Binary Choices

Choosing which fork in the road down which to travel is - on Anglesey, at least - either a matter of native knowledge or simple guesswork [possession and use of sat-nav notwithstanding: although there's plenty of bear-traps there, too]. And I often find myself duped by the simple binary choice of switching a light on or off conditioned by my preconception of the existing state of said light: more often than not, the light is already in the - either on or off - state I intended to instigate by manual operation of the switch; and cognitively blind to the fact that the said light is already in the state intended, I inadvertently reverse my intended action in the process. It's weird, but it's a thing.

My point is, though, that although binary state choices are reasonably clear in such on/off situations [preconceptions excepted], they are not always so defined in the somewhat messier world of politics, and society in general. I refer to the Post Office Scandal yet again here: today's Sunday Times has an exclusive piece on the aftermath of nearly a quarter of a century of injustice, false imprisonment and persecution of perfectly decent, ordinary folk, who, acting in service to their community and the country as a whole, were accused and most often convicted, of theft and/or false accounting. The most egregious thing, however - Post Office & Fujitsu duplicity, mendacity and self-interest aside - is how the majority of the media and politicians went along with it all for so long, calling out the victims as perpetrators.

Today's article follows on from the recent ITV dramatisation of the scandal, and highlights the part that Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrat Party took in all of this, ignoring facts offered or their due investigation, in favour of parroting the establishment line that all was well with the Horizon system, and that culpability for accounting errors lay with the sub-postmasters themselves: subsequently shown and proven in the courts to be demonstrably and legally false. Ed Davey ignored repeated pleas for the situation to be investigated when he was in a ministerial position responsible for dealing with such issues. His later regretting the mendacity of Post Office Limited's representatives in no way exonerates him from his apparent indifference and lack of perspicacity at the time. The bulk of the media were also there in support of his apathy, taking the easy route and assuming the stance of The Post Office, resulting in the gross miscarriage of justice now evident.

The hung parliament that resulted after the 2010 general election presented The Liberal Democrat Party with a simple binary choice: choose either Labour or the Conservatives with which to form a coalition government. They chose the Tories, and where we stand today is as a direct result of that decision. Brexit would not even have been a thing, our health service & economy would not be in the parlous state it currently is, and we wouldn't have had to witness the absolute revolving-door circus of a government that the Tories have foisted on both us and themselves. I lay the blame firmly at the feet of Nick Clegg and his timorous, faint-hearted party. Our situation could have been so much better, or at least much less bad than it is at present.