> What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office The Post Office was a money-hole; it hadn't made money since privatisation. It was effectiv

> What was the 'state of mind' of the higher-ups at the post office The Post Office was a money-hole; it hadn't made money since privatisation. It was effectively still a government agency. UK government agencies have a long history with ICL, the UK "champion" mainframe maker, which was taken over by Fujitsu. It appears that this "champion" status was inherited by Fujitsu. ICL couldn't compete with companies like IBM on merits; they had to have backdoor support from politicians and the civil service. I don't know how that worked; but if MI5, the armed services, the National Grid and so on were reliant on ICL, then it's understandable that government would want to encourage agencies to buy ICL. So I suspect that the PO were pressurised by ministers and civil servants to buy Horizon from ICL/Fujitsu, and further pressurised to keep schtumm about the defects. Well, that's my guess: the higher-ups owed their jobs and reputations to ministers and civil servants, because they were effectively employed by a government agency, and it was losing money, and the government wanted to protect the reputation of ICL/Fujitsu.