There was a debate in my house last night about who was telling the truth in the argument between Kemi Badenoch and the most recent former Chair of the Post Office.
The Chair had been fired for reasons which weren’t very clear (other than someone needs to be fired in these things), Henry Staunton made it clear that the Government were telling him to hold up payments so the bill fell on the doorstep of another administration (we suppose this will not include Badenoch).
Our debate was whether to trust our elected representative (Badenoch) or the non-elected Chair of a disgraced private company (albeit private only in name -with the Government the owner).
We concluded that there were few reasons to trust Badenoch and a number of reasons to trust Staunton and this conclusion will be reinforced this morning by the publication of a long report by the BBC’s Andy Verity (nice name), that explains a lot.
It now seems that the Government were aware of the failures of Horizon to balance the books and the capacity of Fujitsu to pin the blame on sub-postmasters early on and were complicit in the suppression of three separate inquiries which inconveniently revealed that the Post Office and Fujitsu were complicit with Government , all three being “bad actors”.
Staunton, who came late to the party, is in a position to turn his guns on this Government because he has been sacked by it, was funded by it and is now being pursued by it for offences that seem to involve bullying.
The sad truth is that there is no longer any reason to trust our elected representative in parliament. The current administration has been in power for 14 years during which time they have repeatedly brought into question the integrity of the parliamentary system by lying from the Prime Minister down.
Now we are asked to believe that they are on the side of the sub post-masters when all the evidence is that they are not being compensated in full or in a timely manner. There is simply no evidence to suggest that the Government is putting our money where Rishi Sunak’s mouth is. Kemi Badenoch does not speak for our household and I suspect that the majority of people will start with the presumption that she is lying – rather than speaking on our behalf.
The evidence that the debt-stack being prepared for the next Government is mounting , is not lost on anyone.
Yes, the Tories are delaying compensation bills until after the election.
Post Office, Windrush, Grenfell, #nukedblood, #infectedblood, @WASPI_Campaign. It’s not just one. It’s ALL. https://t.co/jORGKwo7jd pic.twitter.com/G0iIc9DDFO
— fleetstreetfox (@fleetstreetfox) February 19, 2024
This is a terrible state of affairs and not just for the long-suffering sub-postmasters. We really could do with getting rid of the stale smell that hovers over this Government and remember Oliver Cromwell’s words to another “long” parliament.
You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.
