“When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains,”

Can we borrow Russel Vought and set him to work on Whitehall ?

A Telegraph tale from the USA.

tomo,
I think it has become worse over time. At least there's an arguable proposition that it was just police laziness in the Evans/Christie case. But now, from the Letby Wikipedia entry:

During their investigation, Cheshire Police contacted Professor Jane Hutton, an expert in medical statistics, and signed a consultancy agreement with her. However, the Crown Prosecution Service instructed the police to drop this line of inquiry and Hutton's planned analysis never took place.

Mailman,
Agreed. Point was that the £200,000 would have meant far fewer people taking it further. It would still leave quite a pool of money to settle the deeply injured. The £75,000 offer meant a *lot* more people took it further. One way the money goes to the victims, the other way, it largely ends up in the pockets of lawyers.

tomo,
Abuse of medical statistics in legal cases? Say it isn't so! It feels no more than 25 years since Sally Clark was convicted on the back of some outrageous statistical ignorance.

We can be thankful the law always gets it right eventually, with occasional casualties along the way.

Sad to see that Sally Clark died from alcohol poisoning in 2007. Didn't know that.

I suppose the DOGE team has enough work ahead of it in the USA. Nice to fantasise about borrowing them to debulk Australia's bureaucracy.

Things that make you go hmmmmm...where else has statistics been abused to support a conclusion favoured by "scientists"??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAOjeSUZeq8

Statics in the Letby case.

Robert

yeah, dividing the "establishment" quoted amount by number of possible participants has been a tic of mine for a long time.

Process is the punishment some say....

Robbo,

I suspect that for those who lost their businesses, homes, marriages, friendships, family etc that 200k wouldn't even scratch the surface.

I wonder how many people took the 75k payout to avoid the scrutiny with having to relive everything while justifying every single cost to the exact decimal place? And I wonder if we will ever see the numbers of costs proposed by the claimants vs costs paid out after going through the scheme?

Sunlight is what is required. We need sunlight to shine a light on the true scale of the disaster this was! And prison sentences. Sunlight AND prison sentences!!

tomo,
Blown out by £208m? Over the 736 subpostmasters who got dudded, that would cover £282,000 each. They might have saved quite a bit by just offering a flat £200,000 each. Less fun for the bureaucrats and lawyers though.

Maybe get them to make up the shortfall from their own pockets for a little empathy boost.

Josh Szeps talk with Jonathan Rauch was mildly amusing. The guest was introduced as having recently written a book about how the church might be the nemesis of "Trumpism". That set expectations one way, but it turned out that Rauch is an activist leftie, and his demands that Christians hold properly to their values of tolerance and putting aside fear came across (at least to me) as a mighty big do as I say, not as I do.

He was articulate though, and easy to listen to, just not at all convincing.

tomo,
Good coverage, and the comments were interesting. For all the appearance of "relentless improvement" in air safety, you're left wondering how many other places are getting by on alright so far. It's not like Washington DC's some sort of backwater.

Phil Clarke is most welcome to stay away.

John Anderson had a good guest, Aidan Morrison, for his podcast. Clear speaking on the madness of Australia's efforts towards Net Zero. Unfortunately, Anderson lets enthusiasm get the better of him rather a lot — interrupting to agree, etc. — which gets a bit irritating. The fellow knows what he's saying; let him say it.

Jo Nova covers the wing-clipping going on at USAID. I've long doubted Australia's equivalent, though not in such criminal terms. A lot of our overseas aid is tied to the recipient nation using Australian advisors/consultants. A lot of the money ends up in Australian hands anyway. Wouldn't be astonished to learn that there was outright theft going on too.