QUENTIN LETTS: This Ed Davey’s Lib Dems may’ve gone down

How fortunate for Sir Edward Davey that his date at the Post Office Horizon inquiry happened after the General Election. 

Had yesterday’s bottom-wriggler of a session come before polling day, his Lib Dems might have gone down with their pants on fire.

During the election Sir Edward presented himself as a lachrymose japester, some days weeping about his family life – vote for me, sob, because I was an orphan – while on other days he posed as the new Norman Wisdom, splashing around at water parks and doing pratfalls.

Yesterday we saw a seedier, more sinister creature. 

Turns out that when sub-postmasters were having their lives unfairly ruined, the great bungee-jumper was a remarkably incurious dodger of blame. 

Sir Ed Davey speaking at the the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry at Aldwych House on July 18

Ed Davey pictured at the London Art Bar as the results come in for the General Election 

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey speaks during the debate on the King’s Speech in the House of Commons

One of his civil servants was even called Buck. Sir Edward whimpered that he was new to the job. 

It was all the civil servants’ fault (except when it was all the Post Office’s fault). ‘I was lied to!’ We know the feeling, mate.

The inquiry heard that he became minister for the Post Office in the coalition government when the Horizon scandal started to gather force. 

His immediate predecessor, Labour‘s Pat McFadden, gave evidence just before him. Mr McFadden, a stupendously dull political survivor – he makes the late Andrei Gromyko of the USSR look frivolous – claimed he could not have done more to stop innocent postmasters being prosecuted for ‘putting their hands in the till’ when accounting shortfalls were in fact caused by a bad computer system.

Spectators in the inquiry room clawed the air in front of their faces in frustration at Mr McFadden’s ‘not my fault, guv’ routine. 

You will be comforted to learn that two weeks ago the same McFadden was appointed to the cabinet to supervise, er, the Civil Service.

Sir Ed Davey at the London Art Bar in central London with party supporters watching the results of the 2024 General Election

Sir Ed Davey leaves after giving evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry at Aldwych House, central London

Sir Ed Davey taking part in a bungee jump during a visit to Eastbourne Borough Football Club as part of the General Election campaign trail 

Enter Sir Edward, round-tummied and full of himself as he strode to the witness table where he swore to tell the truth. 

Jason Beer KC, for the inquiry, produced a slew of emails that showed how MPs such as Dame Priti Patel and George Osborne alerted Sir Edward to the Post Office problem. 

Sir Edward turned a deaf ear. Alan Bates, the postmaster who became famous in ITV‘s recent drama, was given the bum’s rush.

Sir Edward swiveled in his chair, turned pink, and did awkward little foot movements.

Onlookers, again, found it hard to restrain themselves. Some snorted with derision. 

There was disbelieving laughter when Sir Edward claimed to have been unfazed about a TV investigation into the scandal. Emails suggested the thought of publicity had sent his office into a tailspin.

Far from being a fun-guy, Sir Edward had been rude, obstructive, under-informed and ‘tactical’ (which can be a Whitehall euphemism for ‘how can we slide out of this one?’). 

Post Office managers were described as ‘thugs in suits’ but Davey, like McFadden before him, happily accepted their assurances. A lack of shrewd scepticism? Or simply a natural tendency to let a lazy civil service tell ‘little people’ to get stuffed?

Sir Ed Davey with local parliamentary candidate Pippa Heylings as he launches his party’s General Election campaign battlebus

Sir Ed Davey falls from a surfboard during a visit to Big Blue Surf School in Bude in Cornwall, while on the General Election campaign trail

Apart from the aforesaid Buck, another of Sir Edward’s ex-officials was a man called Lovegrove. Ha! He later became top Sir Humphrey at the Ministry of Defence and was briefly national security adviser. He was pretty hopeless there, too.

By the way, one oddity of the inquiry was that its chairman, Sir Wyn Williams, operated remotely, his scarlet snout and slightly wonky glasses gazing down, Big Brotherishly from a large screen on one wall. ‘He’s in Wales,’ explained an inquiry official. Yes, the old beak was judging from home.

Now Sir Wyn is an amiable presence, and pretty sharp, so one doesn’t particularly want to have a go at him. But being in the room makes a difference. You can see how much a witness fidgets. You can see and hear the disbelief of the victims in the room. You can smell the deceits.

It would, surely, be a bad business if our already indulged judiciary acquired a habit of dispensing justice down a Zoom feed.