Look on the bright side. Kemi Badenoch lasted two and a half hours in the witness stand at the Post Office inquiry without losing it. She didn’t get into an argument with Jason Beer, the counsel for the crown, though that could be because his questions were not unduly threatening. After all, we were there to hear Kemi’s version of events. Other versions of the truth may be available. Nor did she square up to any of those in the public gallery who laughed when Beer thanked her for answering “some” of his questions.
Not that Kemi nailed it. Like many narcissists, she is a curious mixture of the thick- and thin-skinned. She likes to present herself as a no-nonsense, tough woman. Someone who isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with her opponents. Who can tell it like it is. But beneath the surface there’s a vulnerability that she despises. It’s why she lashes out so readily. The person she dislikes the most is herself.
There’s a brittleness to all her interactions that her admirers mistake for strength, and the inquiry showed her at her worst. Kemi likes to be the one in charge. The person doing the questioning. Making the decisions. She can’t bear the passivity of the witness box.
So what we got was a very closed down KemiKaze. Guarded in all her replies. Never giving away more than was strictly necessary. I can’t remember a single occasion when she expressed any emotion about what the post office operatives had been through. Where other witnesses have begun their evidence with a personal statement of regret for all that has happened, Kemi said nothing. Because she feels nothing. She is incapable of that level of empathy for other people. That’s just the way she’s made.
Beer began by discussing her ministerial responsibilities. It had taken her a while to get to grips with Horizon scandal, she said, because she had been too busy with her role of equalities minister in the first half of 2023. That will have come as a bit of a shock to her colleagues. But maybe she had done a lot of the equalities stuff while working from home.
Then we got to the matter of compensation and redress. By the late summer of 2023 she had been reminded by Kevin Hollinrake, then a junior minister in the Department for Business and Trade, that the government had been slow to pay financial compensation to the post office operatives. So she had written to Jeremy Hunt, the then chancellor, to suggest the government offer £100,000 to every victim. Regardless of the extent of their claim. The Treasury blocked this, saying it didn’t represent good value for the taxpayer.
Badenoch didn’t even blame Jezza for this. Rather she pointed the finger at the government machine. The civil service. Time and again, Kemi was keen to find fault in the Blob. It was always looking for petty regulation rather than the bigger picture that only she could see. As if there were no benefits to proper oversight. If Kemi got her way the civil service would almost be regulation-free.
Though perhaps Kemi doth protest too much. Because when she got knocked back by the Treasury, there is no record of her having given the post office operatives much thought again. Though she would have liked us to believe they were always in her mind. She got as far as contemplating using a ministerial direction to liberate the cash, but as there was no cash to liberate, that idea crashed and burned.
Thereafter we got a wall of silence from Kemi and her department. That’s the government machine for you. Dozens of civil servants with nothing better to do than send endless memos and letters on Kemi’s behalf and yet the evidence trail had gone mysteriously cold. Surely someone as combative as Kemi wouldn’t have taken one “no” from the Treasury as the definitive word? At least the Kemi that Kemi was trying to present to the inquiry wouldn’t. But Kemi had had time to go through all the departmental records faithfully preserved by the Blob and wasn’t able to find one that showed she had pressed the Treasury again for money.
Here’s where it got interesting. Because in January 2024, shortly after the ITV programme Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which proved to be a wake-up call not just to the country but to the government as well, was aired, Kemi chose to fire Henry Staunton, the chair of the Post Office. Now the coincidences began to pile up. Staunton’s sacking was leaked to the media just before Kemi was due to have what might have been a tricky interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. Now she could look like a hard arse.
Kemi shook her head. She had no idea how the leak could have happened. It was all terrible. No wonder she was so furious. Normally Kemi is the first person to leak something. She is renowned for it in Westminster. But no, someone had beaten her to it to leak something so obviously beneficial. Kemi was beside herself. But she didn’t regret sacking him. He was guilty of bullying behaviour and wasn’t very good at his job. Physician heal thyself. If Kemi was looking for someone to sack for being a bit crap, she could have started with herself.
Had Staunton been around to defend himself, he might have reminded the inquiry that he had alleged he had been instructed to delay compensation payments because the government didn’t want to have to budget for them so close to a general election. Kemi has always denied saying this. Though you can’t rule out someone else in her team having said it. Nor can you ignore the results. Because in the 17 months up to July this year that Badenoch was business secretary, no money was allocated or paid to the post office operatives. The delays kept on coming.
But Kemi maintained her attack on the machine. Everything was their fault. The previous Conservative government was entirely blameless. Especially her. In her own mind she was the saviour of the post office operatives. Though judging by the laughs from the back of the room, they don’t see it in quite the same way.
Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
