Actual punishment here would concentrate minds wonderfully

We have been less than happy - and said so - over the years about the Post Office’s Horizon scandal. The original mistake was of such mindnumbing stupidity that it’s difficult to believe a system containing actual live, capable of breathing, human beings made it. The smokeblowing and backfilling over it were worse. So much so that one of us has, in another place, called for substantial punishment:

There’s plenty of blame to go around over the Horizon computer and accounting program and we might include parts of the Post Office management, Fujitsu the contractor and others. But Byng’s historic example shows that the right response is simple. In fact, why not go further back than Byng and go Viking on the guilty?

Matters are not getting any better:

Postmasters whose reputations were left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal are being offered a maximum of just £10,000 for “severe” reputational damage, it has emerged.

Abject stupidity allied with bureaucratic cover up leads to a payment for reputational damage less than the costs of hiring a libel solicitor?

We’re normally very vocal in our insistence upon saving public money but this is one of those occasions when we argue entirely the other way. Here the State, the powers that be, screwed up big time and they need to compensate, swiftly and properly. We can have the discussion about whether to reopen Tyburn for the perpetrators a little later.

Action this day as the man said.