Originally Posted by
Martin the Martian
And as such, it could be likened to preaching to the converted. The problem is not only how do you reach those not in the circles you described, Chug, but how do you get them to be bothered about it?
700 postmasters wrongly convicted due to a computer is rightly a national scandal, and people are angry about it because the post office is something we all use, the victims are at the heart of their communities, and it has been brought to the public's attention. NHS waiting lists make people angry because the NHS is something we all use and, generally, we can never be objective about our own health.
The MoD being creative about incident reporting? Aircraft procurement totally bu66ered up? Haddon-Cave? Mention them to the average person, who will reply with a blank look and then ask if you watched last night's 'I'm a Celebrity...'.
Unless something truly happens to make it something they will get angry about, and sustain that anger beyond the normal media news cycle, and prompt a million people to sign a petition within a few days, David's excellently researched and written books will go no further than those of us who are involved in or have an interest in the subject, who will nod knowingly because, let's face it, we knew it all along.
True enough, MTM, so what to do? I would first challenge the presumption that the only thing that stirred people over the Horizon Scandal is that we all use the PO. Rather it was the needless cost in lives, livelihoods, marriages, and homes, that the judicial system has wrecked. That all this was made possible by a dysfunctional and poorly led public body is perhaps the first connection of the PO Scandal to the Citadel of Waste. The RAF rightly realised the hue and cry that would have erupted if a schoolchild had been killed flying in an unairworthy glider known to be so, and 'paused' its ACO gliders into near extinction. Serving personnel are seen as fair game it would seem, yet the entirely avoidable death of Cpl Jon Baylis in an unairworthy aircraft (and seat!) underlines the 'special' carte blanche that still pertains to RAFAT. Sky News has already pushed out an excoriating hour long expose of the Reds' institutional culture, and with perhaps yet more to come. The organisational hubris of the MOD/RAF will be its undoing, just as it is going to be with Fujitsu and the Post Office. The British tolerate a lot of shortcomings in their national institutions, too much indeed, but eventually snap and take their vengeance. The Argentinian Junta made that mistake and paid for it dearly.
The problem isn't that there is an even greater scandal here than portrayed in Mr Bates v The Post Office, but the reluctance of the media, broadcasters and newspapers alike, to take on the MOD. That is more a comment on the supine attitudes of the media rather than the supposed might of the Ministry of Defence. Sooner or later someone will take it on, and the issue of UK Military Airworthiness (or rather gross lack thereof) will be exposed. The reason why the Max 8 is basically unairworthy unless resolved by an electro mechanical gizmo is arcane and beyond Clapham man, but he knows when what was once reliable and safe is no longer so, as Boeing are about to discover. The PO Scandal has now erupted over a misdirected CBE. It can be such a seemingly insignificant detail that will yet stir Clapham man to demand total reform of UK Military Air Regulation and Air Accident Investigation. Those who think they are beyond his wrath will be seen as being greatly in error.