Most don’t care about specifics of Post Office scandal, says Davey ally
MOST people don’t care “who knew what when” in the Post Office scandal, Sir Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrat party deputy leader has claimed.
Sir Ed has faced intense criticism since the beginning of the year over the role he played in the Horizon IT scandal as the postal affairs minister between 2010 and 2012.
It emerged Sir Ed, who is now the Lib Dem leader, originally turned down a request to meet campaigning sub-postmaster Alan Bates in 2010, before accepting a meeting five months later. But Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dems’ deputy leader, has played down the impact of the Horizon scandal on Sir Ed’s reputation and that of the party, claiming that most people do not care about who knew precisely what about the long-running scandal and when.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday, she said: “I think the vast majority of people, when they engage with this issue of the Post Office, they want to see justice for the sub-postmasters. Most people aren’t bothered about who knew what, when.”
When challenged on that assertion, Ms Cooper said: “Ed was one of 16 Post Office ministers over the course of 20 years. He was the only one, as I believe, the first one to meet with Alan Bates.”
She added: “Let’s be really clear about this, what matters now is that the financial redress is sorted out very very quickly, that those who have had charges made against them who have been found guilty of crimes can have their slate wiped clean, and then it’s for the inquiry to get on and do their job to work out who knew what and when.
“And Ed and the Liberal Democrats were supporters in calling for that inquiry,” she added. “We also supported calls for it to be put on an independent footing.”
In her defence of the Lib Dem leader, Ms Cooper said it was 11 days into the job that Sir Ed was first asked to meet Mr Bates, adding: “Then, five months in, against the advice of his officials who said he shouldn’t meet Alan Bates, Ed decided that he absolutely should and that’s why he did.”
Sir Ed, the only serving Lib Dem MP who was part of the 2010-2015 coalition with the Conservatives, faced calls to quit earlier in the year as a result of his role in the scandal.
During a Q&A with party members at the Lib Dem conference in York at the weekend, Sir Ed addressed the media coverage of his role over Horizon. Asked by one activist about his “message” to those who “attack (him) and the party” over the scandal, he said: “You’re right, the Right-wing press and Tory MPS are trying to weaponise it. Nothing changes does it?
He added: “You know, when I see people like Kelvin Mackenzie attacking me and the Liberal Democrats about it, I think, ‘they think we’re a threat’. I
‘Ed is clear that the focus must be on justice ... on compensation, exoneration and change’
think they’re worried about us.” When asked last week by The Telegraph whether he believed that he had done everything he could to help the subpostmasters while in post, Sir Ed indicated that he would not have done anything differently.
“I’m sure everyone has tried to think ‘Could I have done anything else? Could I have found that?’ But the truth was it was just a conspiracy of lies.”
A party spokesman said: “Ed is clear the focus must be on justice for the sub-postmasters that means compensation, exoneration and systemic change so that this kind of miscarriage of justice can never happen again.”