It is worth keeping this fable in mind at the end of possibly one of the worst weeks in the history of the modern British state outside a time of war or national emergency. In a sight which would have had giants of the Civil Service like Sir Robert Armstrong, Sir Norman Brook and Sir Burke Trend turning in their graves, we have been treated to the vision of the present Secretary to the Cabinet (Sir Simon Case) pathetically limping his way into the Covid Inquiry and blubbing his way through his testimony. We have witnessed the trivial but significant picture of an unprotected UK Prime Minister getting soaked to the skin by the rain and being drowned out by a vexatious and noisy professional agitator as he called a General Election in Downing Street. In Scotland, First Minister John Swinney demonstrated his "new kind of politics" by refusing to sanction a colleague who had been found out trying to defraud the public purse of £11,000. Then, just as we thought the NHS could not possibly plumb new depths of wilful malpractice or the apparat of a lower level of complacent uselessness, we have been faced by the damning findings of the six-year long Langstaff Inquiry into the NHS Blood Contamination scandal. Costing well over £100m in legal fees alone, Sir Brian's astringent report is likely to saddle the UK taxpayer with compensation payments north of £10bn to the thousands of victims knowingly treated with HIV and Hepatitis contaminated blood transfusions between 1970 and 1988.
Arguably however, you had to be at Aldwych House in London for the Post Office Inquiry conducted by the former High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams to savour the full corruption of the governing class of the UK. Sir Wyn is in his eighth decade and although his inquiry was sanctioned in the autumn of 2020, his circus only hit the road in February 2022. Some of the sub postmasters and postmistresses to whom the inquiry relates have been waiting nearly 25 years for justice, but this being 21st century technology-enabled Britain, these things take time.
However, the inquiry at last got to hear the testimony of Paula Vennells, erstwhile CBE, Anglican priest and CEO of the Post Office between 2012 and 2019. Arguably, Vennells had already been subjected to a lengthy and vitriolic public pillorying, but this did not stop the egregiously rewarded inquiry lawyers from having their public moment of expensive and carefully modulated outrage. Even the hitherto useless postal unions got a shout-out. From Vennells all one could hear were multiple evasions, denials of knowledge, the deployment of meaningless or misleading jargon and the occasional sob as she avowed her "love" for the Post Office and her regret that the victims of one of the worst miscarriages of justice since the turn of the century had been so appallingly treated. For the poor bloody sub postmasters and mistresses, one can only hope that the three days of theatre in which Vennells took the stand was worth it.
Because, what in the end is the real purpose of these public inquiries? Of course having a bunch of advocates spending three days calling an immaculately dressed and coiffured woman a total bastard makes for great if toe curling entertainment in the media, but it is far less certain that it serves the course of justice. Unless the subbies resort to further expensive civil litigation, it is highly unlikely that the perpetrators of this monstrosity will ever see the inside of a court, still less a prison. Which is precisely where they should be.
Vennells of course was the main but not the only culprit. Some indeed have refused to even co-operate with the Inquiry. Sir Wyn's cast of quangocrat lickspittles, buck-passers, flaneurs and liars would however, have filled the stage at the Old Vic. What to make, for example, of Alice Perkins CB, New Labour luvvy, senior civil servant, wife of the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Chairwoman of the Post Office between 2011 and 2015? It was perfectly obvious that like Vennells, she knew a thing or three and was instrumental in 2014 in closing down the independent audit of the malfunctioning Horizon IT system that was at the heart of the miscarriage of justice. Or what about former director David Smith who congratulated the corrupt Post Office investigators responsible for sending the heavily pregnant and innocent Seema Misra to jail? Or Mark Davies, the PR toady who advised against a review of the prosecutions in case it made "front page news"? Or the IT apparatchiks who serially sought to conceal the failings of the computer system that drove many into prison and some to suicide? Or the in-house lawyers who refused to blow the gaff on the whole thing?
For although the subbies may well have enjoyed a long-overdue moment of sang froid as their tormentors were forced to squirm, the rest of us could only watch open mouthed as the authors of the scandal denied any responsibility whatsoever. Arguably, this was the issue at the very heart of their crimes. But as one of the vindicated sub postmistresses pointed out, the subbies had to take responsibility for their businesses and many ended up in jail as a result. So why not the bosses? Hearing it from Vennells however, this could all have been happening on a different planet as far as she was concerned. Yet she was in charge and paid handsomely to accept the responsibility which she now denies.
Thus the British state in the 21st century: Covid, Grenfell, Windrush, too many NHS scandals to list and now this. Years of public inquiries, reams of "lessons learnt", the remuneration of lawyers beyond the dreams of Croesus and the complete absence of anyone receiving a criminal sanction. The link? They all involve the public sector. The Post Office scandal is arguably the purest of the examples at the centre of the rot of the UK's public institutions. It had the lot: the well connected insiders drawn from the narrow ranks of the senior civil service and quangocracy; the complete ineptitude of the "leadership" cadre beyond an ability to network and back-scratch; the careful dispersal of accountability; the absurd waste of public money (let's not forget the coalition government subbed the "arms length" Post Office over £2bn to "modernise" its systems as late as 2013); the priority given to the advancement of personal careers rather than the public good; the denials and cover ups when things went wrong, even at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of others. Finally, it now has its very own public inquiry, the establishment's tried-and-tested machinery for drawing things out, allowing the media to let off steam, and holding as few people as possible to the standards which, at law, apply to everyone else. And then handing the bill to the taxpayer.
The Post Office scandal is not a civil matter, still less a political one. It is a criminal one. The exoneration and compensation of its many victims is the very least that can be expected. But citizens also have a justified expectation that Vennells and co. should lose their liberty as much as their reputations. The survival of the UK polity may well depend upon it.
