Ewan Lister

[Robert Peston @Peston]

This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.

Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the
Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the
time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server. Secondly, Mr Stanton stands by his characterisation of the conversation with the Secretary of State in which he was informed of his dismissal.
Thirdly, with regard to the alleged failure to observe due process in respect of the proposed appointment of a senior independent director, this is once again a mischaracterisation of the
situation. What happened was that the Government via the UKGI had proposed for the post an external candidate with Whitehall experience. Initially the Board acquiesced, but when it
came to the Board for discussion, because so much had happened in the intervening four weeks the Board voted 6-2 to express clear preference to appoint a well qualified and in their
view better qualified internal candidate, Andrew Dafoor who was already a director, and understood the issues. The 6 included the chief executive. Of the two dissenters one was the
UKGI representative. Mr Staunton informed the Board that they would now have to go through a due process including a nomination committee, Board and shareholder approval
process and could not simply impose their preferred candidate. This was all at an early stage in the consultations, and could not be characterised as a breach of due process.
Fourthly, with regard to allegations of bullying behaviour, this is the first time the existence
of such allegations have been mentioned, and Mr Staunton is not aware of any aspect of his
conduct which could give rise to such allegations. They were certainly not raised by the
Secretary of State at any stage and certainly not during the conversation which led to Mr
Staunton’s dismissal. Such behaviour would in any case be totally out of character.
With regard to the appointment letter which the Department has chosen to publish, it should
be noted that the reference to settlement with claimants is one of a number of issues arising
out of the Horizon issue that are listed and not necessarily the most prominent. It should also
be noted that if indeed the Secretary of State were concerned about the lack of urgency with
which it was being addressed, this was never raised in any of the quarterly review meetings to
assess progress against these objectives. These meetings were fully minuted.
Last but not least, it should be noted that the Secretary of State has admitted that a letter was
sent by the Post Office CEO to Alex Chalk setting out a legal opinion stating the reason so
few sub-postmasters had come forward to have their convictions overturned was because they
were “guilty as charged”. That letter was set after the ITV documentary was screened and
after the government had set out a pledge to bring forward legislation to exonerate the
postmasters.
As chairman, Mr Staunton championed the cause of the postmasters who he saw as the real
backbone of the organisation and the best hope for the future. As a number of recent press
articles have indicated, historically postmasters were treated with contempt by much of the
Post Office hierarchy, those attitudes were deeply entrenched and Mr Staunton fought hard
with their representatives on the Board and others including the CEO to change that culture.
Mr Staunton said: “It was in the interests of the business as well as being fair for the postmasters that there was faster progress on exoneration and that compensation for wrongly
convicted postmasters was more generous, but we didn’t see any real movement until after
the Mister Bates programme.”

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

#ba why are there no check in staff at Oslo Airport 2 hours before flight,

[Jessica Simor KC @JMPSimor]

Please make this go viral. It’s never been articulated better than this.

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@Laura__Farris As anyone with an ounce of knowledge would know the government has little control over inflation, that's the job of the Bank of England. If you were in control, why did you subject the British public to such high rates in the first place?

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@AWNDinsmore Don't give up your day job.

[Carol Vorderman @carolvorders]

I've signed.

Rishi Sunak said this week that "nobody wants a general election".

Well it seems that more than 110,000 people do so far.

If you'd like to, then add your signature here ⏬️ to
CALL AN IMMEDIATE GENERAL ELECTION

And RT🙏🏼👍🏼 https://t.co/hKPUhwCcK3

[Gina Miller @thatginamiller]

I was looking forward to taking on Chris Grayling at the next general election

His ministerial failures were symbolic of years of dreadful Tory rule and mismanagement. However, I wish him the best in his next endeavours and it is a relief to hear that he has been successfully treated for cancer. I hope he and his family the best for the future.

The #Tories will try to keep the seat but I can win - especially if
@keir_starmer @edwardjdavey don’t repeat 50 years of their parties’ failures in Epsom & Ewell. Instead, back my candidacy. The people of Epsom, Ewell and Leatherhead deserve proper representation
@VoteTrueAndFair

[Irvine Welsh @IrvineWelsh]

Trainspotting parodies usually bore the shit out of me, but I quite like this one.

[PoliticsJOE @PoliticsJOE_UK]

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family."

Why would Rishi Sunak want to do a thing like that?

[Gina Miller @thatginamiller]

Politicians have different views but don't have different facts, and need to be challenged on the detail. #SuellaBraverman says 20,000 more police. No, there're 3,000 more after replacing cuts by Cameron

As a lawyer, I'm presuming Mrs Braverman knows a person in the UK is tagged as a result of a court order. Tags send signals to a monitoring centre from the person's place of curfew - do the courts & monitoring centres have capacity? Isn't this just adding more costs to the enormous cost of housing unprocessed #asylumseekers ?

She says she'll 'remove illegal migrants more swiftly", where to?

Sunak & Braverman need to stop wasting millions of our taxes on PR stunts and come up with robust solutions - eg turbo charge processing, restore promised Afghan scheme and set up legal routes
Reminder - https://t.co/ejBYBEYKIb

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@RishiSunak @Laura__Farris It means that after years in office, you're as clueless as ever. We are never going to have sufficient staff to meet the needs, so pay those we do have a decent salary.

[ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret]

Every. Bloody. Word. Sunak is a big part of the problem. Not the solution. Well said Ben Elton

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@Laura__Farris , I trust as my MP you will do the right thing and support the report identifying #BorisJohnson as the liar he really is. #ConservativeParty

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

Hi Twitter!

My name is Harry, and I am Clinical Nurse Speiclaist in addiction.

I am fighting for a fair pay deal for NHS workers which is both deserved, and needed for the survival of the NHS.

Please give me a retweet and a follow!

#SOSNHS #NHSCrisis #NHS

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@nadhimzahawi You paying your taxes would help as well.

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@Laura__Farris @RishiSunak @RishiSunak is an unelected leader rejected by his own party but now forced to scrap the bottom of the barrel rather than face the public vote. His new cabinet is a rearrangement of the deckchairs of the Titanic. How do you think he can fix the problem he created?

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@thatginamiller Well done Gina, this kind of considered politics that highlight the current government's failings is exactly what we need at the moment.

[Ewan Lister @Ewan_Lister]

@Laura__Farris @RishiSunak And that is why we'll never vote for you or your shambolic party ever again. Stop the farcical merry-go-round and do the decent thing and call a general election.

[Anne Michie @AnneMichie5]

LAURA FARRIS MP YOU ARE VILE VOTING FOR SHIT TO BE DUMPED IN OUR RIVERS