A “cruel and incompetent” administration guilty of “institutional obstinacy” is the conclusion about the UK Post Office fiasco which saw almost 3000 employees and hundreds of postmasters mistakenly blamed for losses and bankrupted, sacked or jailed. In reality the financial discrepancies were due to a faulty IT system. To date £58 million has been paid out in compensation for false prosecutions with the judge remarking that the evidence he heard from the Post Office side were akin to ‘flat earth’ assertions.
The CEO at the time Paula Vennells, who pushed for prosecutions over the alleged shortfalls, has since been awarded a CBE, resigned form the Post Office and been appointed chairperson of a healthcare trust and a non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office. She is also an Anglican priest.
And she has a chart and a half!
Born 21 February 1959, she has a Pisces Sun opposition Pluto square Jupiter in Sagittarius opposition Mars in Gemini – that’s Boris on steroids. Sun Pluto = controlling, not good at backing down and admitting mistakes. Mars Pluto = uber-determined, ruthless. Mars Jupiter = opportunistic. Jupiter Pluto = pushily confident. All in Mutable signs – scattergun, a whirlwind in a storm.
Her Mars in Gemini is further highlighted/afflicted by being on the focal point of a Yod to Saturn sextile Neptune – has problems modulating anger and assertiveness, too much or too little leading to self-defeating behaviour. Bil Tierney remarks: “A mismanaged yod with Mars as an apex planet, can result in fateful consequences of a crucial nature due to rash or disruptive actions on the individual’s part.”
Her future happily enough looks panicked, undermined and a swamp for several years ahead.
It’s not often I feel sympathy for militant, paranoid anti-government arguments. But in this case I’ll make an exception. There were suicides and some have died before this got sorted. And it shouldn’t just be Vennells that takes the rap. All the decision makers inside the Post Office should be named and shamed.
But really – rising from failure to failure. Shades of Dido Harding, another Boris luvvie.
Fujitsu developed the Horizon system that underlay this fiasco.
Both Fujitsu and the Post Office have spent the past few years trying to pass the blame onto each other.
Ultimately no matter how rubbish the IT supplier the cause of this gross miscarriage of justice was the management of the Post Office. They must have specified the system requirements and signed off that it was fit for purpose. Sadly far too many highly paid people in British life assume they can pick up a big salary while outsourcing responsibility for any failures to third parties.
Privatisation was supposed to make the Post Office and other state owned services more efficient. What happens in reality is it gives shares and top jobs to cronies, at the expense of the country and everyone who works under them.
It’s not often I feel sympathy for militant, paranoid anti-government arguments. But in this case I’ll make an exception.
Yes, it’s the many grains of truth, like this, and the lack of justice that always follows, that fuels all the extreme and paranoid stuff.
The past couple of Pluto transits through the signs have always raised awareness, but not resolved much. These things always just fade away from the news and nothing is changed. I wonder if it’s the sextile to Neptune that has been lingering for several decades? My only hope is that Saturn and the sign of Capricorn may fortify this Pluto a little more
Astrology aside, Marjorie, your piece here is superb. If only some journalists wrote as bluntly as you do.
Many thanks for it.
That is quite a chart!
We do appear to have a system which promotes and rewards psychopathic behaviour traits among its higher echelons. Pluto’s journey through Capricorn has really exposed this.
Look deeper on the Public Health England chart please, and see if they were wrongly constituted, badly led or just plain underfunded in the years they existed, after the previous quango had been ditched, in favour of a “more modern, more comprehensive approach to health” (their words, not mine) when constituted (2013?)
Sounds horrible! Interestingly, this seems to be a bad period for once highly regarded public postal services in general. There are issues in The US, and there are issues here in Finland. It seems all these issues stem from a “need” to turn profit when their business model is based on public service, and they may even have legal obligations in the respect. Here in Finland, this is related to ridiculous management compensation model. The latest CEO of postal services took home more money than CEO of Kone, a very successful (they updated their guidance for second half of the year, even with covid-19 outbreak) elevator manufacturer. And yes, it was mostly out of the back of the very few employees still remaining and customers.
Me too! But this is good education for us non-Brits.
Well said Marjorie. Too many tragedies brought about by blistering arrogance coupled with incompetence. There’s too much of it about as you also allude to vis a vis Dido Harding. The ruling class seem intent on a re-run of the “lions led by donkeys” phenomenon that prevailed over the time of WW1. I wonder if there are any astrological connections?