The ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office has highlighted the dreadful injustice suffered by so many sub postmasters, as John Barrett outlined yesterday.
I haven’t seen it yet, but I know it will be very uncomfortable to watch. Yet again in my lifetime, something has gone very wrong with a public service and it takes too long for the victims to be taken seriously. Windrush, Hillsborough, numerous health scandals are just a handful of others. Government needs to find a way of being much quicker to react when things go wrong and not just dismiss concerns until they are forced to deal with them, usually with the involvement of the judicial system.
We’ve seen several instances in the past few days of right wing commentators (former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie, not known for his listening to people complaining of injustice) among them have decided that this is a good opportunity to have a go at the Lib Dem ministers responsible for the postal service who were in office rather than talk about a way forward.
A letter from Ed Davey saying that he didn’t see what a meeting with the sub postmasters would achieve is being circulated. It’s dated 21st May 2010, which is a few days after he became a Minister. He actually did meet them in October of that year.
In the Guardian this week, Ed was reported as saying that he regretted not doing more when he was a Minister, honesty which is perhaps refreshing in an environment where people try to deflect blame on to others.
Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “I feel that I was deeply misled by Post Office executives … they didn’t come clean. There were definitely attempts to stop me meeting .
“We were clearly misled. I think ministers from all political parties were misled.”
In terms of what happens next he said:
Davey said Post Office executives were now “dragging their feet” and “not bringing evidence to the inquiry”.
He added: “Government ministers need to do more – I hope they watch this series and realise they’ve got to come forward with a proper compensation package.”
In an interview on BBC Breakfast on Thursday morning Alan Bates was given many opportunities to stick the boot in to Ed specifically by the interviewer and didn’t take the chance to single him out.
Tim Farron took to Twitter last night to make some observations about the scandal, the current Tory blame game and what should happen next.
He said:
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