hope I’m not maligning anyone. It’s mighty foolish to look at someone and say I know how they vote. Do that on the doorstep and be immediately surprised. Believe it or not I’ve known lifelong socialists who read The Sun newspaper for the sports stories. Or that’s what they’ve said.

The strategy of the Conservatives would seem to be to try and secure their core supporters having given up on the thought of winning a general election they still don’t what to lose too heavily.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-67989069

Look ahead

The predictions are not good. That said, this is not 1997 all over again. For one, social media didn’t exist when Tony Blair was swept to power. Prices are almost double what they were 27-years ago. Astonishingly, average house prices have gone from about £55,000 to over £250,000.

One analogy worth mentioning is the schism in the Conservative party. It’s what they often do when their coalition breaks down. The political distance between the moderate “one nation” types and the mad, swivel-eyed loons on the right (using the term coined by Lord Cameron) is too big to bridge. The right remains bitter at the part played by the current Prime Minister in ousting Boris Johnson.

Unity can be forged in common interest. In this case professional Conservative operators will do almost anything to stay in power. That’s much as it ever was. Money still fuels their campaigning machine. Even if donors must be thinking that burning piles of cash is a better investment.

1997 saw Katrina and the Waves winning the Eurovision Song Contest and the rise of ‘Mondeo Man’ signalled change. The Spice Girls[1] were at their peak and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a must see on TV. It was a different time.

General Election preparations, rumours and stories are going to be the meat and potatoes of 2024. If the situation continues as it is there’s a chance that the Labour leader will get a large majority more because of the public’s boredom with the party in power.

There’s not much of a sign of a great new hip Britain emerging from an era of troubles and turmoil. Labour is trying to make pragmatism exciting. Almost as if the thought is that shining a bright light on greyness makes it electrifying. The people’s flag may be red, but it looks toned down and ruddier brown than in past lives.

Elections are an opportunity for yet unheard characters to find their voice. Already one or two people are starting to emerge as good on the stump. 

MP Wes Streeting is starting to sound as if he knows what he wants to do and can express it in a coherent manner. Maybe it’s his local government experience that is coming through.

MP Daisy Cooper[2] has campaigning zeal that is hard to ignore. She looks like she is in a hurry to get things done. We surely need people with a more internationalist perspective.

Let’s expect election campaigning to be dirty, dishonest, and unpleasant. Today, so much of politics is a response to circumstances. It’s got to be more. People expect more.

When a political party, an awkward coalition of ideas, comes to the point it has no new ideas it needs to go. The Conservatives maybe heading for an electoral wipeout. What we need now is a set of ideas fit for this generation.

[1] @spicegirls

[2] https://www.libdems.org.uk/daisy-cooper

Global

Our everyday life is built on an assumption of freedom of navigation. It’s not always easy to relate to this reality but there it is. Goods move around the globe. I illustrated this uncomfortable fact the other day by saying let’s just sit down and look around. Observe the room.

Sitting in my living room. How many items came to us by ship? Over the ocean. All the electronic goods for sure. The furniture? Some yes and some no. The carpet, maybe not. The curtains, the material for sure. Books? Some yes and some no. Radiators? Surely, made in the UK. However, even the items that were manufactured in the UK needed materials that were imported. Strip away all the imported goods and materials and there’s not much left. The cupboard would be bare.

Now, look at what I’m wearing. My clothes all got here by container ship. I’m not wearing up market attire only everyday wear. Down to my underwear it’s imported. If I did an inventory of my wardrobe there’s not much that was made here.

Take the cup of tea in my hand. Well, the cup might be domestically manufactured but the tea doesn’t grow here. True the milk in my tea is well and truly English. No sugar. I never take sugar.

My point is clear. The days when everything in an Englishman’s home was manufactured in the England have long gone. That day was a long time ago. Almost a pre-industrial period. Our imperial past was such that imported goods have always been a huge part of everyday life.

Today’s automatic assumption of the freedom of navigation stems from post-war settlements. Agreements and institutions flourished in the post-war period. They created and reinforced conventions that assured freedoms of navigation by air and sea. Something we all too easily take for granted. Almost totally ignore.

Since Reagan and Thatcher, it would be hard to find an international management school that didn’t emphasis the benefits liberalised markets and global supply chains.

Post-war the world went from a period when freedom of navigation that was secured by air forces and gunboats to a period when it was secured by agreement and mutual interest. Obviously, the subject is not entire so simple since conflict has always been occurring somewhere on the globe.

National sovereignty remains at the core of the agreements that exist. There is no such thing as world government and international law can be brittle to say the least. Amongst those who benefit from it, there’s a strong interest in upholding and protecting freedom of navigation. Those acts that disrupt or challenge freedom of navigation will always meet a response.

So, this week’s developments to protect international shipping routes through the Red Sea should come as no surprise. It’s a different matter as to whether they are right or wrong. Or whether the military action that has been taken will work.

Our western tendency to expect a rational response to a rational action maybe flawed. However, the aggressor in this case has interests that may not make any sense to us.

On my radio

Out on the edge of the city of Coventry is the campus of Warwick University. At the heart of the campus is the Warwick Arts Centre. I recall “Rockpile[1]” when they played a UK university tour in 1978 or 9. One of their concerts was at the Warwick Arts Centre and I was there.

It was a fantastic night. No idea how I got there or got home to my rundown student accommodation in Coventry. My student days were at what was then called the Lanchester Polytechnic. A clumsy group of post-war modernist buildings strung up in the centre of a struggling city.

Music-wise I was living at the centre of the known universe. Between 1978 and 82 Coventry was alive. Venues were full. It was a youthful eruption of music. There was an air of decay in the crumbling manufacturing heart of the West Midlands. The brutalist and raw concrete architecture of the city was gathering moss, springing leaks, and not living up to the idealism that built it. Maybe the cost of living was not so hight, but something kicked-off an explosion of creativity. The energy of 40-years ago made its mark on popular culture.

Anyway, what I’m recalling here is a BBC Radio 1 DJ. She was that at the time. This week Annie Nightingale[2] has passed away. It seems fit to remember her with her finger on the pulse of what was happening. She was at the Rockpile Warwick Arts Centre concert, seeing and being seen. Much senior to the students in that hall. That didn’t matter one bit. Whispers went around in respect – that’s Annie Nightingale. We knew we were at a special event.

There’s another recollection I want to get off my chest. It involves cassette tape and an amber-red Sunbeam Imp[3]. Making compilations was all the rage with cassette tape. In this case it was Annie Nightingale’s compilation. Probably in the early 1980s.

Who knows which Halloween it was, but I had one recoding of one radio show she did that was my favourite car tape. Her instincts were prefect. It was one of those tapes that could be played repeatedly wherever I was going. My school days echo with the “Monster Mash.” A smile comes over my face when I hear Barnes & Barnes and Fish Heads[4]. Or “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon[5]. Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult. A great selection of fun packed horror-themed tunes.

Annie’s Halloween radio show was a masterpiece. She defined cult classics. Her earnest side aside she was mischievous. In a box. I know not where that tape may still exist. I’ve a mind to look for it. Thanks Annie.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockpile

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/jan/12/annie-nightingale-radio-1-dj-dies-aged-83

[3] https://classicmotorsports.com/articles/not-mini-sunbeam-imp/

[4] https://youtu.be/cn73Wtem0No

[5] https://youtu.be/c6M89iDabwM

Chat

Yesterday afternoon, at the till in a major supermarket and the man in front of me was getting stressed. I was standing in line waiting without a care in the world. In front of the man, in front of me, the till assistant, or checkout operator, dependent on how you see it, and a customer were locked in day-to-day conversation. Just being sociable. From what I could hear that customer may have once worked in that supermarket at some time.

The man in front of me was getting grumpy. He turned back and muttered his disdain for the shop’s staff because they were holding him up. Their everyday conversation was an afront to him. They were wasting his valuable time. Not overly aggressive but he had an agitation that often comes from a degree of unwelcome stress. He was in a hurry or at least heavily felt the pressure of time.

When I got to the till the assistant asked: What did he say? I quickly paraphrased what was said. Conscious that I had no desire to inflame the situation that had now passed by. Reactions can be unpredictable. We live in an era of polarisation.

The gentleman working at the till was into small talk. He clearly loved to chat to customers. Then for me he put that in context. He said that when it gets to about ten, in the evening, people are more than happy to talk as they pack their shopping. With some people it’s the only conversation they have in a day. He was proud that staff were encouraged to be warm and friendly.

Now, there’s a contrast. The life of Mr busy, busy, busy verses the life of the forgotten. That division is at the heart of one of society’s biggest troubles. A tribe that is over-employed, anxious, and living on the edge and a tribe that is lost, lonely and forgotten.

One prone to exasperation and being impatient. The other desperate for social contact and empathy. How on earth did we construct a society that tries to work on that level? Not only that but supermarket managers are desperately trying to automate everything[1]. Already there’s three types of automation in that you can do your own till check in a couple of different ways.

The milk of human kindness shouldn’t be sneered at. Wow. You see how quickly I reverted to Shakespeare without even knowing it. That simple phrase has its origins in the play Macbeth. The play that I was forced to read at school. The play that did nothing much to lift my appallingly bad grades at English. To Lady Macbeth, the “milk of human kindness” was objectionable. To her real men had no need of it. We all know where that led. Don’t go there.

So, next time you are standing in a short que, stomping your feet, imagining the clock spinning around, give it a rest. If you find yourself thinking this is too much, I can’t deal with it anymore, do a double take. Relax. Breath slowly. Dig deep and discover some small talk. It might be more meaningful than you first think.

On another subject. I agree with Graham Nash[2]. A day in the life[3] is a truly great song. It’s life as a musical tapestry. The song wanders around the mind using hardly any words but painting a picture all the way up to the sky. I’ll not heaping yet more praise on The Beatles, they’ve enough for several centuries. That said, May 1967 was a magical moment. Even if I did only know it with toy cars and in short trousers. It’s not the daily news but I’ll bet there’s probably now more holes in Britain’s roads than ever.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170619-how-long-will-it-take-for-your-job-to-be-automated

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Nash

[3] https://genius.com/The-beatles-a-day-in-the-life-lyrics

Beware

There is some corrupt b****** out there in INTERNET land. They would dip their hand in your pockets and take whatever they can in a second. It’s downright evil. The wild-west element of the INTERNET has never gone away. It’s a global problem.

I’ve never had a Netflix account. Maybe that’s unusual. It would be nice to have one but, personally I’m not convinced that the costs are warranted. Not today. I’m slow to step on the streaming bandwagon. I still have a pile of DVDs and CDs. Yes, I’m a primitive. In some things an early adopter but when it comes to services that require regular payments, I’m cautious.

As regular as clockwork junk e-mails turn-up saying that I need to update my payment details, or my Netflix account will be suspended. Followed by an exclamation mark. On closer inspection they are amateurish cons. In fact, it’s good that the junk mail filter can see through them as they come in.

This kind of fishing is criminal. Somewhere there’s a group on con artists thinking up ever more devious ways of taking money from people. The amateurish ones may not be a threat to me, but I wonder how many people they do catch. Even one in a hundred thousand would net a nice return for virtually zero outlay.

It may be the case that lots of people think that they are not so stupid as to fall for these blatant entrapments. What’s concerning is that cybercrime is becoming ever more inventive. We’ve yet to see what developments in intelligent algorithms will do to this landscape.

The best advice around is to never ever, I mean never ever, give personal payment details in response to an unwanted request. Most honest organisations make a point of saying that they will never request bank details in unsolicited e-mails. Unjustified urgency and a threatening tone are another sign that something is wrong.

Electronic means, namely the digital economy is not as robust as the traditional over the counter transaction. Organisations are aware of this fact. Warnings saying that they will not take responsibility if money is transferred to an incorrect bank account are commonplace.

The digital economy has been a boom for the major banks. High Streets up and down the country now have grand imposing buildings that are coffee shops, restaurants and, in the case of my town a kitchen showroom. Banks have retreated from face-to-face relationships. The responsibility for being aware of the potential for cybercrime has been firmly placed on the shoulders of the individual.

Talking to people remains important. Certainly, if a request for payment seems strange or unexpected there’s no substitute for picking up the phone, however tedious that process can be. Notes, and paper records still matter or, at least, they still matter to me.

NOTE: Useful information can be found here http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

Call to account

Accountability. There’s a nice word. It’s kind of biblical. It’s one of those so-called golden rules. An account is about balance and fairness. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. A simple and straightforward notion.

I’d say that means that we expect ourselves to account for errors and misdeeds, and we are often our own greatest critics. In balance then we expect others to account for their errors and misdeeds.

Our society doesn’t have a police officer standing on every doorstep. That would be intolerable. What we call civilised behaviour requires each of us to be accountable for our action, to ourselves as much as to everyone else.

Listening to the story of the Post Office (PO), and its persecution of postmasters, it’s apparent that the innocent individuals first questioned themselves before they questioned the failing computer system that they had been forced to use.  

Go back 20-years and Computer Weekly[1] was pointing out that the large-scale transition from a paper-based system to a computer system was going badly wrong. An accountable institution would have urgently investigated and fixed any problems, which are not unexpected in the introduction of a new system. In this case, cover-up and denial seems to have been the strategy. Then blaming the innocent and going to extreme measure to punish postmasters.

The PO did not do unto others as it would have them do unto it. The corporate blindness to injustice and its self-protection mechanisms were the worst of what an institution can be. Now, the appalling injustice is evident to everyone and it’s difficult to understand where accountability was in the past. By cruel imposition, accountability was distorted by the powerful.

I hate to say it but there’s a general lesson in what has happened at the PO. In the last 10-years there are numerous significant national failures where the strategy of blame and going to extreme avoidance measure has prevailed. The billions (£) wasted on personal protective equipment (PPE)[2] during the pandemic is only one case. The billions (£) wasted by Truss in a few days. Don’t start me on the billions (£) wasted on Brexit.

In our democracy the notion is that accountability comes through free and open elections. The argument goes: if you don’t like what they have done you can kick them out. If there is such a thing as natural justice, we might expect that to happen. I remain an idealist in a year of elections.

I sat down in Morrisons[3] yesterday morning. There was a copy of a national tabloid newspaper lying around. I picked it up to read it with my tea. The line it took, on the one hand, is to highlight the injustice of the PO scandal. On the other hand, it did its best to exonerate the current government and cast shadows over the opposition. Not much honest accountability. Conservatives, who have been in power for more that a decade, are swiftly trying to rebrand.

Golden rules are great but political expediency is much in play as we run up to a General Election. I hope that the public will see through rebrand underway. Let’s hope.

[1] https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-know

[2] https://www.transparency.org.uk/track-and-trace-uk-PPE-procurement-corruption-risk-VIP-lane

[3] https://groceries.morrisons.com/