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Letter #13 Delivered 8 Nov 21

Hi Craig,

I hope you’re keeping well. It was good to hear that you’ve been able to get a Covid test and that it was negative.

I had an idea the other day that I’d like to get your feedback on…

It seems to me that so much in the UK gets bent out of shape by the establishment’s ability to dangle peerages in front of public servants. “Just toe the line, and your reward will come – something to keep you occupied, a nice sinecure, and a grand title. We just need you to bend your ethics a little bit, but see, it will be worth it.”

I was very impressed with John Bercow’s willingness to sacrifice his peerage on the altar of doing the right thing, but there are few like him.

But, what if there was an ‘alt-peerage’? A crowd sourced fund to provide that sinecure, and over time it would build up a brain trust of public spirited people willing to hold the establishment to account (a bit like Independent SAGE has been doing with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies).

There would of course be a bunch of bothersome details with respect to fundraising, figuring out how people are selected etc. But I hope things like the Sam Adams Award provide models that can be followed.

Of course it won’t be possible to get an alt peerage by becoming a party treasurer and donating £3m; not that I think the people who make such sizable political donations are likely to care for a moment about the idea, which in many ways is exactly the point.

The other piece of ‘establishment’ news that caught my eye this week was Cambridge computer security expert (and frequent expert witness) Prof Ross Anderson highlighting that a dossier of evidence had been passed to the NCA in 2019 regarding ‘industrial scale’ forgery, tampering with court docs, falsification of evidence etc. by high street banks. Dan Hon commented ‘this reads like Horizon on steroids’, and he’s absolutely right. Even as the postmaster trials were happening everybody in the industry knew that they were the victims of a miscarriage of justice, but that machine kept on chewing away, ruining people’s lives. The surviving postmasters might have eventually seen ‘justice’ in their convictions being overturned, but the execs at the Post Office and Fujitsu haven’t been held to account. Another reminder of “the law protects, but does not bind…”.

As months become weeks become days I’m looking forward to hearing all that you have to say on your release, and you must be busy organising your thoughts.

All the best,

Chris