I wrote a piece on the old Turkish proverb (not) that has been a thread running right through my year from January and still ongoing: elizabethbangs.wordpress.com…

Islamist terrorists tried to murder Salman Rushdie and everyone associated with The Satanic Verses. Who precisely is threatening to murder Sally Rooney and the staff at Faber & Faber? Yvette Cooper?

SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, SPONSORED BY POST OFFICE Vinod Sharma cut his holiday short with a £1,100 flight home. The Post Office computer had a welcome home gift waiting, a £29,000 shortfall. Vinod Sharma ran a post office in Balornock, Glasgow for 38 years, from 1977 until he retired in 2015. In June 2015 he was away for 4 weeks with his wife when his assistant of more than 20 years rang to say the computer showed his branch was short by about £29,000. That computer is called Horizon, and the Post Office put it into its branches from 1999 to do the accounts. When it showed money missing, postmasters were held responsible, and more than 900 were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015. The company is owned by the UK government, which makes you a part owner, so congratulations. Vinod Sharma says he was told for years that Horizon could not make mistakes and that any shortfall came out of his own pocket. He says his training was 2 days, with no word on what to do about shortfalls. Two days of training for a system that could cost a man £29,000 is excellent value, if you are the Post Office. He cut the holiday short and paid about £1,100 for a single flight home. He checked 10 days of CCTV, found nothing suspicious at the counter, and worried about suspension, losing the £53,000 retirement payment the Post Office had offered him, and a criminal record. At least somebody investigated, even if it was the man about to be made to pay. Vinod Sharma says he turned to his union, the National Federation of SubPostmasters, and that a check of the branch showed the same gap. He says its General Secretary George Thomson told him Horizon does not make mistakes and the Post Office would assume he had stolen the money, so he should raise the cash and pay before the auditors arrived. The warning, he says, was suspension, the loss of his retirement payment and a possible lawsuit, which is sound advice if you happen to be the Post Office. Vinod Sharma later learned George Thomson was being paid by the Post Office and that the union depended on it for money. The federation's own website says its main funding is a grant agreement with the @PostOffice, in place since 2015, so I am sure the advice was pure coincidence. The federation says it could and should have done more for affected postmasters, George Thomson told the public inquiry in June 2024 that he was not too close to the Post Office ... His family lent him the money, and he paid the Post Office the full £29,000 from his bank account before the auditors arrived. They turned up a week to 10 days later and found another £700 missing, which he also paid, and no further action followed. The Post Office had its money before its own auditors walked in, which is what I call a fast turnaround. He says he has seen no evidence of any proper investigation. The Post Office never suspended him or prosecuted him either. No judge, no trial, no hearing, and justice has never been so cheap to run. He says he had months of sleepless nights and told nobody outside the family, because after 38 years everyone locally knew him and he feared his reputation would be wrecked and that the local paper might find out. In May 2022, aged 74, he told the Post Office Horizon Inquiry @PostOffInquiry in Glasgow that he was in shock and that it had been catastrophic for his family. The Post Office slept soundly through all of it. The repayment used up a large part of his retirement money, and press reports of his evidence say more than half of it went on paying back the relatives who lent him the cash. Happy retirement, from the Post Office. Vinod Sharma was one of 555 postmasters who took the Post Office to the High Court and helped expose the scandal, in a case that ended in a £58M settlement for all of them. He says that because he was part of that case he was excluded from the Historic Shortfall Scheme, the compensation scheme for postmasters made to pay shortfalls, and that he got very little from the court case, nowhere near what he lost. Nothing encourages people to speak up like a penalty for doing it. Since then the government has set up a separate scheme for the group case members, and government data show 473 of the 492 without convictions had full and final settlements by September 2025, with about £199M paid out. I could not find anything public on what Vinod Sharma has received or whether it covers what he lost. The government says about £1.5 billion has now gone to more than 11,500 people across all the Horizon schemes, and lovely statistics they are, none of which tell me whether he has been made whole. Paula Vennells was chief executive of the Post Office in June 2015. Neil Brocklehurst runs it today and has said he wants everyone eligible for redress to receive it as soon as possible, which is a lovely sentiment from a company that collected Vinod Sharma's money within days. I could not find any public response from the Post Office to his account. The Post Office answers to the government through the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, run by Jonathan Reynolds @jreynoldsMP, so it is a government owned company that, on Vinod Sharma's account, trusted a computer over a man with 38 years of service. It has been over 4 years since he gave his evidence, which is plenty of time to read a 9 page witness statement. Sources: @LBC @pressjournal and many others.

Trump has always been so clearly jealous of Putin's totalitarian power and contemptuous of the democratic checks and balances of the USA that I'm not optimistic elections will sort him out. In fact, I'm fearful of what next level action he'll take to overcome them as an obstacle.

POST OFFICE SEARCHED HIS HOME FOR £85K You fight off an armed robber and get an award. Then you get home and strangers are searching your house. They work for the @PostOffice and they are hunting for £85K. Meet Tom Brown, a postmaster from Stanley in County Durham with 30 years of service. In 2008 he ran the North Kenton branch in Newcastle. A branch audit said £85K was missing, and the Post Office decided he had taken it. For over a year he rang the Post Office helpline 2 or 3 times a month about missing cash. The helpline told him it would come back by itself. It never did. The Post Office suspended him the next day and sent a team to search his house. Tom Brown told them a man about to lose everything has no spare £85K lying around, and invited them to look. He was arrested too, then charged with false accounting, which is a posh way of saying fiddling the books. Picture strangers going through your home for cash you know you never took. Then picture your name splashed across the local papers next to the word stealing. Tom Brown later told the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry @PostOffInquiry that the shortfalls carried on after the Post Office put its own staff into the branch. He took that as a sign it was not him. Fair guess. In 2013 the Post Office dropped the case at Newcastle Crown Court and offered no evidence. It took nearly 5 years to notice it had none. The judge told him he would no doubt take it further. By then he had lost his business and his home and gone bankrupt. Reports put the total loss at around £500K. He ended up in social housing with his son and grandchildren. Tom Brown died in late 2023, weeks before the @ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office put the whole scandal into every living room. His compensation was still not finalised. All he asked for in his Inquiry statement was proper compensation and for someone to take accountability. His MP Kevan Jones told Parliament he never lived to see the compensation he deserved. That is how the Post Office says thank you. Sources @ChronicleLive @ComputerWeekly and others.

Perhaps it didn’t make the news in your media. Yesterday, russia damaged the Book Chamber of Ukraine in Kyiv. It holds 15+ million books, newspapers, magazines and maps published in Ukraine since 1917. The collections are now at risk from moisture. Windows in the storage areas were blown out.

Also it’s treating war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 like a game show…. It’s not “fascinating to watch” it’s the appalling murder of innocent people by a nihilistic dictator in Russia…try harder @BBCRadio4 @bbcnickrobinson #SlavaUkraïni 🙏

RT @LaindonFEMINIST: While we are all reliving the anger of Covid and the putrid Tories. Burnham slips out approval for gas. As per Trumps…

'Fascinating to watch' says Nick Robinson -fascinating- as if the talks about Ukraine held after a Trumpian pivot are just a story, nothing to do with us. Europe is in the greatest peril from Russia of my lifetime, both from inside and out, and I remember the Cold War. #r4today

Stamford Hill is the London neighborhood where my grandparents lived after fleeing the pogroms in Poland. It was a safe haven for immigrant Jews, with a large Orthodox community that walked the streets without fear. Yesterday, three Jewish women—one pushing a baby in a pram—were punched in the face on Clapton Common in broad daylight. Targeted because they were visibly Jewish. Shomrim, a Jewish volunteer neighborhood watch, stopped the attacker and police later treated it as a hate crime. The neighborhood that once protected us is now another victim to the open season for Jew-hatred and more evidence of how London has changed under Sadiq Khan. #NeverAgainIsNow jns.org/news/antisemitism/th…

"Anglian Water fined £1.6M for polluting River Brain in Essex." Over the last 15 years Anglian Water has been found guilty of 79 different environmental offences and already paid almost £5 million in fines. Has any of it made any difference whatsoever? Of course not. Perhaps later this morning the @CommonsEFRA would like to ask the polluters why. newcivilengineer.com/latest/…

A young humpback whale, fatally injured by a krill trawler, is thrown away like trash. An eminent marine biologist, Leonid Pshenichnov, a Ukrainian known for his kindness, who devoted his life to the research and protection of krill and marine life in the Antarctic, was illegally jailed for up to 20 years by Putin, because he tried to protect these whales with marine protected areas. Dr Pshenichnov is 71 and seriously unwell. He will die in prison—and we must understand the implications of unlawfully jailing an innocent scientist whose only desire was to protect a vitally important marine ecosystem. Trump's pal Putin is ruthless and merciless. Make no mistake: Putin's crimes and future plans are far-reaching and Trump backing him will enable even worse genocidal, lawless behavior and make this world a more dangerous place for all. (Sources and petition for Dr Pshenichnov's release in 🧵)

Nick Robinson used to use his sneery voice on ministers when Starmer was PM. Now he's all matey with them. It's quite something, the difference, it really is. #R4today

Things that will free Palestinians: Looting a Hermes store? 🚫 Stealing a PS5? 🚫 Declaring jihad against the Jews? 🚫 Making peace with Israel ✅

The people of Albania are out on the streets fighting to save the last untouched wetland in the Mediterranean that Ivanka Trump and her Saudi backers are determined to turn into a huge luxury resort for Billionaires destroying the home of Flamingos, sea turtles, and critically endangered Mediterranean monk seal

Trump and Putin are driving Europe into war. And we need a leader who has that as the most urgent issue on their desk. I don't want Burnham at home, London/Manchester, don't give a shit. Get out there and deal with the other leaders who also know the peril we're in ffs.

Our serious PM was deposed, the one who faced international crises, took difficult decisions at home, planned long term. Now, fingers in ears lalala says our new, chirpier PM, think about annoying music on buses instead. Not just buses! Trains too. Media agrees. Much nicer. Phew.

Trump has ripped the heart out of the Endangered Species Act Changed meaning of harm under the Act so that the habitat of trees forests ocean in which endangered species live can be destroyed Changed meaning of take so that accidental killing of whales Owls etc is allowed

Another Russian ballistic missile attack came in several waves overnight, and once again, there was no early warning from our partners. They again targeted energy facilities and infrastructure, but a medical clinic, a school, a metro station, and ordinary residential buildings were also damaged. In total, the Russians launched 16 ballistic missiles in a deliberate attack on Kyiv and the Kyiv region. The Russians also launched more than 200 drones of various types, including jet-powered “shaheds,” with attacks spanning from the Kharkiv and Dnipro regions to the Volyn, Rivne, and Odesa regions. Sadly, there are casualties. My condolences to their families and loved ones. Those who were injured are receiving assistance. Overnight and this morning, Russia attacked energy facilities in the Vinnytsia, Volyn, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Kharkiv, Ternopil, Odesa, and Rivne regions. In this one night alone, more than 10 energy infrastructure facilities were damaged, and the lights went out for at least 550,000 families. Repair crews are working at the sites. Ukraine never wanted this war, and we have welcomed literally EVERY attempt by our partners to bring this war to a dignified end. We have responded positively to EVERY ceasefire proposal. Russia's response, time and again, has been ballistic missiles, “shaheds,” and killings. Putin not only doesn't want to end this war – he doesn't even want to take any steps toward de-escalation. EVERY ONE of our partners has experienced this firsthand when they heard Russia's refusals. And it is crucial to call things what they are. To call the aggressor an aggressor and help Ukraine defend lives. When deliveries of missiles for Ukraine's air defense are blocked while Russia is granted relief or delays in sanctions, this is, unfortunately, a denial of reality on the part of our partners. The reality is that the war continues, and it continues solely because of Russian strikes and Russia's desire to drag this war out. I thank everyone who recognizes this reality and helps Ukraine!