The Monumental C**k Up Thread.

[BrumJim]

Post Office, Fujitsu and Horizon

Reluctant to think of that as a C**k Up. Seems a little more sinister than that.

 

[Dogtrousers]

The English Armada

Interesting. Have to admit I didn't know anything about that.

 

[Beebo]

Post Office, Fujitsu and Horizon

It’s very easy to list historical cock ups.
As stated above they are often small mistakes which create huge problems. Followed by massive amounts of covering your arse.

Grenfell, Hillborough, Herald of Free enterprise are another three examples where I don’t believe anyone deliberately set out to kill people. But corners were cut and things got out of hand.

 

[Badger_Boom]

To be fair that's a pretty good example. £33 billion spent and not a single mile of track in operation.

In the same period of time China has built 12,500 miles of new track.

Fine if you don't mind bulldozing people out of their homes without compensation, and trashing any and all archaeology, ecology and any other irreplaceable ology in its path.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I don't know this for a fact but I'd guess that most of those Chinese miles of track are through areas less densely populated than Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire etc.

 

[Badger_Boom]

It's the British way. Cost plus contracts are widely used for some reason, which gives little incentive for financial control or efficiency.

M.O.D. are masters at this. The bureaucracy is enormous, roughly one M.O.D. civil servant for every two soldiers, and having wasted money before they've started they then typically go vastly over budget and end up with sub optimal gear. Constant political interference and micro-managing doesn't help.

The French military are a third bigger than ours, for over a third less cash.

So I hereby declare M.O.D. procurement a monumental cock up.

You forgot to allow for Army VSOs changing their minds about what they actually want and not staying in post for more than two years so the whole cycle starts again. FRES anyone? Decades overdue and billions spent before being scrapped in favour of Ajax which still went over budget because we couldn't just stick to mostly off the shelf options.

For a future cock up I offer you Jackal 3 - slightly less pants than Jackals 1 and 2, but still unsuitable for any conflict we might get involved in in the nearish future. It is, however, cheapish and looks ally (if you don't have to freeze your bits off operating it).

 

[Dadam]

Reluctant to think of that as a C**k Up. Seems a little more sinister than that.

It's cock up on cock up sprinkled with denial, complacency, buck passing and then outright coverups.

 

[Profpointy]

Just asked Mrs D and she came up with a real left field cock up.

Operation Barbarossa. A monumental cock up of supreme proportions, and I'm surprised Mrs D even knew about it.

Supposedly Monty himself had said the first rule in the "book of war" says "don't march on Moscow". It's been tried three times each with the same outcome. Napoleon even captured Moscow, but the Russians set the city alight so he ended up going home empty handed with some 90% of his army frozen or otherwise killed.

There is a great line in Churchill's own account of the War just after Barbarossa had started and also the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. He writes along the lines "I slept soundly for the first time in 2 years; we had won after all", despite both attacks being great victories for our enemies

 

[ColinJ]

Paying consultants £20,000 to spend 3 months coming up with a choice of 3 names for Bradford University ('Bradford University', 'University of Bradford' and 'The University of Bradford') and then cancelling the expansion plan that it was for!

 

[Dave7]

Small by comparison but my company won a contract to put guardrail on THE CIVIC BUILDING of Bromley Borough Council..
The guardrail was bespoke and the price was £110K.
Being the civic building they insisted on it being a weekend job.
So..... 0800 Saturday morning there were 5 of us, the crane and a flat back with the guardrail.
All of a sudden the council planning officer came running out in panic to tell us the job couldn't go ahead....... The planning officer had forgotten to get planning permission .
We left the guard rail there (no use to us) and the job never did get done.

BTW they paid us in full within the month.

 

[Jameshow]

The Cornish cycling team who put fake uci labels on generic bikes, small in the grand scheme of things but massive for those affected.....

 

[HMS_Dave]

When Nigel Mansell shaved off his moustache.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Yes still the largest city in Europe without an underground or light rail system.
The Elland Road park and ride used to be OK

I'd say its always been a cock up, they've always charged by the bus fare not the car so bring 4 people to go shopping and thats £16. You might as well drive closer into town and park there. (though lately the council has done a good job of gridlocking the entire centre so even that might not be viable now!).

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Winter Wonderland

The accolade for worst Winter Wonderland catastrophe is still held by the short-lived Lapland New Forest experience at Matchams Leisure Park near Ringwood in 2008. Advertisements promised a place "where dreams really do come true", with an ice rink and a nativity scene, but the ice rink was "broken" and the nativity scene was painted on a billboard in a muddy field. One Santa and several elves were attacked by angry parents, two dads brawled in the Gingerbread House and one snowman received so much verbal abuse he stormed off in full costume. Trading standards received more than 2,000 complaints and the RSPCA launched an investigation into the treatment of husky dogs, reindeers and donkeys on the site. The attraction closed down after six days and families who turned up with pre-paid tickets were told by one helper: "Santa's f***ing dead."

 

[Chris S]

Blobbyland, Morecambe. It was open for 13 weeks and cost the Council £2.6 million, including legal costs.