Rewarding incompetence.
When I was a cub reporter on my first newspaper I made a mistake at work. I wrote something about someone which wasn't true. I wrote it in good faith and with the best of intentions but because it wasn't true they sued the newspaper.
My editor eventually settled out of court for a few grand and I got a damn good bollocking for cocking up and costing the company money. He later told me I was lucky to keep my job over the mistake.
In the real world, the world of market forces that's how it should be. If you make a big enough mistake you should be out on your ear. Not in the cushy world of the public sector though.....
You may remember around Christmas and New Year (a time of year when people want to get home and be with loved ones) that there were some engineering works on the rail system which caused inconvenience to millions.
Today Network Rail has been fined a record £14m for the fact that the work ran over schedule. On the same day the record fine has been announced Ian McAllister, chairman of Network Rail, has been knighted by Charles Windsor - for services to transport.
You couldn't make it up.
PS: Network Rail is a publicly owned company. Issuing it with a fine means the public (who have already been disadvantaged waiting for trains which never arrive) being punished again.
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"You couldn't make it up" uurgh, isn't that the drivel that clowns like Richard Littlejohn come out with.
As for self-righteous journalists the words Express newspapers and the Mccanns come to mind.