For much of the last two months we have been treated to an Ed Davey extravaganza. Bungee-jumping Ed. Roller-coasting Ed. Family Man Ed. Caring Ed. NHS-saving Ed. It’s been quite the ride. No other politician felt quite so alive, quite so human, so relatable during the election campaign. And it all paid off. Ed, leader of the Lib Dems, had given the party their best result in decades, gaining 72 MPs. They were relevant again. Well, almost.
On Thursday we got to see a rather different Ed at the Post Office Inquiry. One that had been kept well away from public consumption. This was, at times, a Shifty Ed. At others a Bewildered Ed. An Ed who couldn’t believe what had happened to him. Pontius Ed. This was the Ed from the dark days of the beginning of the coalition years when he was the junior minister with the Post Office brief invading the present. The past coming back to haunt him. A past he would rather forget.
This Ed chose to open his evidence with an apology. He was very sorry he had initially declined a meeting with the former post office operator Alan Bates. He couldn’t think what had come over him, though he was sure the fault lay with the civil servants in his department. He was also deeply sorry he hadn’t been able to see through the lies he had been told by the Post Office boss class. If only Bates had tried to warn him …
After many long nights of the soul, and countless sessions with his therapist, Ed had come to see that he was the real victim in the Horizon scandal. His was the reputation that had been dragged through the mud. Curiously, this was also the conclusion that Paula Vennells and several over senior Post Office bosses had reached in the witness stand. They were the ones with the right to be aggrieved. They were the ones who had been traduced. How typical of the post office operators to try to make it all about them. Selfish to the last.
Jason Beer, lead counsel to the inquiry, interrupted this little dream sequence to bring us back to reality. Could we get back to what Nice Mr Ed knew about Horizon during his time in office? That was very simple. He had known the bare minimum at all times though he now wished he had known more. He blamed his officials for keeping him in the dark. No greater love hath any man than this, than he throws his colleagues under a bus to save his own skin.
Remind me, said Ed. What was all this about Horizon? He was dying to know. The thing was that he had always been far too important to deal with minor matters like one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the last 50 years. When he had become Post Office minister he had been told to keep operational matters at arm’s length. His job was to work purely at a strategic level.
In fact, he had followed this instruction so diligently that he hadn’t even realised the Post Office was entitled to instigate its own private prosecutions against its staff. The same excuse that Vennells had given in her own testimony some months ago. It had never occurred to either of them to understand the governance model of the organisation of which they were notionally in charge. Far too much like hard work. It was somebody else’s job to educate them. In fact, the only people in the entire country who knew the Post Office could conduct its own prosecutions were a few men and women in the prosecutions department of the Post Office. And they had all gone rogue.
It gradually became apparent that, at some point in his first few weeks in the job, Caring Ed had been told about Horizon. But only to the extent that a few officials had comforted him with the news that it wasn’t a problem. Just a few moaning post office operators who had been caught with their fingers in the till. It must be nice to have officials whose only job is to warn you that something isn’t a problem.
How wonderful to be as incurious as Ed. Not to think – even for a nano-second – that there might be something wrong going on. That not every post office operator who was complaining of an injustice might be making it up. But not Brain-Dead Ed. He had his officials to tell him everything was tickety boo. He had a hotline to the Post Office Execs. And besides, he wasn’t the sort of man to go poking his nose into corners where it wasn’t. Ed was the establishment man through and through. He hadn’t got where he had by rocking the boat.
There were further conundrums. Ed couldn’t remember ever having received a letter, soon after he had assumed office, from Bates requesting a meeting to discuss Justice for Sub-Postmasters. Incurious Ed narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin. To try to look authentic. As if he really was bothered.
He was sure he would have recalled reading the letter if he had been shown it because its tone was quite forceful. But he couldn’t quite explain why he had then sent a reply basically telling Bates to piss off and stop bothering him. A meeting would serve no useful purpose. He had lunches to eat. Naps to squeeze in. This was just the way Nice Ed rolled. Always sending replies to letters he didn’t think he had ever read.
No one in the public gallery was terribly impressed by any of these. At times there were murmurs of discontent. At others open derision. This lot weren’t entirely convinced by Mr Open Ed. Honest Ed. Then neither was Beer. He presented Ed with a whole list of letters from MPs asking him to look into a potential miscarriage of justice on behalf of their constituents. Tired Ed shook his head sadly. He had just thought it was all a coincidence. Nothing to see here. And it would have been wrong to intervene in the judicial system. Far better to let innocent people go to jail.
We ended with a second letter from Bates and the eventual meeting. Ed hailed this as an act of heroism on his part. Sticking it to the man by ignoring the advice of his officials. Plucky Underdog Ed. Except Beer pointed to a briefing document that had suggested Ed take the meeting for “presentational reasons” as there was a Channel 4 investigation forthcoming. Ed was horrified at the suggestion. Perish the thought.
We never did learn what came of the meeting because no one had thought to keep the minutes. Almost certainly nothing, as Ed and the department never changed their attitude towards the post office operators. Ed must be so proud. He even offered some advice to Wyn Williams, the inquiry chair, on possible future areas of redress. A sharper, better informed, government minister would have been a start.
