It is sometimes a matter of timing. The government is just about the last handful of halfwits who believe that the new legislation to exonerate post office operators would have been rushed through this week regardless of the ITV drama. Only on Thursday morning, the delusional energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, was telling BBC Breakfast that the whole thing was a total coincidence. That justice for post office operators had been at the top of Rishi Sunak’s inbox since – “Ooh, let me think” – well before Christmas. The rest of us live in the real world.
But what goes around, comes around. The biter bit. Had Mr Bates vs the Post Office been scheduled for broadcast next week, then there’s every chance that next to no one would have been following the resumption of the year-long and counting inquiry at Aldwych House in central London. In which case, Stephen Bradshaw, a former lead Post Office investigator, would just have had an uncomfortable day in the witness stand being interrogated by inquiry counsel, Julian Blake. After which he could have gone home and forgotten all about it.
