WHY was an outfit allowed to abuse its people consistently and continually? The answer is simple and clear. Nobody cared.
And they didn’t care because they felt there was no need to do so. Those in charge had no moral compass. Or, if they did, it was ignored.
The Post Office scandal is a clear symptom of a deep-seated rottenness at the heart of Britain. This moral collapse allowed the Post Office head to be a practising vicar, as she abused hundreds of decent folks. And worse, drove some to suicide.
Think about it. With nary a pang of conscience, she stood at a pulpit and lectured people to be moral and obey the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, by the way, include the following: “Thou shalt not steal”; “Thou shalt not bear false witness”; and “Thou shalt not covet”.
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She was moral on Sundays, so she could act badly the rest of the week.
In short, she told others to obey rules that she did not believe applied to her. Who does that remind you of? Boris Johnson. He, too, lectured us to behave, while he had no intention of following the rules himself.
It is said that “a fish rots from the head down”. If so, this is a clear and unmistakable description of the UK. The collapse of moral standards cannot be laid solely at Johnson’s door, as it is often a result of decisions taken to preserve an empire, but he greatly accelerated the calamitous drop in ethical conduct.
Westminster politicians now routinely lie. Indeed, interviewers are now confronted with such a range of falsehoods that they are spoiled for choice in deciding what to challenge first.
(Of course, BBC Scotland News is the outlier here. Its editors and interviewers actually bring their own falsehoods to the table. This happens so often that they are in the business of continually apologising for poor behaviour.) The Post Office head took full advantage of this collapse in decent conduct. The ongoing inquiry will no doubt reveal the full extent of this appalling behaviour. But one thing is certain. Whatever it uncovers, the result will likely be that no-one or everyone was to blame, so there can be no prosecutions. Moreover, we will be told that “lessons have been learned” and “such conduct will never happen again”.
It is sickening. Decent folks who try to impart sound morals to their kids are rightly disgusted. A centuries-old institution, renowned for honest behaviour, was casually dismantled by someone claiming the moral high ground.
Post Offices are truly at the heart of many communities. People – particularly the elderly – need them.
But the people who ran the Post Office had a very different agenda. For them, it was about profits, not service. And if that meant casualties along the way, who cares?
Certainly not its bosses. Or the politicians. The LibDem minister in charge even refused to meet the abused Post Office staff.
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Ed Davey, who was postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012 when the software issues started coming to light, said he regretted not doing more to help victims who were wrongly accused of stealing but claimed that executives had blocked him from meeting campaigners.
A remarkably incurious Davey said: “I feel that I was deeply misled by Post Office executives … they didn’t come clean. There were definitely attempts to stop me meeting [campaigners].”
Alan Bates, speaking for the abused Post Office staff, said that in 2010 he approached Davey, but the MP said he did not believe a meeting “would serve any purpose”.
As leader of the LibDems, Davey (below) will shortly be on your screens, grubbing for votes in a General Election this year. He will no doubt reassure you of a commitment to open and responsive government, and a willingness to listen. Make what you will of that!
This sorry Post Office saga is symbolic of the moral collapse of Britain. A collapse that needs to be addressed quickly. That much ought to be clear. But it isn’t for politicians.
Meanwhile, Labour will go into the next General Election with five promises – one of which is securing the highest sustained growth. Not, perhaps, understanding this may be entirely incompatible with sound ethical standards. After all, during the period that people were being abused, the Post Office experienced high profits.
The state the UK is in now requires so much more. It needs a clear commitment to moral principles of government whichever party is in power. It needs to ensure that swift actions are meted out to all wrongdoers, and speedy justice for those wrongly accused.
It is not going to happen. The fatal corruption is too deep-seated. Scotland could do so much better.
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