Post Office Treason and Plot
British Public’s Visceral Demand for Blood Is Justified
The Freemen On the Land are an odd bunch. Occasionally, they write to Fair Cop, damning us with faint praise by suggesting that the next time we have a run in with the police, we should recite from The Reeds at Runnymede. “No freeman shall be fined or bound, Or dispossessed of freehold ground, Except by lawful judgment found” they quote, as though Kipling were a Supreme Court Judge.
According to Freemen philosophy, Maritime law is the bedrock upon which state coercion rests, and this being contractual, requires agreement by all parties. The State procures consent through underhand means, including burdening the individual with artificial nomenclatures, such as Mister, Mrs or Miss, and the issuance of birth certificates. Redemption, say the Freemen, may be obtained via the completion of a series of forms which, once submitted, dissolve the contractural burden imposed by the State. Of course, none of this is likely to trouble a magistrate inclined toward a guilty verdict, leaving the Freeman On the Land doubly startled when the dream of endless warm beer and Morris dancing is interrupted by a spell at His Majesty’s pleasure.
Tempting as it is to mock, the self-soothing delusion has some justification. At the very least, the oddball Freemen know that the Magna Carta is not simply a pub on Lincoln’s Exchequergate, and are alive to the inarguable fact that justice is now largely dependant on Toby Jones appearing on the telly.
As true crime aficionados know, the best stories come with an unexpected twist, and Mr Bates versus The Post Office is no different. On the face if it, the Chief Executive at the heart of the scandal, with her low-maintenance hair, and twin set colour matched with the Head Office upholstery, fits perfectly with Jane Austin’s characterisation of the Post Office as “a wonderful establishment.” Paula Vennells, captain of industry, lay minister and one time candidate for the See of London, is made of the stuff that can be relied upon to provide perfect macaroons at a tea party, and be resolute in her quest to see the mail delivered to the letterbox without shortcuts being taken through the crocus beds. Thus, the shock to the system was akin to Panorama revealing that Delia Smith and The Queen Mother were the criminal masterminds behind the Brinks Mat robbery. At no level does it compute with what we imagine Britain to be.
Despite assurance from the Reverend Vennells that her values derive from the glory of God, she is revealed to be cut from the same cloth as the Vicar of Altarnun, who also combined clerical service with a more profitable, secular endeavour. The Reverend Davey ran an outlaw band of wreckers whose profits were derived from luring ships onto the rocks of the Cornish coast by extinguishing beacons, relied upon by ships captains for safe passage. The cassock wearing Chief Executive of the Post Office engaged in a similar misdirection.
Knowing that the post masters’ defence relied upon showing the Horizon accounting hubs to be vulnerable to third party access, Vennells is seen, in Episode 3 of the drama, setting about wrecking the evidence. “I need to say, no. Third party access is not possible” she writes in an email to Fujitsu. “And we are sure of this because of XXX.” Here, Vennells is not merely gripped by the dangerous, but nevertheless human, phenomena of confirmation bias, but is shown to be its architect.
One imagines how Vennells would deal with the ethics of the runaway railway trolley. In the scenario, in which a railway trolley is careering out of control toward a hazard, there is a simple binary choice for the participant. Option a) is to remain passive. Option b) requires the participant to pull a lever, which switches the points on the track.
The consequence for choosing option a) is that the railway cart will continue on its course and plow into a large pile of boxes containing the Post Office’s most precious asset: its reputation. The consequence for choosing option b) is the the runaway trolley will divert onto a neighbouring track, upon which hundreds of people are immovably tied down.
Variations on this ethical dilemma is found the fist chapter of Michael Sandell’s book, Justice: What’s The Right Thing to Do? In a boardroom seminar on corporate morality, I would bet my home and everything in it that Vennells would take option a). Yet, in the real world scenario, she chooses option b).
We also know that, in making this choice, she remains in esteemed company. As she pulls the lever, Sir Ed Davey washes his hands and claims that, as he is Post Office Minister, it would be entirely inappropriate for him to intervene. Tony Blair gives his assurance that this pragmatic choice preserves good business relationships between Britain and Japan; and Sir Ian Cheshire, the chairman of the Honours Committee, bestows a regal gift upon Vennells by recommending she be made a Commander of the British Empire.
And why not? The former Girl Guide, goody two shoes, and parochial priest could not be more possessed of English practicality had her arse doubled up as a pop up toaster. Across four consecutive nights, the nation’s sofas strained to deal with the shifting velocity of public indignation as we witnessed Vennells and her dreary henchmen execute an act of vandalism not seen on English soil since Thomas Cromwell sacked the monasteries. By reverse engineering guilty verdicts through a disregard of evidence useful to the defence, Vennells became a modern day Guy Fawkes, exploding kegs of gunpowder beneath blind Lady Justice, habeus corpus, and the right to a fair trial.
Toward the end of Episode One, Jo Hamilton, portrayed with heart-shattering conviction by Monica Dolan, is surprised to see her criminal case listed as R v Hamilton. “So, it's the Queen versus me” she says, with a stoicism typical of the working class masking what was surely profound despair. Every stamp she had sold. Every letter she had collected. Every coin and note she had cheerfully handled across the post office counter bore the familiar face of Elizabeth II, now named as her accuser.
“Do you think she knows?” Asks Hamilton. As an avid TV watcher, one can imagine her late Majesty’s lack of amusement had she lived to tune in.
The British public is justified in its visceral demand for blood. Past monarchs, upon discovering that their Pallium Regale has been lifted so that the royal stockings steamed with third party piss, were unlikely to be appeased by the return of the perpetrator’s gong. Alas, we no longer behead traitors. But were a dungeon to be made available for an extended stay of the Tower of London, the people would likely not object.