Slimy snake-oil salesman and compulsive liar Rishi Sunak says it would be “common sense” for Alan Bates to be knighted for his role in uncovering the Post Office scandal. “Mind you, I’d never fucking heard of him until he was on ITV last week,” Sunak didn’t add. “But everyone has heard of him now, they’re furious about what’s happened and, as it’s election year, I’d better do something popular.” As honours go, I am sure it would go down well with The Great British Public who were absolutely seething when they found out what had been going on for well over a decade, but had only been reported on by Computer Weekly, Private Eye and the BBC. An honour is the least he deserves, isn’t it?
If I was in charge of the honours system, I’d have either reformed it from top to bottom by now or resigned at my failure to do so. It’s an absolute joke. It’s not just that the fanatical christian Paula Vennells got a CBE for services to the Post Office when it turned out she had been fucking over many of them that bothered most of us. And she got her gong in 2019, four years after the BBC Panorama programme ‘Trouble At The Post Office” was first broadcast, which made public the scandal which the government still failed to act on. Vennells’ honour discredited the system, yet Sunak wants to hand Mr Bates an honour from the discredited system?
If he was to be made a peer, for example, he would join a dubious list of flunkeys and grifters who have recently been sent to the Upper House by this sick and sleazy Tory government. It’s not for me to tell him what to do if offered a gong, but if I was him I’d tell the honours committee to stick where the sun doesn’t shine.
But that’s a British disease. If we want to right a wrong, then give them an honour. The honour itself might mean fuck all, but it gives us a nice warm feeling, if only for a short while, just like Captain Tom did during Covid. “Oh, that poor bloke from the Post Office. Let’s call him Sir Alan. That would shut those moaning minnies up, the ones whining on and on about how their lives were ruined or even ended – I know the latter can moan, but I am sure you get the drift – because that would bring an end to it all. Arise Sir Alan. Can we move on please? Rishi has an election to run.” No. I’ve got a better idea.
Posh boy wanker ‘Sir’ Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was knighted because he was a posh wanker, said the postmasters and mistresses should all receive a pardon. You know, like the pardons issued to people who have done things wrong. But wait, Jakey Boy. You don’t pardon people who haven’t done anything wrong. You compensate them. Properly. Not a single lump sum to everyone. You compensate them for everything they lost. If they lost their homes and businesses, you work out how much and pay it to them. Then, apologise. You cannot bring back the dead but you compensate, as best you can, the still grieving relatives. And you do that by talking to them, face to face.
Alan Bates represents the best of us, yet until last week hardly anyone knew who he was. An honour is surely neither here nor there and, frankly, I have no view on whether he accepts one or not. I won’t slag him off. The truth is that our system, and not just the Post Office Horizon system, failed the postmasters and mistresses, falsely portraying them as criminals.
There are more of us, which is to say ordinary folk, than there are of them, by whom I mean our so-called political leaders and business ‘leaders’, but the system is against us. Power is money and the Post Office, aided and abetted by the government, used its vast resources to force those poor people into giving up and forcing them to plead guilty, even though they weren’t. Together, though, we the people rose up and defeated the elite, the all-powerful establishment because of a few persistent journalists and then a brilliant ITV programme. You see, we can make a difference and we have real power, but only if we use it. Britain may be broken but together we can start to fix it. And we can start that process by getting rid of this government.
