Hacker News Reader

Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

If this scandal was about incompetence only, it would be outrageous.

But this was at least a deliberate, criminal cover up at the expense of hundreds of innocent people, maybe worse, implemented with tools intended for fighting serious crime. It seems unbelievable that this could happen in a civilized country.

View on HN

They had Operation Ore in the early 2000s, thousands of innocent people were arrested and it resulted in 44 suicides.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/apr/26/comment.s...

https://insidetime.org/newsround/massive-miscarriage-of-just...

And the Tom Watson delusion: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-640...

That article says 39 suicides and wikipedia says 33.

It also remains to be seen whether there will ever be any accountability. So far there has only been the promise to hand back a CBE.

Which isn't even legally permissible, there is no way to 'give it back' (although you could stop using the title) - it can only be taken from you, which has to be done by the king on recommendation of the prime minister.

I can’t think of an instance where giving it back has been refused. It certainly won’t in this instance

I can't think of an instance when it's been given back. You get a notification that you're being considered for an honour; if you're going to turn it down, you do it at that stage, before it's been conferred.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Her promise to return the "honour" looks to me like an attempt to avoid having it seized off her.

These "honours" (knighthoods, peerages etc.) should now be referred to as "disgraces". Liz Truss handed out an honour for roughly each four days of her incumbency as Prime Minister, nearly all to crazies from the extreme right of the Conservative Party. We already have way more peers than can actually be stuffed into the House Of Lords.

> These "honours" (knighthoods, peerages etc.) should now be referred to as "disgraces".

Boris Johnston’s attempts to knight his father and Russian oligarchs donating money to the conservatives for titles are examples of this.

Not to mention that “Owen” woman who nobody seems to know anything about but is this spitting image of his ex-wife and has that trademark Johnson shade of hair.

Paula Vennells handing back her CBE doesn't get remotely close to accountability. Many won't feel a sense of closure until she's aggressively prosecuted and languishes in a prison cell for the rest of her years. I'm actually surprised at the restraint shown by ITV in her depiction, because in real life she bears many of the hallmarks of a cartoon villain.

I agree with the sentiment, but it's important to add that this should only happen if it's proven to the criminal standard of proof, in a court room, that she was complicit.

Why can't we apply the same standard of proof that was used to prosecute and sentence innocent people in this scandal?

Why can’t this burden of proof be applied when giving out awards? The various paedophiles and fraudsters might be caught earlier.

Another one today:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/british-cond...

Because two wrongs doesn't make a right.

On the contrary. Applying unjust law to the powerful and well connected people is the best and quickest way to get such law removed.

the legal responsibility of a director is different. she is accountable (along with other senior directors) for issues caused by the company

"A director can be found to be personally liable for a company offence if they consented or connived in an illegal activity, or caused it through neglect of their duties."

https://www.girlings.com/latest/when-does-a-director-assume-...

so she either knows about this or is negligent - either way jail time should be given

I bet Paula Vennells is lying about that. It sounds like some kind of PR statement to deal with the petition getting over a million votes to strip her of her honour.

For someone not familiar with the acronym, what is CBE?

A quick search shows me 371 different matching acronyms, ranging from the "Calgary Board of Education", to "current best estimate", to "Central Bank of Egypt".

Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) This is awarded for having a prominent but lesser role at national level, or a leading role at regional level. You can also get one for a distinguished, innovative contribution to any area. https://www.gov.uk/honours/types-of-honours-and-awards

Interesting, thanks! I would have thought that'd be shortened to "COBE".

One should rather ask why the UK still hands out orders that have 'British Empire' in their title :)

Wait until you hear about the House of Lords and hereditary titles.

Unfortunately I know it already. The more you know about the UK legal and political system the less it looks democratic

To be fair they are slowly making their institutions conform to a more democratic outlook.

For example, their Supreme Court finally moved out of the House of Lords in 2009... (so much for "separation of powers" before that, even though they were joined only in name...)

But contrast the situation of the United State of America, whose "Supreme Court" rather than an independent institution is in fact filled with partisan hacks to such an extent that it appears many on the Right felt that it was worth the obvious downsides of Donald Trump as President to get more Supreme Court justices.

Even the Law Lords (as they were typically called when the exact same body existed as notionally part of the House of Lords prior to becoming the UK's Supreme Court) were way more independent than that. A Government minister can say "No" to the pick of the committee which independently chooses candidates for this job, but they can't pick for themselves, the committee can just give them the same name again until (inevitably) the minister gets replaced with one who doesn't say "No".

It would in theory be easier for a British government to abolish their Supreme Court than for the US government, but in reality in both cases it would cause a constitutional crisis. The UK is quite capable of having a constitutional crisis, you don't need to write your constitution down to do that, but it isn't very likely.

That "O" would exist in pretty much all British honours, so it's just redundant.

The levels of the order (which is the only one used on a regular basis, post-WW2) are MBE/OBE/CBE/KBE/GBE.

It's not just that. "of" and "the" are often omitted from initialisms, possibly as a lingering effect of, and false transferral of the conventions from, Latin where "of" is just the genitive case and "the" does not exist.

"Rolling on the floor laughing" should properly be "ROTFL" but usually is "ROFL", and that example is nothing to do with Britain or the honours system. "Member of Parliament" is "MP" not "MOP". "Batchelor of Science" is not "BOSc." but is "BSc.". And so on.

I suspect that "Lord of the Rings" is only "LOTR" because the sort of people who use "ROTFL" are the sort of people who even read the appendices to Tolkein and got there first. (-:

The O we were talking about is for "Order" :D

(Btw in the '90s, when it mattered, ROTFL was ROTFL and that was that... Now get off my lawn.)

"CBE" refers to Commander of the most excellent order of the British Empire [0] which is a title conferred by the monarch on those deemed to have performed especially well in the service of the nation.

So you can see how its value might be diluted by this instance.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire

This is the one you need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire

The CBE in particular: Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)

Yes, the UK still refers to the British Empire.

Does a CBE confer some benefits?

Not really. It's shiny. It's like a real life ding/chievo/whatever you call them these days.

It's important enough that you can write it on like headed notepaper without seeming like a complete jerk. If I see somebody sent me a letter from "A Smith CBE" that seems reasonable I guess they have a CBE, how about that - if they write "A Smith BA(Hons)" I know they're a terrible person - who cares that you have a fucking undergraduate degree? Am I supposed to be impressed?

One more notch up makes you a knight. So, if you're collecting and this is early in your career that's a good sign you could get there. For example when I was a research student 20+ years ago, my Head of Department was looking to get herself some Honours, and these days she's Dame Wendy.

But like, it doesn't come with a heap of money or anything as far as I know. You briefly get to meet Charlie I guess, but I met his previous wife once (when I was a kid) and she was just some woman, so I doubt he's any different.

I once read a quote that "most of UK is a -third world country- desperately clinging to London to prove otherwise."

This doesn't help.

The simile is more colourful (and simplistic) than the reality.

The poverty levels are extreme in some parts of the U.K. that are far away from London and the high population density belt that goes through Birmingham to Manchester, lower than in some of the places in the E.U. that one thinks of as the poorer places in Europe. And the infrastructure gets almost zero attention and lip service from London-centric thinking. (Remember the cancellation of the northern parts of HS2?)

But some things are the same as London. I'd mention some, but they would be highly ironic given the subject headlined. (-:

I think the best way forward is for everyone involved in it at Fujitsu and the Post Office gets prosecuted for taking part in a criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Certainly Paula Vennells should absolutely be in prison for her oversight and deliberate destruction of people's lives.

It's always the cover-up that makes it truly terrible. Like Watergate ... or when police misbehave in general ... it's always the desperate cover-up.

It does shatter the illusion somewhat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com