Local interest

 

Local interest

Many of our local roads looks somewhat like this!

Source unknown.

The major topic of conversation, apart from the iniquitous Post Office scandal, is the plethora of road works in the area. At one point recently it was almost impossible to escape the village as every route had cones cutting off road lanes and temporary traffic lights controlling the passage of vehicles. There was a noticeable lack of workmen most of the time and occasionally the traffic lights stopped working altogether. That lead to a ‘dicing with death’ scenario as vehicles hesitantly edged forwards, particularly around blind corners.

Gas, electricity, water, telephone, fibre broadband all had fingers – or spades – in the pie. The road surfaces are still a patchwork of filled-in holes, but that doesn’t affect the pot holes that are so old they are almost of archaeological interest.

Occasionally, a resurfacing project is undertaken. This involves shutting the entire thoroughfare for weeks. Only residents, delivery vehicles, emergency services and maintenance people are allowed access. Commuters have much time added to their daily journeys and all alternative routes or 'diversions' are overwhelmed with extra traffic.      

Tempers become frayed!

The Post Office scandal has a local connection, too. The headquarters of Fujitsu UK are based in Bracknell, almost five miles from here. Fujitsu took over ICL in the late 1990s. ICL was not known for its efficacy in computer systems and the take-over did not improve matters, since many of the same people were still employed there. Who advised the government in awarding such a big contract? 

I imagine the Post Office debacle will become an object lesson in universities to teach systems analysis, business ethics and accountability among other things. As an example of how not to do things it is unsurpassed. It is truly astonishing how criminally badly more than 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have been treated. Between 1999 and 2015, they were accused of theft, false accounting and fraud. Some were jailed, others committed suicide, families were wrecked and still the Horizon computer system was claimed to be without fault.

I doubt whether the real culprits will be punished. After all, our ‘honours system’ seems to reward rogues who lack a moral compass. That degrades awards for genuine people who work selflessly to raise money for charitable causes or work endlessly in jobs that others would disdain.

I take my hat off to those people, like Kevin Sinfield, who has raised so much money for research into Motor Neurone Disease, alongside his great friend and former Leeds Rhinos team mate, Rob Burrow, who was diagnosed with MND in 2019.

There are genuinely good people in the world but they are too often overlooked and overcome by power-hungry, self-serving people. Those people do not stand on the shoulders of those who came before them, but trample over them in their bid to gain the glittering prizes, or, more prosaically, the recognition and the huge salaries.

 I thought the ongoing Covid inquiry was an insight into the incompetence of the government, but the Post Office scandal trumps it one hundredfold.