The latest political blockbuster? Henry Staunton vs The World

FORGET about Mr Bates vs the Post Office, try Henry Staunton vs The World.

This is the fella who formerly chaired the Post Office and says he was told to go slow on compensation payments, triggering a war of words with Kemi Badenoch that she seemed to win by shouting “Nooo!” from the Despatch Box.

But Henry would get his day in court. All rise for the Business Committee!

Kemi’s innocence received early endorsement via testimony from Nick Read, the Post Office chief executive, a man who looks like Mark Thatcher and sounds like W1A, always “absolutely clear” and forever “going forward”. We heard that not only are Henry’s accusations false but he was under investigation for his

poor management; the man apparently had to go.

“Have you ever considered resigning?” Ian Lavery asked.

“No. Why do you ask?”

Well, compensation is slow; some postmasters are low paid; and you received a bonus of “£400,000”. Is this proof the Post Office is “rotten”? “I am not going to answer that,” clarified Read, though: “I am clearly well paid.”

Read and co did such a good job of assassinating Staunton’s character that he almost walked into the room with daggers in his back. We had been prepared for a loon.

He dressed the part. Dishevelled and peering over his glasses, Henry tipped a vast pile of papers onto the table; handwritten notes, covered in green highlighter. The room braced itself for a discourse on the Kennedy assassination. But as Henry unselfconsciously said it as he saw it, he gradually unpicked the official account. Take this internal investigation, he said; only one paragraph in 80 pages of the report relates to me… Hang on, said Jonathan Gullis, you’re saying the investigation wasn’t about you at all?

No, it was into Nick Read: “I didn’t realise you weren’t aware of that?”

“You have blown my mind,” said Gullis. Smoke rose from his ears.

See, continued Henry, Read fell out with his HR director – and he wanted more pay. “More Pay?” choked Lavery. “Yes. He was really quite upset about it.” In the audience, postmasters looked incredulous. One MP began to laugh. Read had said under oath that he never considered quitting, yet here was Henry contradicting him not out of what seemed like malice but concern for his “emotional and mental state.”

“I must have had four conversations where he said he was going to chuck it in.” Staunton raised the money issue with Grant Shapps; Shapps said no. Perhaps realising that ministers were being dragged back into the scandal, the committee’s Conservatives now insisted we stop talking about personalities – and one asked if Staunton was himself motivated by “financial benefit".

Henry looked at this young man as if his sanity was slipping, too. “I wasn’t in it for the money”: I used to run Whsmith. This explained his treasured collection of stationary and pens.

Allowed to keep on talking, I suspect Staunton could’ve brought down the Government, exposed the truth about UFOS and accidentally given away the address of Lord Lucan (“I thought everybody knew he was in Torquay?”).

But the gavel came down and hacks ran away to get a reply from Read. I overheard one of the more boring witnesses say to another: “Well, I don’t think we’ll be on the six o’clock news tonight.”

‘Hang on are you saying that the investigation wasn’t about you at all? You have blown my mind!’