³Leave no room for selfish ambition and vanity, but humbly reckon others better than yourselves. ⁴Look to each other’s interests and not merely to your own.

Philippians 2: 3-4 – The Revised English Bible

³²Be generous to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:32 – The Revised English Bible

¹⁶When a malicious witness comes forward to accuse a person of a crime, ¹⁷the two parties to the dispute must appear in the presence of the Lord, before the priests or the judges then in office; ¹⁸if, after careful examination by the judges, he is proved to be a false witness giving false evidence against his fellow, ¹⁹treat him as he intended to treat his fellow. You must rid yourselves of this wickedness.

Deuteronomy 19:16-19 – The Revised English Bible

This is the final part of my reflection on the Post Office Scandal, which is still a story gaining traction in the UK. It ends with a prayer for those whose lives have been so damaged (there are many thousands). All of us must hope that they get justice, sooner rather than later. As always, I encourage your comments!

Why is there a tendency to believe that technology is always right, and people are always wrong? And what message does this send us about our future in the brave new world of AI?

In one of my previous jobs as Divisional Managing Director, the Company I worked for had decided to renew their IT system with a new Group-wide one.

I was given the job of ‘signing off’ the purchase for the group of companies for which I was responsible. I think the value of my part of the purchase order was approximately £150,000, about 30 years ago; a not inconsiderable sum. My job was to read the Terms and Conditions and apply my signature to a very detailed contract.

I remember ringing my opposite number at the supplier the following morning, and saying to him that I was uncomfortable about signing, as my reading of the contract overnight had led me to believe that his company was not guaranteeing to deliver anything whatsoever to us. It wasn’t just that they wouldn’t be responsible for errors in their software. It was that the contract effectively said ‘You will pay us £150,000 and we do not guarantee to deliver anything at all to you.’ To my utter astonishment, his reply was: ‘Yes, that’s a correct interpretation of the contract, and by all means check with our competitors, but you’ll find that they all have the same clause.’ He was right, they did.

Most of us have ticked the box when downloading software, confirming that we accept the terms and conditions. I wonder how many of us have ever paused and read them? We know that we can’t get past this point without total unmodified acceptance of the Terms and Conditions, even if they’re worded in a completely unacceptable way.

How is it that the world has allowed an entire industry to get away with this? It’s been the same from the very beginning (I was 34 when I bought one of the first PCs, in 1985). I’ve often wondered whether the organisations I ran would actually have been more efficient, if they’d operated with handwritten notes and old-fashioned record cards, as things were when I’d first started in business.

This would be bad enough on its own, but also which one of us has not come face-to-face with appalling, euphemistically-called ‘glitches’ or ‘bugs’ in software that cost us untold hours? I find it incredible that when I face these situations, the answer is often that I must try deinstalling and reinstalling the software; a procedure that can take many hours, and isn’t, in any case, guaranteed to solve the problem.

It’s not for nothing that the tech sector has such hugely profitable companies – what a wonderful business model it is, to sell a product that’s riddled with errors and then get your customer to pay time and money to solve the errors that you were responsible for creating!

So there’s the first lesson of the Post Office saga – how could anyone in the organisation have ever expected the Fujitsu ‘Horizon’ IT system to be anything other than full of errors? The level of naivety is jaw-dropping. Had no-one in this huge organisation ever confronted this problem before? That’s truly hard to believe…..No, on reflection it’s impossible to believe.

And the second lesson, surely known to most people, is that the larger the piece of software, the more full of errors it tends to be. If you don’t believe me, just look at any large government-initiated IT project and you’ll find that it’s often delivered years past its promised date, at multiple times its projected purchase price and then takes years to ‘de-bug’.

In my experience, part of the problem with IT is that not only is it complicated to understand, but there are two other huge issues:

• Those who do understand it are often such specialist ‘geeks,’ that they can’t even explain it to others.
• And the ‘geeks’ have also deliberately created a special language, understood only by them. In this respect, they’re similar to lawyers, who use Latin to ensure that their service is as difficult to understand and replicate as possible. I remember a conversation with an IT geek once who used the phrase ‘EPROM blowing’ and refused to see how I didn’t understand it. ‘You have to know what EPROM blowing is!’ being one of those phrases that I’ve been unable to forget, even after almost 40 years.

As a result of the above, many people, even at the most senior levels in management, feel that it’s impossible to understand IT. You just have to trust.

There’s that word – trust. I wonder how many of you will have had your trust and faith shaken in recent years by the ‘arithmetic modelling’ that seems to plague every aspect of our lives?

Consider this: during the period of COVID, we all became aware that even the two-week forecasts produced by arithmetic modellers like Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London, were quite spectacularly wrong – often by many hundreds of percent. And yet now we’re deep into a hotly-contested debate about Climate Change, and those doing the modelling (often the same organisations) are trying to persuade us that they can make global temperature forecasts to tenths of a degree Celsius per year for more than 75 years. I have this theory: the reason that comedy has almost died recently is because of situations like this. What we should be doing is rolling around on the floor, dying of laughter, instead of taking such forecasts with a straight face. The same goes for sea level rises, to a few millimetres a year, across the entire face of the globe. Boom! Boom!

The horrid truth is that arithmetic computer modelling, despite its scientific-sounding title, is nothing more than a process of feeding into a computer what in industry we used to refer to as SWAGs (sure-fire, wild-a…d guesses) and then treating the output like the Ten Commandments, coming down from Mount Sinai on tablets of stone.

I’m grateful to an Internet acquaintance who recently brought to my attention the ‘Dunning-Kruger’ effect, which I hadn’t encountered. This effect suggests that a person’s lack of knowledge and skill directly leads them to over-estimate their own competence. I suggested to my correspondent that if you combined this with the more familiar ‘Peter Principle’ (that suggests that people are generally promoted to a level of incompetence), then you could offer a complete explanation for why there are so many IT disasters in the worlds of government and commerce. Does this theory apply to Post Office Ltd? I’ll have to leave you to decide that.

But we can’t move on from this issue without adding some modern societal observations. I always made it clear to my direct reports in new organisations that there were two things that would guarantee them the sack. The second doesn’t matter in this context, but the first was failing to hold your hand up and ask for help, if you were in trouble. This should go without saying, but I wonder to what extent it has featured in the story of the Post Office? In most large organisations, you’re rewarded for covering up your mistakes and penalised for holding your hand up.

You can call what follows ‘The Blott Principle’ if you like, but my observation has been that people in our world increasingly know more and more about less and less, thus fuelling the Dunning-Kruger effect. The precise opposite of The Enlightenment, if you like, when such figures as Sir Christopher Wren had deep knowledge of architecture, astronomy, mathematics, physics, stress analysis, invention, surveying, optics, mechanics, microscopy, scientific instrument design and even medicine. In our era, people work in such specialist silos, that no-one understands the whole picture. This, in turn, enables many to spout b……t without being caught out. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the bigger the b……t, the less likely it is to be spotted, which is perhaps how so many Members of Parliament can get away with spouting complete nonsense over so many years.

One much derided Christian value that needs to be considered in this context is humility. It’s been deliberately abandoned and is now despised. Society now disdains those who accept they’re fallible and it raises to huge heights of fame and celebrity, those whose egos lead them to claim omniscience.

The closer you look at this, the easier it is to explain how such a huge IT disaster could have happened in a large, amorphous organisation like Post Office Ltd.

Why does this matter? Well, a combination of arrogance, ignorance and incompetence in the world at large absolutely guarantees that the rapidly-approaching age of AI (Artificial Intelligence) will be one that’s viewed by history as a total, technical catastrophe.

If you’re still not persuaded, answer me this: in a world where we’ve still not got even close to designing an error-free, stand-alone Personal Computer, how likely is it that a Central Bank Digital Currency could be designed and introduced without it turning into a complete disaster? Or a Compulsory Digital ID could be implemented, without incorrectly labelling huge numbers of citizens as illegal immigrants and then depriving them of access to financial and other services? If you were a victim, how would you prove who you are, when the unlimited power of the state is claiming you’re someone else? If the story of the Post Office is anything to go by, you could be a ‘non-citizen’ for 20 years before finally winning your case, assuming you could even stay alive in the meantime.

Why does no-one care about the truth any longer? Why are we so comfortable with (it sometimes seems to me) everyone lying about everything? What persuaded us to sacrifice the truth on the altar of our own self-interest?

This month, it was said during the enquiry that the Post Office’s denials that its IT system had been plagued with bugs amounted to “the 21st-century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”. Mr Justice Fraser also said that Fujitsu had provided “wholly unsatisfactory evidence.”

Each one of us now lies as a matter of course if there’s a threat to us, or to our organisation. It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to any accusation.

One of the forensic accountants investigating the Post Office scandal told the Business Improvement Director, Angela van den Bogerd that the prosecutions she was handling were likely to turn into miscarriages of justice. She withheld that information and pressed on regardless. At what point does such action represent wilful negligence? It’s immorality is self-evident.

We’ve lost trust in each other. The more people are caught lying to each other, the worse this gets.

Many now seem to accept that someone born a man can become a woman. There could hardly be a more extreme example of the way in which we’ve destroyed the truth. If we accept this nonsense, what lie could be too big and obvious to restrain us?

What’s driving this huge change in society? I’d suggest some of the following are factors:

• It’s self-evident that lying is much easier when it isn’t face-to-face, as body language can’t be taken into account. The more our communication becomes via social media, Zoom, Text messages, etc the more it feeds the telling of lies. What will be the long-term effect of ‘Working from home’?
• Many public figures have developed the ability to use many words that can mean almost anything to those listening or reading. This ‘word soup’ can and does hide a multitude of sins. Try reading the ‘Good Friday Agreement,’ as an excellent example. Is this a lie? If it’s intended to mislead, then it’s hard to claim it isn’t a lie.
• The use of soundbites also feeds this: ‘safe and effective’; ‘strong and stable’; ‘sustainable, inclusive, diverse and equitable’; ‘none of us is safe until all of us is safe’; ‘people not profit’; ‘from the river to the sea’. All of these phrases can be used to cover up a real intention: they’re basically a form of lying.
• Our world has borne witness to ever-increasing wealth amongst a diminishingly small number of people and organisations. Of itself, this may not be a problem. But when such wealth is used to further their own prejudices, by Billionnaires or Universities, then it becomes a form of dishonesty.
• A phrase that’s been heard recently for the first time is ‘my truth’. What on earth are those words supposed to mean? And it’s also become common to hear the phrase ‘there is no such thing as truth.’ It reminds me of Pontius Pilate asking Jesus in John 18:38: ‘What is truth?’
• As I said at the end of Part 2, to treat others as you would wish to be treated is one of the founding principles of Christianity. It can’t be denied that we’re now far more inclined to see others as being inferior to us. This is upsetting, as often the message that’s intended is this: ‘I can lie to you, because you’re far too dumb to spot what I’m up to.’
• It’s worth noting that one of only two MPs who adopted the cause of the Sub Postmasters was Andrew Bridgen, who was ejected by the Conservative party for his comments about MRNA ‘vaccine’ dangers. He’s been the sole champion in the House of Commons of those who’ve been injured or killed by the ‘vaccines’. Curiously, though, he was not once mentioned in the recent programmes about the Post Office Scandal. There are lies of commission, but also of omission. The latter has become the stock-in-trade of the legacy media; you can spot their agenda by what they ignore.
• Stop Press. This past week, in the COVID enquiry, Professor Mark Woodhouse stated that the BBC had deliberately put out ‘misinformation’ in 2020, in order to boost fear of the virus in the general population. I don’t know what you call this; I call this lying by the BBC. It’s also been reported that the Canadian government faked intelligence in order to frame the protesting Truckers’ as violent extremists. Two huge lies in one short week. If you’re a twelve year old, why not lie about your homework, if the BBC and the Canadian government can get away with such huge lies without cost?

What does this saga tell us about the ‘gravy-train’ that ensures that once you have a job at the highest level, however badly things turn out, you can always guarantee being picked up by another large organisation on another eye-watering salary? And why are the guilty never properly pursued?

The place to start with this is to ask you to look at the following lists of appointments held by some of the key players in the Post Office saga:

Chairman of Post Office Ltd, Tim Parker. His other Chairmanship roles: Chairman of the National Trust; Chairman of His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service, Chairman of Channel 9 TV in Australia, Chairman of Autobar Group (Europe’s largest vending company), Chairman of Samsonite (luggage)

Tim Parker’s other non-executive Director roles have been: Legal & General Insurance, Alliance Boots (pharmacies), Compass Group (catering). He was also a Board member of the Audit Commission and Board member of the South West Regional Development Agency.

Tin Parker’s Chief Executive roles, before being appointed to the Post Office: Blakeslee in Chicago (he shut the company), Kenwood (kitchen equipment), Clarks Shoes, Kwik-Fit (automotive spares), The AA (Motoring membership organisation, including many subsidiaries in insurance etc), Crypto Peerless (Bakery equipment).

He was also Patron of the National Theatre, Trustee of the Royal Academy of Music and Advisor to CVC Partners (a Private Equity Company)

If this list leaves your head reeling, as it did mine, bear in mind that for a heady six weeks in 2008, he was also Deputy Mayor of London under Boris Johnson, and at the same time Chairman of Transport for London and Chief Executive of the Greater London Authority.

When you look at these lists, also bear in mind two other things: firstly, he held several of these roles at the same time as being Chairman of Post Office Ltd. Secondly, it’s thought that as a result of all of the above roles, he’s amassed wealth of approximately £200 million. Could there have been a conflict of interest, by being Chairman of His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service at the same time as the prosecutions were being brought by the Post Office against the Sub Postmasters? I’ll leave you to decide.

Chief Executive of Post Office Ltd, Paula Vennells. Of her other appointments, perhaps one that raises the most eyebrows is that she was a non-stipendiary ordained minister of three Church of England parishes in Bedfordshire, concurrently with being CEO of the Post Office and, it’s been reported, was on the final shortlist of four for the job of Bishop of London. She’s claimed that her faith ‘influenced her approach to business’, but even after Tim Parker had issued an apology to the Sub-Postmasters after the case more than two years ago, she refused to do so. We should perhaps be grateful that her faith had influenced her approach? Her other appointments have been as Non-Executive Board Member of the Cabinet Office (a government ministry that supports the Prime Minister and ensures the ‘effective running of government.’ Thank heavens we have people with such talent on such bodies. She’s also been Chairman of one of our largest Healthcare providers, Imperial College Healthcare Trust. Her early roles were with Unilever and L’Oreal and as Group Commercial Director of Whitbread (brewery and pubs). She’s been non-executive Director of several of the UK’s largest retailers, including Dixons Stores Group, Argos, Dunelm and one of the UK’s largest supermarkets, Morrisons. In addition, she’s been a member of the UK government’s ‘Financial Inclusion Policy Forum’ and of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group for the Church of England. She’s been a Trustee of Hymns Ancient and Modern and a member of the Future High Street Forum.

A brief perusal of the Internet reveals that the above (which I find stunning) is not new. Tim Parker’s predecessor, Alice Perkins, was a Senior Civil Servant and wife of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw under Tony Blair. And before her, Allan Leighton, who was Chairman of the Post Office from 2002-2009, was Director of 9 other companies at the same time, with combined salaries of £750,000 per year. Can anyone genuinely commit themselves to 9 companies at once?

I’ve gone into this at such length, to underline the scale of this issue. What might be some of the reasons why this endures at the highest level of British companies and organisations, including the Post Office? Well, maybe some of the following could be contributing factors?

• The job advertisement for the position of Chairman of His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service shows that it was carefully worded; there would be a vanishingly small number of people who could tick every single box.
• There are very few ‘Headhunters’ (consultants who identify and approach suitable candidates employed elsewhere to fill business positions) who are active for the highest roles in Commerce, Finance and Government. Maybe 20 in total and heavily dominated by just 6. I know some of them from personal experience. These organisations earn massive amounts of money for approaching individuals, to encourage them to apply for the top positions. It’s very difficult to get onto their radar. This means that they’re fishing in very small pools, for people looking for roles as Chairmen and Chief Executives. This in turn leads to the Headhunters loudly complaining that scarcity of ‘talent’ means that salaries, and hence their own fees, must increase inexorably. Thus, do we end up with the stratospheric salaries of those who secure these positions.
• Because of this, if people leave one job after a scandal, they’re very often snapped up by other large organisations, and it’s far from unknown for this to happen multiple times. The truth is that once you’re on these organisations’ radar, and thereby part of the never-ending ‘gravy-train’, you’re on it more or less for as long as you want. The ‘gravy-train’ consists of the same people circulating around the top jobs and, as we’ve seen, these people often end up with multiple, simultaneous, highly-paid appointments.
• Often those who are making the appointments are only too aware that those they’re appointing may, at some future stage, be able to offer them a large sinecure, in their turn. The phrase ‘The Old Boy Network’ no longer means those who’ve been to the same schools, but in all other respects, it operates the same way that it always has done. How else do you explain the above?
• Why does it sometimes seem as though many of our largest organisations are run by sociopaths? The larger the organisation you’re responsible for, the more your ego is massaged by others. The larger your ego, often the less compassionate you become. And in many cases, the less compassionate you are, the more in demand your services are. Lord Acton observed that: ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ This maxim is alive and well in many of our largest organisations. We have a few examples in history of Prime Ministers who’ve served so long that they begin to think that they can walk on water. The same is true in large organisations.

The scandal of the Post Office treatment of the Sub Postmasters, and the moral, ethical and theological issues that surround it are, to a great extent, the story of corporate Britain in the twenty first century. The story has now captured the imagination of the public because of a TV programme, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that these issues don’t exist in almost all of our organisations that are household names, whether they be Governmental, Commercial, Financial, Industrial or Charitable. It’s one of the great scandals and tragedies of our history and it’s impossible to believe that it won’t be repeated over and again, in view of the fact that its root causes are a lack of even basic, fundamental morality, in a post-Christian era. 

Gracious Lord, look down in mercy on those Sub Postmasters and their families who have suffered so heavily over so many years. Breathe a sense of your love into those who are still suffering. And we ask you to help those who have been responsible for inflicting this pain, to come to repentance and therefore to draw closer to you. Amen