The Post Office has a death wish

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

This week, of all weeks, when there is huge outrage at the way the Post Office has behaved towards subpostmasters over the Horizon scandal, thanks to the excellent ITV dramatisation Mr Bates vs The Post Office - on X/Twitter someone whose bio makes it abundantly clear she's a lesbian tweeted about a patronising and offensive tweet from the Post Office last summer about the word 'queer'. Instead of apologising, or deleting the tweet, or even just ignoring it, some blue-hairded genderist with the password for their social media has doubled down. It's not going down well, I'm pleased to report.

That's shocking but at the same time, not shocking.

Excuse me, but I find that term offensive and these are the reasons why...

"Oh shut up, it's not. You've been told."

I still find it amazing, after so many PR cock ups, how so many organisations still allow their social media accounts to be run by poundshop activists.

“Allow us to educate”.

I really can’t get over the cheek of the Post Office trying to provide moral guidance to the nation. They are rotten to the core, and they know we all know that.

The post office has blood on their hands..

"allow us to educate"

Bloody hell, could there be a more patronising, arrogant, snotty response?

Someone 'educated' might have sufficient nous or at least the basic social skills to realise how they are making themselves look and how that conversation is likely to go, as well as have some idea that life existed before their five minutes ago birth date. And that there is history that does not revolve entirely around their little fabulous, miracle self.

I’m guessing they’ve employed some earnest young marketing graduates who think they know it all.

Apparently The Times is reporting that the public enquiry has somehow acquired tapes of senior staff which could be extremely damaging to the Post Office.

How none of the executives who covered up the post office scandal have gone to prison is beyond me.

Hopefully this is the year that they will be jailed.

But surely you would think there would be corporate guidelines insofar as staying away from anything 'culture war' related?? Do these grads look and act normal? Did they have blue hair, pronouns on their CV, face piercing's and permanently looking for offence on behalf of others?

donquixotedelamancha · Today 10:09

How none of the executives who covered up the post office scandal have gone to prison is beyond me.

When it was all blowing up about Paula Vennels, it was reported that she knew that Horizon was throwing up false results and that people were innocent and she told the to carry on with legal action.

Is that actually true, does anyone know?

My impression of 'Jess' from that tweet is less 'earnest' than the kind of enfant terrible that Roald Dahl wrote about.

The Times:

Return your CBE, minister urges ex-Post Office boss

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d4e93026-7a4d-44aa-853a-21a3dbad36c9?shareToken=46c4ad3a97188076c2f30495a5b95efc

"The Times can also reveal that dozens of covert recordings of senior Post Office staff, including Vennells, have been uncovered by the public inquiry into the scandal.

It is understood that the tapes, of which there are believed to be about 80, will be sent to core participants, including postmasters, in the coming days. “They’re conversations with Post Office top brass including Paula Vennells. It’s very damning,” an inquiry source said.

...

Vennells, a mother of two, now lives with her husband John, an engineer, in a £2 million detached farm house near Bedford, complete with a lake and tree-lined drive.

...

Other bosses from the period included Alice Perkins, wife of the former home secretary Jack Straw, who was the £100,000-a-year chairwoman of the Post Office between 2011 and 2015, when about 120 postmasters were prosecuted. Sir Tim Parker was chairman from October 2015 until 2022, and Dame Moya Greene was chief executive of Royal Mail until 2012.

This week Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said he was “deeply misled” by the company’s executives during his tenure as postal affairs minister from 2010 to 2012. Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator, told Times Radio he did not remember the Post Office scandal being raised as an urgent issue while he was postal affairs minister from 2007 to 2009, saying he was occupied with a closure programme of 2,500 branches, which “caused enormous political heat”."

Allow us to educate?? WTF? They're not wrong in that, for many, the word Queer has been reclaimed, just as some rappers use the N-word. But they do need to acknowledge that many people still find it offensive and that it brings back very bad memories. More fundamentally they need to realise that they are running a company's social media account and that IT IS NOT THEIR JOB TO EDUCATE the internet on 'correct' views. SMH.

In other cases, the fact that some people find a word grossly offensive would be enough not to use it. But that doesn't apply here.

When I was at school 20 years ago - a deeply homophobic environment - "queer" only ever had negative connotations. (Whereas "gay" and "homosexual" could be used as neutral descriptors.) How has it magically become OK?

(Part of the answer of course is morons who worship anything American so long as it isn't clearly right-wing.)

My understanding is that there is a large amount of evidence showing that the post office as a whole knew at the time and lied to prosecutors, to courts and to parliament.

The problem, given that the relevant documents were shredded, is proving exactly who lied about what.

Vennels left the post office with a hefty pay out and a CBE to go on to other lucrative jobs and to be a part time vicar.

I think the answer misconduct in public office laws that criminalise deceit with incredibly punitive sanctions so that it's just always the safer choice to admit error.

I hope these takes become public. Time for those who had their lives ruined to get some proper justice. 🌹

It's more evidence of the culture of arrogance and self importance in the Post Office that results in pompous yet ignorant employees believing they can "educate" the public.
This clueless woman knows nothing of "queer bashing" that older people in the gay community are all too familiar with - it happened to a number of my gay men friends back in the day. The fact that she sees herself / the PO as the arbiter of language and the fact that the PO has neither the insight or management skills to remove that offensive tweet, demonstrates that the mindset that dictated their abysmal behaviour to the postmasters is embedded. She's identical to the employees who told postmasters "You're the only one" when they complained about Horizon.

In other words 'we will say the word queer and if you find it insulting, you can fuck off'.

When I was at school 20 years ago - a deeply homophobic environment - "queer" only ever had negative connotations. (Whereas "gay" and "homosexual" could be used as neutral descriptors.) How has it magically become OK?

Because it allows Stonewall to expand their reach to straight people. Literally anyone can be queer merely by saying they are.

'allow us to educate'?

Ffs, this 'Jess' person needs to educate themself. Appalling arrogance and lack of basic human decency there. Probably a big chunk of ageism too as well as the obvious basic homophobia.

Like the comment about who is normalising queering. I'd like to think it should disappear in a puff of logic but unfortunately it's a logic and evidence-free zone.

You would have thought that this week of all weeks, as they must have been aware of the itv drama (you have to watch it if you haven't, so rage inducing!) coming out that they would have placed senior staff in charge of any social media customer queries, comments etc via all channels. But no they leave the YTS kids in charge.

Vennels left the post office with a hefty pay out and a CBE to go on to other lucrative jobs and to be a part time vicar.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Let's not forget Adam Crozier. Courtesy of Wikipedia:

After a career at Saatchi & Saatchi culminating in the post of joint chief executive in 1995, he came to wide public prominence as the new chief executive of The Football Association in 2000 at the age of 35, before in 2003 becoming the chief executive of the Royal Mail Group, the United Kingdom's mail delivery service, where he oversaw a controversial modernisation and redundancy programme.
In January 2010 he was announced as the new chief executive of ITV plc, where he arrived on 26 April 2010. Crozier announced he was leaving this post in June 2017.[2]
Crozier became the chairman of BT Group plc on 1 December 2021.[3]

He's still at BT. The only criticism I can make of the excellent ITV dramatisation Mr Bates vs The Post Office is that it makes no mention of Crozier at all. Given his erstwhile role at ITV, this seems a bit lilylivered. I know they need to simplify and can't put everything in, but it wasn't just Vennells who bears the responsibility for this.