The Post Office has a death wish

Ah okay. I thought they were the same.

@HereForTheFreeLunch that’s Royal Mail, not the Post Office. Different company.

It wasn't clear that if was the tech team that made the accusation. It could be the PO discovered he saw something potentially dangerous. But yeah, Fujitsu clearly know A LOT. There are numerous reports around, it's been going on 20 years so lots to piece together, not just the broad brush TV drama.

What??????

Fujitsu don't come out of this well either. Just watching the drama. The tech team allegedly avenged themselves on a man who challenged them by framing him for stealing £44k.

There needs to be convictions on multiple levels for all this.

My own, strictly personal view is that if Jess can remember the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, the outbreak of AIDS, Section 28 or the bombing of the Admiral Duncan then they have earned the right to educate.

If, on the other hand, Jess can barely recollect life before the Same Sex Couples Act then maybe they're the one who might benefit from a little listening and learning.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/22/christmas-cards-could-arrive-late-february-royal-mail/

The Post Office stuffing Christmas cards in hedges and lecturing a lesbian about homophobia... sounds about right for today's world. 🙃

Patronising arseholes, I love Aja the Empress, she is awesome. She takes no prisoners.

We have queer as a choice on a lot of our surveys at work
caused an outcry
There response was queer has been reclaimed by the lgbt and is no longer deem offensive

Changed my username for the gazillionth time as I actually post on this forum a lot and this is more identifying.

I'm a social media manager for a large UK corporation. I'm also very much middle aged, and an adult human female.

I can't tell you the fallout I'd be going through if I posted this comment! For a start, we almost always run posts past other people, though replies often not so much - as we are expected to be responsible for conveying the 'tone of voice' and responsibility (and personality) of the corporation.

We are regularly part of courses and discussions in the comms department and wider company on our strategy, tone of voice and the risks around the company. There are documents circulating (that I am expected to be familiar with) that identify and manage risk from all sorts of events both internal and external.

I get alerts if a financial report is coming out, a senior person is interviewed, or even if someone mentions us or queries us negatively on all the social platforms (even if they are a new user with no followers). There's someone managing the socials all the time, and we report up the line if shit happens. If we're unsure how to answer a question we have people to ask.

Hell we even make sure to talk about it if another company clearly falls down on something like this ( I will be bringing this instance up)

We have a consumer duty to provide the best to our customers and that includes publicly.

Its inconceivable that we (a comparable company in size) wouldn't have a serious discussion behind the scenes if a major TV series and questions in parliament were happening regarding our reputation.

Plus, you know 'let me educate you' is just something I'd NEVER say, I mean we're talking newspeak there.

100%

It's smug, patronising lecturing of the highest order. It's basically a proclamation that the speaker Knows Best. That the Post Office decides to lecture gay and lesbian people who object to the term 'Queer' is absolutely gobsmackingly tone deaf.

More in the Mail:

The gilded lives of the Post Office scandal bosses that prove penitence is only for the little people... A new ITV drama has enraged the nation. Wait until you read what happened

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12932027/post-office-scandal-itv-drama-gilded-lives.html

Although I'd expect in the first instance Post Office would say that they don't have complete records of the people whose lives they set out to destroy.

Not just redaction, but in the court cases, it emerged that the Head of Security had shredded documents. IMO, Nick Wallis’s story about Horizon is primarily shocking for just how many people in Fujitsu and the PO, from the coders to the lawyers to the board room, were prepared to send the little people to jail in order to protect themselves/the company.

The corporate reaction to the concerns raised about this tweet educating us? Absolutely no doubt the same response will occur in that those working for the PO, whether it’s Jess or the Board, will double down on their position. They are right. Everyone else is wrong. End of.

In fact, I’m surprised we haven’t had more of the same as all those people responding to Jess’s tweet clearly need educating. It is so depressing.

'Allow us to educate' 😡

Does anyone else find this use of the word 'educate' a bit weird and non consensual? Like it's something they'll force on you whether you like it or not?

You can inform me, if you like. I will then decide what action I take with that information (which may be that I decide it is bollocks and ignore it). You don't have the right to re-educate me and demand I change my behavior because my opinion/ behavior/ language use differs from the current diktat.

This arrogance reminds me of another group often in the news at the moment, I wish I could put my finger on who...

And the times, main front page

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/091281c1-c51f-48c4-bca1-088256305f4c?shareToken=401f8c0b9ea1c05c8ded651f9a61838c

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/05/post-office-criminal-investigation-potential-horizon-accounting-fraud

I worked for a company that put out a tweet that got a LOT of heat around this sort of subject. When I went into the office the next day, I fully expected to find panic stations and meetings being set up to find out how the fuck it had happened and how it was going to be reversed on...no, what happened was a whole-company meeting put in so that the CEO (who had personally ok'd the strategy before the tweet was done) could educate us on the subject because the meanies piling on our tweet were bigots.

It's easy (and optimistic I suppose) for us to assume that Jess is young, junior, that the tweet was done without sign-off or intervention, but we know in reality there are a lot of people in management, making decisions, shifting working practices and policies, who hold these mindsets.

They do indeed, and appear regularly at Let Women Speak events where they’re stewards and record footage.

Jess would do well to educate herself on Aja! I saw the tweet, and the subsequent pile on, so hopefully Jess is smarting a little.

Am I the only one that thinks Jess’ birth name is Jessica, she’s upper middle class and identifies as they/them?

And a lot don't. More to the point, it doesn't really matter either way, as the only people who get to reclaim a slur are the groups that it has been used against, and companies such as the Post Office don't fit into that category.

Ridiculously snotty reply but I was of the belief that a lot of gay people embrace the term 'queer'? As in 'queer feminism'.

I'm with tractor girly stick to delivering post

I long since came to the conclusion that the last person to enter parliament with honest intentions was one Guido Fawkes.

Zeugma · Yesterday 13:14

I'd also strongly recommend a reading of this excellent special report by Private Eye, which has been following the Horizon scandal for many years. It’s long and very detailed but extremely good.

Thanks, that was a long, hard read. I not that it mentioned the possibility of malicious prosecution against the PO, which I had wondered about some time ago. I think that there would be a very strong case, there is a large amount of documentary evidence, showing that various bigwigs had ordered the problems to be kept quiet, hidden from the courts and defence lawyers.

Can’t find any quotes from those three examples where they use the word “lesbian”, sadly.