Maisie: Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Andy: Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
My name's Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here in the Private Eye office
with Helen Lewis, Adam McQueen, and special guest Richard Brooks.
We are going to be talking about the Post Office.
Richard has been at the Post Office Inquiry, where the former Chief Executive,
Paula Venels, has been giving evidence.
But, first of all, we're going to be talking, of course, about the fact we
are about to have a general election.
Hugely exciting, and it's going to be the focus of a special episode we record
in a couple of weeks, which is going to be answering your election questions.
So, if you would like to have your burning election question answered
by the team here, all you need to do is email it to podcast at private i.
co.
uk Please send in your questions, we'd love to read them, and we'd love to
answer them as effectively as we can.
So, The election's been called, this is very exciting, everyone's been, um
You sound thrilled, don't you?
I do, I sound...
I sound as excited as Rishi Sunak did when he was announcing it.
We are now entering, uh, a very exciting period, a period of purdah.
A period of heightened sensitivity at the top of the civil service, where you
have to be very careful about what you're saying, and whether people are making, you
know, political statements on government property, and all this kind of stuff.
And, we've entered the washing up period, which is very insensitive, isn't it?
Saying to Rishi Sunak, basically, you're washed up.
But this is where, You have to pass or chuck all the legislation
that you had on the books.
And a lot of people have been saying for some time, there isn't
very much actually in the pipeline.
Pipeline's a bit anemic and a bit trickly at the moment.
one of the things, uh, which has been junked
Adam: is SLAPPs.
Yeah, which I've been writing about in the last couple of issues of Private Eye.
So this was, this was a really, really weird bill.
This was a government backed bill.
But it wasn't a government bill.
It was brought by a backbencher, um, a Labour MP for Caerphilly, Wayne David.
Um, but given the full backing of the Justice Secretary, I should
explain at the outset, for people who haven't been reading Private Eye
enough recently, what SLAPPs are.
They are Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
They are, and if this isn't a theme for the podcast, I don't know what,
Uh, large and powerful people, with lots of money, bullying people through
the courts, through legal action.
We've written a lot about cases where journalists, particularly writing about
Russian oligarchs, have been dragged through the courts, and, and, and
hit with kind of repeated libel and privacy and data protection claims.
Essentially just like the full, full kind of law fair as it's sometimes
called against them to try and stop them writing about people who
don't want to be written about.
So this was some legislation that was hopefully going to put an end to that.
It was looking a bit iffy because this, um, new society popped up called the
Society of Media Lawyers who were headed up by, uh, a load of people from our, our
favorite company, Carter Fuck , and not just them, quite a few others as well,
Thompson Heath, uh, they were in there.
Russell Brand's favorite lawyers amongst many, uh, Mishcon de
Reya are in there as well.
People like Withers.
Uh, and Kingsley Knapley.
Um, all
Helen: signing up.
When you said Withers I just heard Smithers.
Adam: Yes!
Pretty much the picture.
Um, yeah, all signing up to, um, this Society of Media Lawyers
which exists for one thing only.
It's not, they don't just get together for cheese and nibbles.
Essentially, they get together to try to convince the government that
there is no such thing as SLAPPs.
It's not even really a case of just trying to kind of temper the, um,
the legislation that's going through.
It's basically saying there There is no evidential basis for this whatsoever.
There is no such thing as a SLAPPs thing, and please could we carry on taking lots
and lots of money from Russian oligarchs.
Andy: Is that because SLAPPs is quite a broad
Adam: array of different legal tools that people use?
Is that it?
It's about arguing I mean, in order to legislate against something, you
have to define exactly what it is.
Right.
So it's attempting to sort of lobby at every point and say, well, no it isn't.
No it isn't.
And the point that they got to off some sustained lobbying, um, was that there
is an acceptable amount of harassment, which is allowed in every legal
case, , which is kind a weird concept.
But then actually in a way, if you are being sued Mm-hmm.
You know, you potentially, potentially are gonna lose everything that
he's kind of harassment, isn't it?
I mean, I gotta say.
More than one legal letter even could be counted as harassment.
So, I mean, that's that weird thing in laws that you have to, you do have to find
a definition that is watertight and works.
So there is a case for a lot of lobbying in that.
So there was a bill to stop SLAPPs happening.
There was a bill.
We wrote in the last edition of The Eye that it was looking like it was going to
be watered down beyond all recognition and that the latest move by the Society
of Media Lawyers was to put in an enormous Freedom of Information request
to the Department of Justice, which was aimed at finding their evidential basis
for saying that SLAPPs existed at all.
So basically attempt to wipe the whole thing off.
We said, it would be disastrous if this whole thing were to be
wiped off the statute book before it could get anywhere near it.
Well, guess what's happened now?
Oh no!
Rishi went out in the rain and announced last Wednesday there was
going to be a general election.
The wash up period actually has started and finished.
It had two days.
It was Thursday and Friday last week.
What?!
The SLAPPs bill was not amongst the things that were hastily considered
by the House of Commons and the House of Lords, uh, and it is gone.
Oh no.
Andy: But Sorry, that sounded sarcastic, that was a genuine no.
Yeah, that's a genuine, quite a good bill to pass.
Um, I never know how it works with things surviving into the next
government, I mean, would, have
Adam: Labour indicated that they're willing to get out the paddles?
This is that weird situation, because it was being brought
by a Labour backbencher anyway.
There is now, I think, sustained lobbying from the other side
going on to try to make this a manifesto commitment from Labour.
Right.
Um, and it, it did have cross party support this, no one likes, um, Russian
oligarchs bullying people and no one really likes rich lawyers very much.
So, you know, it's, it's, it's got some appeal right across the house, this one.
Uh, and also, particularly disliking, um, the prospect of being sued into
oblivion, of course, are the media.
And we're not exactly a disinterested party in this.
And if Keir Starmer wants to stay in with lots and lots of media
proprietors and editors, Probably wouldn't be a bad move to have
something like this in your manifesto.
So the hope is, assuming, as the polls would seem to indicate, that
Keir Starmer is our next Prime Minister, it might come back as an
actual properly government backed and, um, a promoted bit of legislation.
So keep your fingers crossed for that one.
While we're
Andy: getting the washing up done, I had a look at everything that had been
nixed and everything that was rushed through last Thursday and Friday.
So, Here's a little quiz just to see if you've been definitely paying attention.
I also looked at
Helen: this list.
I'm feeling pretty confident.
You shouldn't have admitted that.
Adam,
Andy: you've done the reading.
Helen, you've done the reading.
Richard?
No.
You've been listening to Paul the Venels and passing other hankies occasionally.
Okay.
He didn't even know there was an election.
He
Adam: hadn't noticed.
He's like that Japanese soldier
Andy: coming out of the forest after years.
I'm washed up.
Okay, here's an easy one to start with.
Smoking ban.
Helen: Mm
Andy: hmm.
You can just say, eh, eh, eh.
Helen: It's R.
I.
P.
R.
I.
P.
And the really sad thing about that is that the Tories put out an ad
that said all the things that they'd done, and one of them was like,
ended smoking among young people.
And update regarding that, no, they haven't, they didn't, they dropped that.
Even though I think Labour would have voted for it, I think they just thought,
Speaker 2: no.
I think that's
Speaker 4: gotta be one where there's a chance of it coming
back though, hasn't it?
Because Labour have said they backed that plan.
Oh, they say it now.
Speaker: Maybe.
Um, sex offenders to be banned from changing their names
Andy: Gone.
It's gone?
It's gone.
Was actually quite a good idea.
Helen: That's a very good idea.
I'm surprised there wasn't time for it.
Yeah, there
Andy: we go.
A football governing body.
Gone.
It's gone.
Helen: Do you know what I know has got through though?
There's one about the leasehold tenure of the Royal Zoological
Society which governs London Zoo and I was very pleased to see that the
future of the penguins is assured.
That was, that snuck under the wire.
Andy: They're not afraid to pass the big important stuff.
A ban on um, pet abduction.
That's in.
That stayed in.
Helen: How was that not illegal already?
Anyway, we can
Andy: Well, funny thing, it was illegal already.
It was already theft.
But now there's an extra offence, um Of pet theft.
Yes, if you are caught detaining a dog, you can get up to five years in prison.
Helen: How long do you have to detain it for?
Because
Andy: I think you can't just rub some sausage on your trousers and
get it to follow you for a bit.
Helen: Right, because I met my sister's God, are we to have no fun?
I met my sister's cat at the weekend, Trevor.
And I'll be honest with you, he didn't look that thrilled when
I picked him up, but technically I may have been done for that.
Andy: You may yet.
Uh, you might have just squeaked in before the law was passed.
You never know.
Um, a ban on extra fees being added at online checkouts.
Helen: I feel like that's a good law that I would support and therefore
I imagine it's gone and is dead.
Andy: No, it's in.
That's been passed.
Yep.
The sentencing bill.
Whole life sentences for the worst murderers.
Gone Through.
It's gone.
It's actually just gone.
It's gone.
Yep.
Well, actually, we haven't got any room in prisons anyway, so that's
probably a lot of good things now, yeah.
Uh, and for the last one, uh, the British Nationality Irish Citizens Bill,
making it easier for Irish nationals to apply for British citizenship.
Gone Through.
It's gone through, that's right.
Very confident, I think, of us to pass that, saying, look, you're gonna want to
come here, we'd better make it easier.
Uh, okay, well, everyone did very well there.
This is
Adam: exactly the same time that we're saying, but please don't send
any of the migrants you've got back.
Don't ask me to be consistent, Adam.
Right.
But when I say me, I mean the government.
Andy: You're
Adam: their representative here.
Andy: All right, I think everyone did marvellously there.
Oh, one more thing that is passing the ban.
Crucial ban on foreign governments owning British newspapers.
Also known as the Daily Telegraph Bill.
Helen: I genuinely found that very informative.
It was
Andy: stimulating, wasn't it?
Yeah, I think everyone won there.
Unlike It's going to happen on the 4th of July when someone's
going to win and someone won't.
Helen: Someone won't and it has been, I think, a kind of fairly fascinating
start to the campaign so far.
Adam, I'm really interested in what you think about the way the papers
are dealing with it because I would say that the conservative supporting
papers are kind of going through the stages of grief and they're currently,
I would say, somewhere about bargaining where they're like, maybe it's going
okay, maybe the holes are narrow.
Adam: Yeah, it was really interesting on Thursday morning seeing sort of people
like Sarah Vaughan trying to say, No, actually, you know, standing there like
a drowned rat in the rain, and droning on, was a really statesman like moment.
It was really impressive for Rishi.
He's the man for us.
They've thrown them a bit of red meat now, haven't they?
Because they came in with the National Service proposal over the weekend.
And, and suddenly every right leaning columnist was able to write
about how they HATE teenagers!
Helen: I think that was, I, I saw the takes on that, and it was
quite good, we got to the meta take of actually, you lefties don't
understand how popular this policy is.
So I think that gave everybody a very safe column for Monday.
Well it came at the
Adam: same time, didn't it, as Labour saying they were going to extend the
franchise to 16 and 17 year olds.
So it's kind of, the line I guess would be, These people are f Far too feckless
and stupid and hormonal to possibly vote, but we should put them in the
army and send them off to fight Russia.
My favourite
Helen: bit was the bit, we should let them do search and rescue
brackets, but not on mountains.
Where?
Are they scared of heights?
Well, no, but we can't let them do dangerous search and
rescue, so They just search.
Well, yeah, just
Andy: Those were the two options that Soonik Highlighted was you're
either going to be maybe delivering prescriptions to the elderly, plugging
gaps in social care basically, or you're going to be doing search and rescue.
It did feel like a very But
Helen: not on mountains.
But not on mountains.
I can't stress this enough,
Andy: Andy.
But it felt like a very odd pair to select.
I mean, I just, for the record, I think volunteering is a really
good idea and I had to do a bit, sort of, I had to do a bit as part
of my, like, last years in school.
It came with a I think we're having a problem with
Adam: the concept of volunteering here, haven't we?
Because volunteering and national service aren't the same thing.
And you just said I HAD to do volunteering.
Well, sorry, there was
Andy: an element of, I did this thing called the Baccalaureate, so
you had to do 50 hours of service.
Uh, and I really enjoyed it, definitely showed me a, like, a side of my home
city which I'd never seen before.
It didn't do you any harm.
It didn't do me any harm.
And now I'd like to inflict it on everyone else.
But as in volunteering, social cohesion, these are, these are reasonable things
to aim for and promote, but I think, Maybe what people are criticising
it is you're taking money from the levelling up fund and it might not work.
Richard: And also, when you look at the sort of bargain we're offering
people of that age, you can't just step in and say, right, have the National
Service have the, you know, do the dirty work, but oh, a few years later,
you know, no chance of a house or
Adam: anything like that.
This is a bit of red meat to throw to the pensioners.
I think it's great.
National Service never did us any harm.
You weren't actually old enough to do it in the West All Coast, isn't you?
Didn't live through the Blitz either, even though you're convinced that you did.
It's much more about that.
You don't put the headline National Service on it unless you're going
for a certain audience, do you?
But I think we should redefine that and the pensions
Andy: quadruple lock as grey meat.
I think that would be a more honest way of describing this policy.
Helen: There is a point to doing Policy that do us more
appeal to older generations.
Like any government is going to do that.
One of Labour's big attack lines has been Jeremy Hunt claimed he wanted
to one day scrap national insurance.
That puts your pension at risk.
So Labour have also got involved in the kind of pensiony type stuff.
And they're not going to come out fighting against the triple
lock plus, quadruple lock.
Whatever we want to call it.
But, you're right, the problem with it as a policy is not whether it's popular
or unpopular, that's slightly irrelevant.
The problem is whether or not it's a deliverable policy.
And I think we have entered the bit of the election where the Tories, again, because
they think they're going to lose, don't care if the sums add up, and don't think
they'll be around to implement stuff.
So they're just quite excited just to say things out loud.
Andy: I did a little bit of fantasy casting off the back of
the National Service announcement.
Okay, I'm just going to start you off.
Rishi Sunak, Captain Manoring.
There are a few other He's so pike, he's so pike.
No, he's much more of a pike, I'm sorry.
He's so pike.
Okay.
With
Helen: his little scarf on because his mum doesn't want him to get cold.
I think he has to be I think he's a bit of a
Richard: walker on the spiggy side.
Adam: I was thinking Grant Shapps Shapps is a walker.
Yeah.
Andy: I was thinking Marcus Hunt, uh, Sergeant Wilson, uh, Bane,
Supercilious, uh, Michael Gove.
Michael Gove?
I had Cameron.
Gosh, it's a bit damning,
Adam: isn't it, that so many of them fit into so many of the roles?
Michael Gove is the vicar.
I'm sorry.
He absolutely is.
Just picture the vicar.
He's Michael Gove.
Helen: Okay, who's the air raid warden?
Adam: Mm, petty authoritarian.
Braverman?
Helen: Mm, okay.
Adam: Jenrick?
Jenrick.
Helen: For our listeners under the age of 30, of whom they are
our legion, we have to say we are talking about Dad's Army here.
Andy: Oh yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah.
Dad's Army clips are available on TikTok, I expect.
Okay, fine.
You can fill in your own clips from, um, I'm struggling now to think of a TV
show that anyone would Cavin and Stacey.
Oh, come on!
Mrs.
Brown's Boys!
I'm afraid all of these started in the early noughties.
Yeah, you need
Helen: like Man Like Mobine, or something like that.
Andy: And this is a problem with BBC Comedy Commissioning, which we can't
do now, but we'll deal with later.
Okay, thank you.
But they would have you believe that
Richard: Keir's a bit of a Godfrey, wouldn't they?
Yeah.
Helen: Oh, because they said he was incredibly old.
Sleepy
Richard: Keir.
Helen: Yes, very bizarre attack line on a 61 year old to say, tell
you who's passed it, 61 year olds.
Oof, right.
That's very true.
Uh, who is, um, Fraser, my favourite character?
Who's running
Andy: around saying we're doomed?
I think all other, all other backbenchers.
Steve Baker.
Helen: If we could get him between paragliding and fast catamaran
sailing to put on a Scottish accent, that could be him.
But
Adam: unfortunately he's on holiday.
That's excellent.
Andy: Okay, the other cultural reference that might shake off the last remaining
under 30 listeners to this podcast Something that, well, something that
someone said to me the other day is, is Sunak genuinely doing the
producers with the selection campaign?
As in, is he, is he really trying to throw it?
Has he bet everything on losing?
Adam: He probably isn't in control of the weather, so we can let the rain go.
But going to the Titanic quarter in Belfast Very funny.
I literally, two issues after we put the Titanic on the front
cover with jokes about him.
It would be what
Richard: a good hedge fund manager would do.
Because, you know, he would be hedging his bets.
If he puts a bet on losing, he wins.
If he wins, he wins.
He's got 50 million on the Tories going under 200
Helen: seats and by God.
He's shorting
Richard: Britain.
Helen: Someone said that to me, except the reference they used
was Brewster's Millions, which I would implore people to watch.
Great film.
Now I think 19 70s or 80s about a man who has to try and spend a huge amount
of money in a very short amount of time.
Adam: He's shorting Britain like he shorted his trousers.
Andy: Superb.
Richard: Shake
Andy: your tall privilege, Adam.
Good thing for Brewster and Brewster's Millions to do, just announce, uh, an
impractical Rwanda deportation scheme.
Well, that's it.
He'd have burned through the millions in no time at all, it'd be fine.
And then,
Adam: and then call the election before it actually starts.
Sorry, what?
So, to have your flagship policy, put all of that political capital into finally
getting it through the Commons, and then just go, actually, we're going to have the
election before the flights even start.
But you know what?
You can't fail if you never even started to try.
Richard: Ah, but what about the bet with Piers Morgan?
Helen: He's decided not to play that because that guy went voluntarily
in return for three grand.
So he came, technically, TECHNICALLY, someone has gone to Rwanda.
When
Andy: you say that guy, one person was flown to, just in case people haven't seen
that story, one man was flown to Rwanda?
One man.
He was paid to fly to Rwanda, wasn't he?
Took
Helen: three grand.
He wasn't an asylum seeker, he wasn't, the whole idea is that asylum seekers are
having their claims processed in Rwanda.
That was not this man's situation at all.
Andy: Was he just wanting to go to He's just
Helen: always wanted to see everyone.
They found someone in the check in
Andy: to
Richard: the flight.
Said, hey, do you want three grand?
It's a bit like business class, but we give you three grand.
But does
Andy: that,
Richard: so that
Andy: counts and
Helen: Yeah, and this, this man went voluntarily in return 3 Grand he wasn't
sort of sentenced to go in the way the policy is supposed to be kind of punitive
Andy: right
Helen: But that means he doesn't have to give Piers Morgan his money
Andy: The Sunak doesn't have to give Piers Morgan his money.
Not this random bloke who's now got three grand in his pocket The
Adam: whole of that massive apartment complex, Miss Isuella
her way round all to himself.
He's having a lovely time
Helen: I was just I mean of all the Things that Sunak has done that have made me
think, why aren't you better at politics?
Deciding to have a bet on the lives of really marginal people who are worth a
millionth or a billionth of what he is.
I mean, fine to say you want to be tough on immigration, but to sort of
treat it that casually, I, that was the moment where I just thought, oh, your
instincts are just fundamentally bad.
And you're also kind of conformist.
You know, that clip that's been going around about that interview
trying to, who from the 80s asking Margaret Thatcher to jump.
Because she always asks all her subjects to jump.
And
Richard: Tauchert
Helen: just looks at her and goes, I don't see why anyone would do that.
Why would I do that?
You can't make me do that.
And it's a really important qualification for a politician.
Like, not to repeat an interviewer's words back to them, as a classic
one they all fail on, right?
That was the moment when he, he sat there and just, Piers Morgan
smiled at him and therefore he just wanted to please Piers Morgan.
I thought, no.
Right.
We haven't got it.
Andy: But you, you, you've characterised this election,
Helen, as a surprise election for the, for the, The Conservatives.
The Conservatives.
Helen: Yeah, I mean, their master plan in order to hide it from all the
backbenchers meant that there is on record a minister saying that they didn't want
to implement national service and it was a bad idea and the army didn't like
it from only a couple of months ago.
They've had a huge selection problem because they're so behind on selections
and fundamentally finding candidates for seats you expect to lose is would
you like to give up six weeks of your life to be miserable for no reward?
Quite a tough proposition, I would suggest, whereas Labours have creamed
through their selections, handing them out slightly nepotistically, and don't
really seem to feel that they're on the hop at all, they've been kind of match fit
and ready, whereas the Conservatives, who are, you know, the one thing that a Prime
Minister is now in control of, now we've repealed the Fixed Term Parliaments Act,
is like being able to spring the surprise on people, it's like stepping on a rake,
you're not supposed to surprise yourself.
Andy: Well, it came the week after Labour, and the whole Shadow Cabinet
has had a great big Pre election launch where they launched these six pledges.
I mean, doing that the very week after Labour have basically
had a campaign launch anyway.
Helen: Very convenient.
Andy: Must have a logic to it, but it's quite hard to see.
Helen: Yeah, and I think it resolves some of Labour's problems as well, because,
I mean, I've said this before on the podcast, the problem is that neither
of the sides sums add up for next year.
Rachel Reeves is now out there saying, no additional tax rises.
You can't imagine what the scale of cuts to public services that
would be required to make that work.
But there's, with only six weeks, they can sort of go, well, we'd
love to put out a full manifesto, but alas, Some of these questions
will have to be answered afterwards.
I love the way
Richard: she's standing on a platform with the slogan, just change.
Maybe that's just all that she's prepared to spend on these public services.
Helen: I'm enjoying it though.
I have to say, already a great Lib Dem photo op of the campaign.
Ed Davey and Tim Farron went out on Windermere to talk about sewage.
Ed Davey inevitably fell off his paddleboard.
To talk about sewage by throwing
Adam: themselves into sewage?
Which is real commitment to the cause,
Helen: isn't
Adam: it?
That's the Lib Dem way.
They will put themselves on
Helen: the line.
I think, yeah, uh, you know, you've already had the SMP leader,
John Swinney, defending Mr.
11 grand iPad roaming charges.
It's one of
Andy: the SNP MPs.
Helen: Yeah, Michael Matheson, whose children ran up 11 grand of roaming
charges on the iPad in Morocco and he tried to claim it on expenses.
Apparently, according to John Swinney, the process against him, the disciplinary
process has been very unfair and rigged.
Andy: Okay.
Helen: I mean, he put 11 grand on expenses and then claimed it was a
business expense and then coughed to it.
Anyway, but It's all, I'm, I'm enjoying it enormously.
You're having
Richard: a whale of a time.
I'm having the time of
Helen: my life.
Richard: I was going to say, that's the deepest Ed Davey's been in the shit
since the post office scandal, isn't it?
Andy: So, now we go from a lot of people who are about to be losing
their jobs, to a lot of people who did unjustly lose their jobs as
postmasters and postmistresses in the ongoing post office scandal.
Richard Brooks, you have been at the inquiry where Paula Venels, the
former chief executive of the post office, has been giving evidence.
Um, I can't recall.
, Richard: I'm afraid.
Mr.
Murray, um, you've been there.
I'd like to be able to help you, but it was several days ago.
. Um, yeah.
Richard, can
Helen: you gimme the, um, zeitgeist tapes version of this?
Because like, I think most of.
Britain is politically engaged.
I kind of got diverted away from watching it, but by all the election stuff.
So, I know Paula Venels was up, and that she was embarrassed, but I
can't give you a lot more than that.
What else actually happened?
Richard: Well, she was lucky really with the election timing,
um, because she did deserve Quite a bit more coverage than she got.
Um, she ran the Post Office, uh, from, well, she was a senior figure from 2007 up
until 2019 when she was forced to resign.
And she presided over a period of characterized
really by a massive cover up.
And what we learned about last week was exactly how she led that cover up.
I mean, she's not the only one deeply culpable in this, but
she was the Chief Executive.
You wouldn't have thought so from some of her answers.
You know, she didn't know almost anything that was important
about the Horizon IT system.
She didn't know, for example, that her own organization prosecuted sub postmasters.
She thought it was the truth.
done by the Crown Prosecution Service, like all other prosecutions, until 2012.
So, basically, that's when they were actually doing the, the
50 plus prosecutions per year.
So, you know, she didn't even know about that.
She didn't know about any bugs in the system, despite the fact that everybody in
Fujitsu and Post office knew about them.
So the inquiry really was a sort
Andy: of, you
Richard: know, it must have been a
Andy: terrible shock to her.
All this stuff coming out, you know, I didn't know anything
about what's been awful.
So awful that she hung around for another seven
Adam: years.
Yeah.
Richard: Yeah, yeah.
And she was quite upset about it at times.
Oh, no, the tears flowed.
No sign of reaching for an onion from a bag and appealing it.
You know, these, these were genuine tears.
Not that there was much sympathy in the room.
You know, it was full of, you know, Former sub postmasters, lots of victims
who were remarkably, in fact, they were congratulated a couple of times by
the judge, Sir Wim Williams, for their restraint in, in how they'd sort of
responded to what Paul Avedos had to say.
You know, there wasn't too much jeering, but there was lots of, uh, Hollow
laughter and groans when she said things like, you know, how much she cared
about some postmasters and how much she loved the post office and so on.
But, you know, as one of the KCs examining her, Ed Henry, put it, she preached
compassion but didn't practice it.
That sort of characterized her tenure.
Andy: Can I ask a question, a sort of basic question, about these inquiries?
Because I know they're judge led, and the room is full of lawyers,
representatives of the victims of the inquiry, and whoever's giving evidence.
Richard: Yeah.
Andy: Does it follow the legal model of a cross examination?
Or rather, is there anyone speaking in their defense?
Or is it simply they're asked questions by the lawyers who
are conducting the inquiry?
Richard: First of all, they put in a witness statement, in Paula
Venloff's case, hundreds of pages.
Mm hmm.
of self exculpation.
Um, that was a word that was put about quite a bit in the hearing.
Um, and then the witnesses are questioned by counsel to the inquiry,
who's more objective, I guess.
And then that's followed by counsel acting for sub postmasters who Tend
to put the boot in quite a bit.
Um, and there is the opportunity actually, you, you sort of blink and you miss it.
But there is the opportunity for a lawyer on behalf of the witness in this case.
Paula Nels took asked questions, but that wasn't taken.
Okay.
Did she have a lawyer?
She only had a legal team with her in the, in the room?
Uh, yeah.
Yeah.
Or certainly, you know, in, in the, in the side room.
Mm-Hmm.
. Yeah.
So why don't people take it?
Andy: Why don't people take that opportunity?
Or is it just seen as not something you really do?
Richard: I mean, she said everything she has to say in
a witness statement, I think.
You know, what could she have been asked in her defense?
You know, did you really not know, Paula?
There wasn't really a lot she could offer
Adam: apart from ignorance.
There is a tactic in criminal trials that defense lawyers try and keep their clients
off the stand for as long as possible.
They don't want them asking too many questions, so not prolonging
it themselves, basically.
Richard: Yeah, yeah.
Adam: Yeah, and I'm thinking actually, I'm thinking back to the phone
hacking trial here, which I sat in the Old Bailey for for eight months.
And actually, we got an extended peroration, uh, in the hands of
Rebecca Brooks's defense lawyer.
And we went into her struggles with IVF and the failure of her first marriage
and all of her regrets about everything.
It was about three days before we even got onto anything to do with phone hacking.
So, and, um, and public sympathy there was probably about at the same level
as it is with Paul O'Vannell's now.
Richard: Yeah, there were times when it was tempting to feel.
Some sympathy, because, you know, this was a very Public humiliation, really.
Although, as one of the barristers put it, you'll now experience a
little bit of what some of the sub postmasters experienced over the years.
How does it feel?
You know, and that must have been very, very tough.
That's
Helen: how I felt watching it.
I thought, this is a very interesting kind of human psychology, is that
seeing one person as the focus of all that attention from everybody
hating them, it's quite hard to watch.
You have to have quite a sort of sliver of ice in your heart
to not feel a bit sorry for it.
And then I had exactly the same thought as you did, which is, Yes, but you're not
in prison having been ensured that you've done something wrong when you haven't
and you do have to say, I'm afraid we do have to put people through this process
in order that hopefully fewer people will do stuff like this again in future.
Richard: Yeah, and, and also the, her evidence wasn't particularly credible.
It appeared very slanted.
So, you know, as barristers pointed out, there were, Endless examples
where she clearly remembered things that helped her, but when it came to
conversations or, or anything else that wasn't helpful, she couldn't remember it.
So it was very one sided.
So it's difficult to have sympathy when you're watching someone defend themselves
in that way without being completely open.
If she were being completely open, then I think you would have sympathy.
But of course, nobody, nobody in this inquiry wants to be very open
because there's the threat of criminal proceedings hanging in the background.
Right.
Well, that's the next question.
Who's going to prison?
Who's ending up in prison?
Well, if the Met police have their way, uh, or if they justify the
number of officers that we learn they're putting on the case now,
you know, quite a few people.
Which is, I
Andy: read this morning, 80 detectives are being set on this.
They're sort of applying to set up a special unit, which once the inquiry
is finished, we'll start looking at the Prospects of prosecution.
Is
Richard: that right?
Yeah, that's what they've said.
Yeah, that's what they told the Guardian, isn't it?
They obviously believe, listening to the evidence, you know, that there's something
to go at beyond the people who Simply the people who appeared in the criminal
trials, you know We know that witnesses who lied at criminal trials in which
people were convicted, you know We know we know that they're in serious trouble.
We know that they're already been investigated But the question is how
far up the chain it goes That level of culpability, you know, if you,
there's clearly at best a lot of blind eye turning to the evidence and
allowing prosecutions to go ahead.
Now, at what point that becomes active enough to constitute
criminal conduct, I'm not sure.
I guess that's what the police are looking at.
But this, this is going to go on for years, you know, another decade or so.
Helen: The one bit that stuck with me was it, Paula Venels email
about the One Show coverage of, uh, it was Jo Hamilton, wasn't it?
And she said she wasn't very passionate, and it was really good
that our side kind of got out there.
And I think, was it the council described it as, as, as Paula Venels
tone has been kind of gleeful.
It was kind of like, ha ha ha, RPR push is working, rather than, uh,
Oh, you know, soberly dealing with this undoubtedly real problem.
Richard: Yeah, that was one of the occasions on which, you know, they
pointed out the mask was slipping.
She put up this sort of caring, responsible front.
But on occasion, it came through exactly what the attitude was.
And that was one of them.
You know, in response to that program, which was at the end of
2014, she sent this email to her colleagues, including a PR officer.
Advisor, who was like a main confidant, it seems, uh, saying that
she was more bored than outraged.
So there was a certain arrogance about it.
She said that Jo Hamilton, who's, you know, great campaigner on this issue and
wrongly prosecuted sub post mistress, um, you know, she said that she lacked
passion and it was good to see her actually admit on camera false accounting.
Should be enforced to falsely account by the incredible, incredibly oppressive
behavior of the post office, of course.
So, there was this almost bullying tone and attitude and you could see, you know,
even as late as 2019 while the litigation instigated by Alan Bates was going
through, you could see That they were still dismissive of the sub postmasters,
you know, and the press coverage.
And this, this went to government as well.
And what I'm really interested in is the next stage of the inquiry, where
we will hear a lot more from the board and the government officials
who were driving, in a way, the way that the post office behaved.
Adam: That's what I was going to ask, because, I mean, it's,
there's obviously the possibility of lots of individual prosecutions.
Is there any possibility of some, some sort of corporate?
Prosecution
Richard: Yeah, I think in the financial sector you see it a bit.
I think Barclays were prosecuted.
You get it in, you know.
Corporate manslaughter cases where the boss is directly responsible for
maybe appalling health and safety standards or something like that.
You know, and here there are potential offenses like
perverting the course of justice.
People lost their lives.
Probably the most harrowing thing we heard last week was about Martin Griffiths, a
Postmaster from Cheshire who took his own life after being bankrupted and hounded
and even fined or forced to pay up for some of the losses from an armed robbery
following on from his his, um, Horizon IT problems, you know, and the reaction to
his death was absolutely, uh, appalling.
You know, the, the emails went out, from Paula Venels, she, she emailed
colleagues saying, I, I understand that he had some mental health
problems, and maybe some family issues.
Yeah, suicide
Helen: never has any one cause, which is true, which is something
that the Samaritans say.
But it was a bit of, let's be honest, Dig around in this guy's past to find
something else we can pin this on.
Yeah.
Richard: It, it was a pure fishing expedition because she was asked,
well, where had you heard about these mental health issues?
And she didn't know.
She didn't have a clue.
So, you know, it just was as one of the barristers put it, an
attempt to get on the front foot in this case, uh, because it was.
It was exactly around the time that an independent forensic
investigating firm called Second Sight had come in that found bugs.
It was pretty clear what was going on.
So the whole cover up really had to kick in at this point.
It was also around the time that Royal Mail was being privatized.
And of course a lot of the problems went back to the period in which
Post Office was owned by Royal Mail.
So they wanted to keep a lid on those.
And there was a very Interesting exchange where Paula Venels had managed to extract
any mention of the Horizon IT problems from the Royal Mail Prospectus and she
wrote this sort of brown nosing email to her boss who's the chairwoman at the
time, Alice Perkins, saying, oh I've earned my keep this year, you know.
Adam: Is that not, I mean that's withholding information for investors,
I mean that sounds, I'm a layman, but that sounds to me like fraud.
Helen: Well, the jury will decide.
We couldn't say.
Richard: Yeah, I mean, her explanation was that it's in the
IT risks section of the prospectus.
And there isn't an IT risk.
There are no bugs in the system.
But she already knew there were bugs in the system.
She'd just been told this by the second site investigators.
I mean, even if she didn't know before then, which everybody did.
So.
This mention was taken out on a false prospectus, haha, um, you
know, and it went through, the privatization went through, untroubled.
Another opportunity was missed to pick up on this problem, you know, which was in
keeping with a lot of a history of missed opportunities or all sorts of chances.
Ed Henry, this, this barrister I mentioned, you know, he opened his, uh,
examination of Paula Bennells with a sort of tirade saying, um, There were
so many forks in the road and you always took the wrong one and it was true.
There were chance after chance to, um, to address the issue, to get it
to the surface, to limit the damage.
And they were all taken because they didn't want to admit any damage.
And in the process, of course, just kind of multiplied it, you know,
so that we are where we are now and we have thousands of victims.
Andy: Richard, can I ask about a couple of the other people who've been involved?
been giving evidence.
So, obviously, the focus has been Paula Reynolds in the last week, because
she's been the one giving evidence.
But there have been so many other people, senior executives, giving evidence.
Jane McLeod, she's interesting.
Yeah, she hasn't been
Richard: given evidence.
Well, exactly.
We haven't heard from her because Who is
Helen: she?
Richard: Well, she, she is the Chief Counsel, which is a kind
of, you know, American's term for top lawyer, uh, she was from 2015
to 2019, a really critical time.
That's essentially the period of the litigation against Alan Bates, when,
despite knowing all the problems with Horizon, they pretended there wasn't.
They put sub postmasters on the witness stand in very stressful
situations, accusing them of fraud.
You know, not telling the truth, when of course they were in a very, very
aggressive litigation, which cost millions for the, for the taxpayer.
It was, you know, judge called them oppressive, said they were like Victorian
factory owners, you know, could not have been more heavily criticized.
They tried to chuck out a judge who found against them on the
grounds that he was biased.
I mean, it was the most extraordinary, aggressive, um, well, I mean, I
guess it's the kind of legal conduct that we're familiar with, but to
see it in this situation where so many innocent victims were the butt
of it in a way was really shocking.
And she was the chief lawyer during that period, so she
has a huge number of rights.
Questions to answer.
But she is Australian.
Helen: Has she given herself the legal advice that it would be a bad
idea to appear in front of them?
Is that her, maybe her best piece of legal advice was to herself?
Andy: She has actually jumped the gun and transported herself to the Antipodes.
Isn't that right, Rich?
Richard: Well, yeah, yeah.
She went in, uh, I think in 2020, she went back to Australia.
She is Australian, but she spent a large part of her career here.
So that's something we
Andy: won't be hearing
Richard: from her.
And she can't be compelled.
She can't be compelled to come back.
No, it may be a criminal matter, but the judge said, look, it's
just so difficult to enforce that.
And there's another guy as well.
When we wrote our first piece about the post office in 2011, we immediately got
a response from a chap called Mike Young.
Who was the operations director saying, oh no, Horizon is robust.
And it came up at the hearing actually, the drafting of this
email which was shared around various senior post office people.
He said, no, no, Horizon is robust, never had a problem, da, da, da.
And, um, he knew full well that there were lots of problems.
But he's not appearing either.
I mean, he's a very important figure.
He's not appearing.
Apparently because they couldn't track him down, which of course
has prompted everybody watching.
Okay, he's Ronnie Binks.
He's Ronnie Binks.
Adam: Sorry, yeah.
Richard: Searching.
Send Slipper of the Yard out after him.
A quick look on LinkedIn seems to have located it.
So I'm not sure how, um, you know,
Andy: how great the investigators there were.
So many people seem to have been involved and seem to have had Very, very clear
knowledge of problems with the IT, or have been communicating internally
for years and years about this.
So, there's plenty more to come.
Where does the investigation go next?
The inquiry?
It
Richard: goes up the chain, uh, so we get the, uh Chairwoman
of the board until 2015.
That's Alice Perkins.
Then we get the chairman since then, Tim Parker.
Alice
Adam: Perkins as in Mrs.
Jack, Mrs.
Jack Straw?
Yeah, Jack Straws.
Richard: Yeah,
Helen: yeah.
The only person in Britain who would go, Oh, Mrs.
Jack Straw.
I think
Richard: Mr.
Jack Straw probably
Helen: would.
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
Two of you.
Richard: There are other Straw related connections there.
They have this network of PR people who worked for Straw.
Or Perkins.
Uh, so there, there was a real sort of almost family affair operating within the
post office on the communications front.
And the PR drove the actions of the post office.
It was PR first, legal correctness second.
And people from a very dry sounding, but I think absolutely crucial part of
government, the shareholder executive.
As it was called at the time, it's now called UK Government Investments.
Great bunch of names.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, they, uh, you know, they were set up by Gordon Brown to steward and
look after the government's shares, you know, the shares it owned in things
like the post office and Channel 4.
Other things.
And that's an interesting bit of history.
I think that is partly responsible for this very commercial approach
that the government was taking all the way through this process.
This, this approach from inside government was very firmly to keep
a lid on all this, even when it was really obvious in 2018, 2019, that there
were massive problems, that there were thousands of people being hurt here.
Andy: Is this why?
This was the, one of the final things I wanted to ask.
Is this why we keep having these multi decade inquiries?
W which go on for such a long time.
They're litigated so much in advance.
You then get to end up with 50, 000 pages of evidence.
Y'know, four years of witness stand statements.
Then three years after it's ended you get a report.
I mean, it just It feels like a really, really, really bad way of
Right and wrongs that have been done.
Why is it so slow?
Richard: Well, I think when you have, uh, government ministers who want to
keep costs down, you have officials who really do whatever they're told, you have
lawyers who are prepared to sort of leave their professional ethics at the door
and do whatever the management wants.
You can keep things buried for a long, long time.
And what starts off as a relatively small problem If you're not prepared to
admit the small problem and come clean, all you do is build up a bigger and
bigger and bigger problem, and that's what you have with Post Office, with the
contaminated blood, you know, and others.
You know, perhaps that's the lesson from it.
Come clean early on.
Right.
Confess now.
Yeah, but it's very Judge
Andy: Dredd.
But I think Judge Dredd would make shorter work of this inquiry than,
um Sorry, I don't mean to impugn Sir William Wim, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Helen: He puts on his little helmet and follows with
Andy: his laser, yeah.
Okay, that's it for this episode of Page Ninety Four.
Thank you very much for listening.
If you would like to hear more stories about the Post Office,
you can read them in the magazine available at private night.
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Um, go to the website, subscribe.
It's a wonderful magazine.
You'll be busy reading it until the next episode of this podcast.
This episode, as always, was produced by Matt Hill of Rethink
Audio, and we'll see you next time.
Bye now.