If you've been following either the reporting of the #PostOffice#Horizon inquiry, or it dramatisation on TV, you'll likely be surprised (as I was) that #RishiSunak seems to have awarded #Fujitsu another #publicsector contract, this time for the UK's emergency alert system (at £20m per year).
This is not just reward for failure this is rewarding people who were prepared to lie to put innocent postmasters in jail.
'Negotiations' for the UK to rejoin the #Horizon research programme continue.... #JeremyHunt's in #Brussels trying (again) to get a discount because we've missed the first two years of the new programme.
Problem is that we caused that delay not the EU, and the feeling at the #EuropeanCommision is that they're not going to offer a discount because the UK can't get its ducks in a row.
Meanwhile #universities are hemorrhaging #researchers departing for somewhere they can get Horizon money now!
My wee sister was a sub-postmistress, but she died before the #Horizon system was introduced. If she hadn't, she would have been treated in the same way as so many others.
So.
The #PostOffice investigation officers told (all? most of?) the accused that they were the only person with accounting errors. Someone higher up the line clearly told them to do so. Why are those people not being individually charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice?
As the 'junior' #Doctors prepare for another five day walk-out... I'm just going to say this again:
The Doctors have been forced into this position by a succession of #health secretaries who either on their own or being instructed by No.10 are playing hard-ball.
We've seen how #RishiSunak negotiates on the #EU#Horizon research programme... he's prepared to wreck the institution around which negotiations are taking place.
So more #Tory wrecking of the #NHS, not, NOT, 'militant doctors'!
So the good news is that the bill to exonerate the SubPostmasters gained Royal Assent last night, freeing up the fixed compensation scheme for those whose convictions are now quashed (or allowing them to apply to have their individual case assessed).
The, perhaps, not so good news, as much legal commentary has been focusing on is the (potential) precedent it sets for governments to reverse the decisions of Courts.
In this case it would seem pretty just, but in the future?
Every thing I learn about #Horizon convinces me of the truth of the idea that if you want software that works reliably and securely, you want it written by a queer neurodivergent furry anarchist in Rust rather than in Java by a multinational approved government supplier with a whole boatload of ISO certificates and Enterprise Best Practices documents.
People hate computers because they really actually do genuinely suck.
I dunno why we're talking about yellow paint to indicate climbing spots in games, but #Horizon series does it (mostly) well, I love that the Focus dynamically will show you ANY climbable nook on climbable stuff.
Feels less necessary, but as someone who grew up through SNES-PS1 stuff, there were plenty of "I give up on this game..what tHE FUCK!?! YOU COULD DO THAT?!?!" moments. Your game is not as obvious as you think.
Now that UK has (finally) rejoined EU's #Horizon#research programme, revived involvement has immediately his another bump in the road, caused by #Tory policy.
The limitation on #visas for scientific researchers & the high cost of obtaining entry to the UK for work, mean that while we are formally part of the programme, the return of #European researchers to UK based research projects is currently constrained.
The EU Commission is asking the UK Govt to ease restrictions... good luck with that!
Have just started watching the committee hearing ... "There is a risk that some post masters who HAVE engaged in fraud will be acquitted/compensated" ... seems like a slow smearing of post masters ... needs to be nipped in the bud.
The evidence of the callousness & mendacity of the various parties who persecuted & destroyed the lives of sub-postmasters gets more extensive by the week... these people should be prosecuted & locked-up for what they have done....
Its a picture of how the institutions of power in this country have a complete contempt for those who they think are obstructing them.
“One of the worst investigators in history.” Ouch. So I see the #horizon inquiry is looking for somewhere to park the blame.
Don’t get me wrong… what did this guy think he was paid for? To wait passively for the critical information to drift his way? While he just went after confessions at any cost? (dude, you’re thinking of an inquisitor, not an investigator)
But I am deeply suspicious of the one-stop scapegoat for any fuck-up at scale. This is a multi-dimensional, institutional problem.
I'm sympathetic to blanket exonerations via legislation for #PostOffice#Horizon erroneous prosecutions, but I'm a little queasy about a Govt. legislating to quash convictions en-masse.
The Govt. will say that 'this will not create a precedent' in the very act of creating a precedent - Its not hard to see a temptation to do it again in a less clear-cut case.
it would be better for the #ruleoflaw, as the judiciary suggested, to have been fast-tracked batched appeals through the court system!
Ouch. From "Report on the EPOSS PinICL Task Force", a 2001 Fujitsu (ICL) report on why the Post Office system was getting snowed under with bugs, complete with example code. I say again, ouch.
Nick Wallis was one of the first journalists to regularly report the emerging scandal of the sub-postmasters prosecuted and sacked from their jobs by the Post Office.
As a young local journalist it was Nick who brought the story to the BBC. Now he's made a gripping 21-part podcast looking back at the scandal, explaining the terrible effects on the accused postmasters and the recent developments. It's an essential listen.
“I did recommend cancelling it,” he says of #Horizon, “and then tried to look at some of the lessons to be learnt – there was a gap in capability in the British Government of people with an understanding of technology"
And still is. More significantly, there's also a lack of in-house project management competence, and that's not something you can farm out to the private sector without getting royally ripped off. The same faults apply to #ScotGov
"Four researchers in the University of Oxford’s Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division have today been awarded major European Research Council Starting Grants, part of the Horizon Europe programme."
It's really obvious most GamerGate types don't actually play games, one of my favorite examples is their biggest complaint about #Horizon being "woke" is "aloy have fat cheeks >:( would not bang"
Like this is an obviously super multi-culti + enviornmentalist game where both the apocalypse AND the second near-apocalypse were both caused by literal sociopathic billionares.
The guy in the latest DLC is basically Walt Disney + Elon Musk
More evidence of the malice of the Post Office in the Horizon IT case(s) it brought.
What is interesting is how this whole situation is unravelling like an onion to reveal at its heart a vindictive & callous PO management who were prepared to collude with Fujitsu in covering up the problems with the software.
Its almost unbelievable that people could act this way... but then we only have to look to our political class to see where they got the idea from!