Beth Rigby: Rishi Sunak may not be behind Post Office scandal – but he can’t afford to not put it to bed
Rishi Sunak began 2023 hounded by the contamination of the Johnson and Truss premierships, and kicks off 2024 weighed down by what happened on David Cameron’s watch, as the hundreds of Post Office managers wrongly criminalised and convicted comes back to haunt his new year.
Travelling to Accrington in the marginal seat of Hynburn on Monday to give his first big stump speech of the year, the prime minister wanted to use this moment to implore voters to stick with him rather than “going back to square one with Starmer”.
Ex-judge to chair panel into Post Office scandal – politics latest
But instead of being alive to his election pitch, activists and local business leaders in the audience seemed most animated when Mr Sunak was asked about the Horizon scandal.
The ITV dramatisation of the plight of Alan Bates, a sub-postmaster being wrongfully accused of theft and fraud, has ignited national outrage.
It seems astonishing that it has taken a TV drama to create the cut-through needed to turn a scandal going on for years into an issue that demands attention and solution now.
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‘I don’t know how they slept at night’
Firmly at the top of the PM’s in-tray, the pressure is now on for Mr Sunak to meet that moment and act quickly to exonerate and compensate hundreds of victims.
When asked at his speech about the scandal, the PM said as chancellor he approved the compensation schemes and told his audience “people should know we are on it and want to make this right”.
The government was looking at how it could speed the process up, he added.
Later, business minister Kevin Hollinrake told the House of Commons the government has devised options to overturn convictions at pace and speed up compensation for the remaining 750 postmasters.
He also announced plans for a retired High Court judge, Sir Gary Hickinbottom, to bring independent oversight of compensation payments.
Gearing up the government machine to grasp the nettle reflects what’s at stake, not just for the victims still awaiting justice but for a government going into an election year.
The danger for the prime minister is this becomes another contagion issue, as he looks to clean up the mess not properly dealt with in previous administrations.
He does have some cover here because at the time the prosecutions began, the Conservatives were in collation government with the Lib Dems, and it was their leader Sir Ed Davey who was the post office minister at the time.
So questions for Sir Ed now to answer too.
Read more:
The ex-Post Office boss facing calls to lose her CBE
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‘The Post Office was lying to me’
As for Labour, the outrage over this scandal gives the Tories’ main rivals an obvious new stick to beat Mr Sunak with when it comes to the Conservatives’ record in government.
Sir Keir Starmer will surely drop the Horizon debacle squarely into his “things they got wrong” box as he tries to sell to the country his message that, after nearly 14 years of Tory rule, it’s time for change.
With that in mind, the prime minister has to act quickly to put this scandal to bed once and for all. And for once, he has the whole House of Commons behind him to do it.
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Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
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