The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

I cannot begin to express the depths of my outrage over this Post Office/crooked postmasters business. For those of you who don't live in the country where the modern Post Office was born, they introduced a new computerised accounting system for sub post offices (normally franchised out to normally subcontinental small business persons), many of whom immediately started to report that, at the end of each day, they couldn't tally what was in the till with what the computer said should be in the till. The Post Office swiftly solved the problem by having them all imprisoned for theft (o.n.o.).

Now funnily enough I don't particularly blame the Post Office for this. They were just covering their backs the best way they knew how. I blame

(1) the courts for not wondering why this sorry parade of bewildered Asians, without a smidgeon on their escutcheon, kept on stealing from their own shops, day after day, reporting it to the Post Office and either pleading "It must be the computer system, guv" or "Guilty as charged" on their barrister's instructions. "You're going down anyway, the facts speak for themselves, you might as well get a reduced sentence for owning up to it."

(2) the government for not working all this out and for not insisting on immediate reparations when somebody else did.

(3) the great British public who preferred bellyaching about how sub post offices were becoming as rare as hen's teeth. Somebody should do something about it.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I blame the computer system. You can't blame it for not working, that is the programming, but it is most certainly the fault of the damned computer that everyone at head office was by now so thororoughly bored, they needed the andrenaline buzz that comes from seeking out a mass criminal conspiracy to defraud. To be fair they needed to keep busy to justify their jobs. Bloody computer. Idle hands. Devil's workshop.

[Mick Harper]

It was the fault of a computer company that I once worked for

[Mick Harper]

It's worth pointing out that the Post Office is like the police. Everybody is expected to start on the beat and work their way up. This is admirable in some ways but it doesn't exactly lead to a higher management packed with brains and specialist skills.

[Wile E. Coyote]

That's certainly not the case with the Fuzz in my area, they are all super intelligent fast track grads with degrees in crimonology, the problem is that this gives them zero insight into the people who they are managing or those trying to to commit crimes. Still, they have computers to help em, which tells them that you are much more likely to be burgled on Ravenscroft Estate and, who would have guessed it, it has the lowest clear up rate.

No doubt this is the fault of government policy.

Not a lot can be done, what with policy and CPS.

Good job Inspector Penny Pinkerton lives 22 miles out the city.........she wouldn't want to live on Ravenscroft.

[Mick Harper]

Ever heard of a state within a state? Well, we've got one, the armed services. They have their funny little ways. We don't mind too much, they're funny little institutions. And being little, not likely to be a problem. One of their funny ways is gayness. We legalised it in1967 -- only not really, just private acts in private places. There's not much private in military life so they didn't legalise it until 2000. We really didn't object all that much, we couldn't help remembering those mincing soldiers on Monty Python. "They're not going to keep the Russians out, they'd end up inviting them in for a bit of nookie."

But times have changed. They've got a report coming out recommending that all the gays serving in the forces (including traditionally every last man-jack WRAC, WREN and WRAF) or not serving because of their gayness or serving and suffering, be compensated for the harm done to them between 1967 and 2000. On the one hand, this is ridiculous. They knew the score, they should all have gone off to be Church of England vicars and ballet-dancers. Or writing and performing on Monty Python. On the other hand, they should be compensated. Enlightened values are even more enlightened when they are backdated.

But don't push it.

[Mick Harper]

A discussion about the superiority of merino wool vis à vis synthetic fabrics (surprisingly close, I discovered) ended with

[Mick Harper]

Liz Truss had to resign because interest rates shot up. Now they've reached the same heights, Rishi Sunak will have to resign. Or Ms Truss will have to be invited back because it was all a mistake her having to resign in the first place. Personally I don't mind either way so long as Boris Johnston doesn't come back. Not until the autumn anyway when things will have calmed down.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Labour have announced they intend
(1) to borrow twenty-eight billion a year for ten years for 'the conversion to a green economy'.

This is presumably in addition to their other pledge
(2) to borrow money required 'for long-tern capital assets' while paying for ordinary government spending out of taxation.

Whether this is in addition to
(3) their normal practice of not paying for ordinary government spending out of current taxation in order to help the poor and so forth
has not been made immediately clear.

For hundreds of years British governments have been taxing people (and borrowing from people) and spending the proceeds on lots of things without making any distinction about what they're spending it on, because you can't. Money's money. It comes in, it goes out. This tradition was broken by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, who were Tories, so there is a precedent. "Drinks all round. Whoops, I've left my wallet in my other trousers. Anyone see a foreigner who's got any money?"

[Mick Harper]

A delightful case of political correctness today. It started unpromisingly in a Quora thread entitled Which side of the road did the Romans drive on? In the course of which some malicious troll interjected

[Mick Harper]

The UN peacekeeping force sent to Mali in 2013 has now acquiesced in the Malian government's request that they leave. They were originally sent, with the Malian government's acquiescence, to deal with various insurgencies that were threatening to destabilise not just Mali but neighbouring Sahel countries. This has proved to be the UN's most expensive peacekeeping exercise thus far.

The situation has got steadily worse during their ten-years stay, not only in Mali but in the Sahel generally, and while it cannot be absolutely ruled out that things would have been even worse without them, it can safely be said that their mandate has not been fulfilled. This is not surprising since UN troops are temperamentally unsuited to engaging temperamentally-suited insurgents. The wonder is that 'the world community' took ten years to realise this and keep insisting on applying the same policy whenever the world's media reports a situation that demands 'something must be done'.

This has all come to a head because the Mali government has turned to the Wagner Group to do the job instead. Just at the moment when the Wagner Group is being closed down by the Russian government. We await further developments in this latest 'Scramble for Africa'. Or 'scrambled decision-making by the world community' to use the wider term.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Lavrov is making it clear that Wagner is open for, and will complete its outstanding, business in Africa. The fact that it's Lavrov saying this means that Russia is not cutting ties with Wagner, as it cannot afford to lose its clients/friends in Africa now that any relationship with Europe is broken for the forseeable. Russia needs Wagner. Every Boss needs a violent Capo.

[Mick Harper]

This is what I assumed would happen. The Kremlin may find that, without their charismatic mercenary capo, mercenary organisations are not easy operations to run. The Americans have been doing it by chucking money at them -- and they haven't proved anywhere near as effective, reduced to guarding Green Zones and stuff like that -- but the Russians haven't got enough money to do this. (Or at least not 'and show a profit'.)

I'm not chancing my arm by predicting Prigozhin will return but...