The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
PM hits the street (and the street hits back)
Ben Riley-Smith Political Editor
IT is a staple of political life: a party leader pinned down by a member of the public as the TV cameras whir.
That was the situation Rishi Sunak found himself in yesterday during a walkabout on the streets of Winchester.
Footage showed a woman with grey hair and glasses pressing the Prime Minister about NHS waiting lists, which Mr Sunak has pledged to bring down as one of his five self-proclaimed priorities for office.
The exchange as it was first broadcast appeared to show the Prime Minister walking away from the woman mid-conversation, and criticism from Labour MPs was swift. But updated footage revealed that Mr Sunak had in fact continued to talk to her and shook her hand.
Tory MPs have condemned Sky News’s handling of the incident, with Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, describing it as “completely and utterly outrageous”.
But it did reveal the Prime Minister’s relative inexperience at handling exchanges with members of the public.
The 40-second clip begins by show
FUJITSU staff knew of bugs in Horizon software at the centre of the Post Office scandal from as far back as 1999, a senior executive at the Japanese firm has admitted.
Giving evidence in person for the first time to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, Paul Patterson, the director of the Japanese firm’s Europe arm, acknowledged that employees were detecting bugs within months of the software’s rollout.
Several Fujitsu employees have told the inquiry that they had no knowledge of issues for several years after the software was first rolled out in post offices in 1999.
Mr Patterson gave evidence days after he said he was “truly sorry” for Fujitsu’s role in what he described as an “appalling miscarriage of justice”, which resulted in more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongly convicted between 1999 and 2015.
Mr Patterson, who was appointed Europe chief executive in 2019, appeared before the Commons business select committee on Tuesday, when he admitted that the software, which wrongly recorded shortfalls in Post Office accounts, had “bugs and errors from the start”.
However, Mr Patterson’s witness statement to the inquiry revealed just how early these flaws were detected, ing Mr Sunak making what is by now his familiar argument to the voter – how striking health staff have made it harder to reduce NHS waiting lists.
The Prime Minister is seen saying: “Last year, towards the end of the year, we had two months with virtually no strikes in October and November and do you know what happened? The waiting list fell by 150,000.
“It just shows that when there aren’t strikes we really can make progress. We didn’t last year because of all the strikes…”.
He is then interrupted by the woman, a former NHS worker whose name has not emerged. “But you could stop it all,” she says in response. “You could make it go back to how it used to be.”
The Prime Minister emits a laugh shortly after that last remark. The trigger is unclear. Around the same time, it appears some of his team is trying to say he needs to move on from the voter huddle.
The woman carries on her point about “how it used to be”, saying back then “if you had a problem you could go to the hospital. My daughter spent seven hours waiting…”.
As that sentence is being delivered, Mr Sunak turns his back and starts to move along the street. The cameraman then moves, apparently trying to get a better view. And the original clip ends.
That the remarks were even captured appears to have been down to happenstance. An off-duty Sky News camerawith one identified in November 1999.
Counsel to the inquiry Jason Beer KC outlined several early examples of bugs being spotted from 1999 to 2018.
Mr Beer said that Mr Patterson’s witness statement, which referred to bugs, efforts and defects (BEDs) identified through company documents and investigations dating back to 1999, showed that it was “plain that Fujitsu staff knew about bugs, errors and defects in Horizon well before 2010”.
“Yes, I agree,” Mr Patterson responded.
His witness statement also gave several examples where the Post Office had been told about bugs Fujitsu had identified.
Asked by inquiry chairman Sir Wyn Williams if “each and every bug” was flagged to the Post Office, Mr Patterson said: “I think you are correct that the vast majority of bust, errors and defects were shared.”
However, he told the inquiry that he did not believe Fujitsu knew at the time that the Post Office was prosecuting sub-postmasters based on the inaccurate data it was providing to them.
Mr Patterson said: “I think there’s lots of evidence of us informing the Post Office of that data that we’ve just discussed, bugs and errors and how those bugs and errors did or did not impact the financial position, as reported.
“What the Post Office did with that ‘When Sunak asks for their vote later this year, he will get a taste of his own medicine’ man is said to have spotted the interaction and started filming.
But the political backlash, once it was broadcast on Sky News, was rapid.
It ticked all the boxes for Labour MPs who have long been framing Mr Sunak as out of touch with the public and struggling to deliver in office, not least on Labour’s traditional political strong suit of the NHS.
Soon, Twitter was awash with senior Labour figures commenting on the clip.
Angela Rayner, the Labour deputy leader, tweeted the footage with the words “literally laughs in her face”.
Wes Streeting, the Labour shadow health secretary, also shared the footage online, writing: “Rishi Sunak has no idea of the misery NHS patients are going through.
“When patients and staff try to tell him, he laughs in their faces and walks away. When Sunak asks for their vote later this year, he will get a taste of his own medicine.”
Soon the phrase “#Sunakered” was trending on Twitter, an apparent riff on the argument that the Tories are running out of steam in government after 13 years and a snap election is needed.
But that was not the end of the story. Downing Street was left seething that the full exchange had not been shown in the edit and that actually it ended on more amicable terms.
Sky News later ran an extended clip of 60 seconds.
This clip picked up from when the particular piece of data, Mr Beer, I do not believe Fujitsu knew at the time.”
Mr Patterson was asked why Fujitsu had not “put its hands in its pockets earlier” after he said earlier in the week that the Japanese firm had a “moral obligation” to help foot the £1billion compensation bill for subpostmasters.
“I think Fujitsu more recently, as we’ve understood more, we have clearly let society down and the subpostmasters cameraman had moved into a new position. It showed that Mr Sunak and the woman continued to talk as he walked along the street.
The Prime Minister says “I’m sorry to hear that”, in response to the woman bringing up her daughter’s seven-hour wait.
He builds on his previous argument: “The key thing is now we have resolved all the industrial action apart from the junior doctors who are still not saying yes, but everyone else has said yes, which is good news.”
And then there is a hand offered by the woman with a “thank you” and the pair shake hands. Conversation carries on, with a third person chipping in, before the clip ends.
The fuller exchange shows a more nuanced picture. Yes, Mr Sunak turned his back and started walking when the woman brought up her daughter’s long NHS wait. But that was not – as the first clip left people thinking – the end of the conversation. Mr Sunak did say sorry, the pair did continue to talk, seemingly cordially.
And so came the backlash, from the other side of the political spectrum, with Tory MPs turning their fire on Sky News for showing the shorter version of the exchange.
Mr Davies said: “It’s completely and utterly outrageous. Sky should absolutely apologise and they should delete the original clip.”
Nadhim Zahawi, the former Tory down,” he said.
“I think we had our obligations to the Post Office to be at the front of everything we were doing and that was wrong.”
Hours after the hearing finished, Post Office board member Ben Tidswell announced he was stepping down. The director was responsible for overseeing the delivery of a controversial compensation scheme for subpostmasters.
Transaction data was not reviewed before it was used in civil and legal matters, the inquiry heard.
Mr Patterson was presented with a document produced by a former software support centre worker Anne Chambers in 2007 after she was asked to present evidence in the case of then sub-postmaster Lee Castleton, who was wrongly blamed for a £26,000 shortfall in accounts at his branch in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, in 2004.
Among her concerns, Mrs Chambers suggested that a “technical review of the Horizon evidence” before any case went to court was not implemented.
Mr Beer said: “She’s making a suggestion that in prosecution or in civil cases, one doesn’t just, before just taking action against the sub-postmaster, rely on what was done back in the day there’s a recheck done. Was that ever implemented?” Mr Patterson said: ‘It’s utterly outrageous. Sky should absolutely apologise and they should delete the original clip’
“From my knowledge, no it wasn’t and I think her suggestions are very very important.
“There were serious matters which [aren’t] just ticking a box and is, I think, the point she is making here.”
The inquiry heard that Mrs Chambers received a “pat on the head” from her manager for compiling the document before they “carried on with business as usual”.
Mr Beer continued: “If that evidence is accurate, and nothing was done in relation to each of these ... issues, would you agree that this is a series of missed opportunities?”
The Fujitsu director replied: “I would agree this was a series of missed opportunities.”
Mr Patterson branded the practice of editing witness statements and omitting the presence of bugs as “shameful”.
Mr Beer said: “I think that Fujitsu employees provided witness statements to the Post Office for the purposes of the prosecution of sub-postmasters and speaking in general terms, these bugs, errors and defects did not find their way into those witness statements. Do you know why?”
The Fujitsu director said he did not, adding: “I have seen examples of the witness statements.
“On a personal level, I’m surprised that that detail was not included in the witness statements given by Fujitsu staff to the Post Office – and I’ve seen some evidence of editing of witness statements by others.”
Referring to previous evidence, Mr Beer said: “There was a proposal, I think you’re referring to, to include at least a reference to some of the bugs or chancellor, said a journalist who deleted the shorter clip and posted the longer version instead had done “the right thing”.
The saga has echoes of past confrontations between party leaders and voters, each with their own specifics that make direct comparison hard.
New Labour had two stand-outs: Gordon Brown being caught on a hot mic dubbing a voter who challenged him on immigration a “bigoted woman” and Lord Prescott punching a man who had thrown an egg at him.
Mr Sunak, polling suggests, is seen as a politician who struggles to understand the challenges of ordinary voters, with his wealth often cited.
When challenged by the former NHS worker, Mr Sunak reached for the top level political arguments he deploys in press conferences and from the House of Commons Dispatch Box.
His core re-election message is “my plan is working”. But polls show the electorate is sick of the status quo. Telling a frustrated voter they should realise things are actually getting better will always be a tough sell.
There is time for the Prime Minister to hone his voter interactions. Indeed this outing was never meant to be televised, with broadcasters not formally invited. But not that much time. The election campaign has already begun. And if one thing has long been clear, the public do not feel obliged to hold their tongue when a party leader is in earshot.
Sunak confronted on walkabout over his handling of the NHS as cameras go to work
some data integrity problems. And they were edited out in correctness. And no doubt you would regard that as shameful.”
Mr Patterson replied: “Yes, that’s one word I would use.”
Fujitsu used prosecutions as a “cash cow”, the inquiry heard, with the company earning sums of up to £20,000 a case for providing evidence to prosecute sub-postmasters.
Addressing Mr Patterson, barrister Flora Page, who represents Lee Castleton and several other sub-postmasters,
‘We’re meant to be an IT company, not a prosecution support service’
asked: “The inquiry has heard evidence that providing ARQ data to the post office brought in £850,000 per annum, which is obviously small beer in the grand scheme of things but nevertheless, would you agree a reasonable handy bit of extra income?”
Ms Page then cited additional “charges for witnesses” who appear in court and cited one case where Fujitsu had charged £20,000 for a witness to attend court.
Responding, Mr Patterson said: “I was professionally very surprised that that service even existed. We’re meant to be an IT company, not a prosecution support service, and for that to be designed in from the very earliest stages.
“I was very, very surprised at it. In terms of the work associated with doing it, I have no view and I am amazed that it was even in the contract.”