20 January 2024 , 21:54
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It is a measure of the callousness of Paula Vennells that she could blithely party while stubbornly battling with wrongly convicted sub-postmasters.
The then Post Office chief let her hair down on the dance floor in 2017 as she boogied to a guest performance from Pixie Lott.
Pixie’s biggest hit was All About Tonight. But Ms Vennells is best suited to the single from the singer’s third album – Nasty.
Nasty describes how innocent sub-postmasters were hounded for money they were wrongly accused of stealing when Fujitsu’s duff Horizon IT system was to blame.
The shindig was held to celebrate the success of the Post Office. Now we know the “success” it chalked up was unjustly jailing those who worked for it and pursuing others into bankruptcy.
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And to add insult to serious injury Fujitsu’s lead programmer on the Post Office account got a company award for profitability.
The Post Office was once one of Britain’s most loved institutions. The vengeful regime Ms Vennells presided over has reduced it to one of the most reviled.
And the revelation that Saturday deliveries might be axed will not improve its standing. Sub-postmasters are now on the cusp of the justice and compensation for which they fought so long and hard. We hope that in time the hurt they feel will recede.
The contempt in which Ms Vennells is held will not.
Steel hearted
Big industry bosses just don’t get it. A Tata executive received a £700,000 pay hike last year taking his earnings to £1.6million.
At the same time he was planning to make 2,800 steel workers redundant.
This newspaper is not against free enterprise. But we also believe in fairness. And it is hard to see how such a massive rise can be justified given the huge losses in Tata’s British and Dutch operations.
It is a slap in the face for loyal workers about to be laid off and worried how they will feed their families. Forty years ago top people’s pay was 20 times that of the average worker. Twenty years ago that had risen to 50 times. Now bosses are pocketing 109 times more.
They award themselves these gigantic sums simply because they can. Boardroom pay should be based on success. And when firms shed thousands of jobs that is a sign of failure.
Pick and fix
We are still nostalgic for the 800 Woolworths stores which suddenly left our high streets 15 years ago taking pick and mix with them.
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So good news from Germany where the boss of the chain there says he wants to bring Woolworths back to the UK. There’s not been a Labour government for almost as long. Let’s hope voters pick of what we’ve also missed.