It’s Kemi versus the ex-Post Office chief

An almighty war of words has broken out over the biggest political drama of the year. In the red corner is Henry Staunton, former chairman of the Post Office. He has used an interview in yesterday’s Sunday Times to suggest the government deliberately tried to slow down compensation payments to sub postmasters. And in the blue corner is Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, who has furiously hit back at Staunton, suggesting his interview was ‘full of lies’ and that she will ‘tell the truth in parliament’ later today. Someone get the popcorn in.

Both Badenoch and Staunton claim they have contemporaneous notes of the phone call in which she sacked him, with both alleging different reasons for why this happened. Staunton claims that he was told ‘Someone’s got to take the rap’; Badenoch suggests these comments were a ‘disgraceful misrepresentation’. She wrote on Twitter/X that:

‘Henry Staunton had a lack of grip getting justice for postmasters.