The Post Office Scandal: Britain’s First-Class Farce


The Post Office scandal remains Britain’s most efficient exercise in institutional farce: hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft, courtesy of a computer system that had all the accuracy of a drunken darts player in a wind tunnel.

For years, executives insisted the technology was flawless — a claim roughly as convincing as a dog assuring you it hasn’t touched the roast. Careers were destroyed, lives upended, and justice delayed so long it practically needed a reintroduction.

Now, with public outrage finally matching the scale of the incompetence, inquiries grind forward at the pace of a Royal Mail delivery to Pluto. And yet, somehow, the people at the top who signed off on this mess still cling to their knighthoods, their bonuses, and their remarkable talent for looking baffled when asked “How could you possibly not have known?”

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