Has Kemi Badenoch gone too far this time?

Well.

“Henry Staunton has now found a copy of the contemporaneous note he made of his conversation with the person he described to the Sunday Times as a senior civil servant and he has shown it to the Times. The official was Sarah Munby, who at the time was permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the memo does a lot to substantiate Staunton’s original claim.” (The Guardian, which quotes extensively from the Times story. The Times is paywalled, so I haven’t linked to it)

I wait to see the relevant papers - the contemporaneous note and the letters from the Department. But I note Badenoch gave her response in the Commons thereby benefiting from Parliamentary privilege which is not open to Staunton.

She has been proved untruthful (aka as a liar) before. She does seem in a constant state of barely repressed fury for some reason.

with top civil servant last year says scandal-hit company was ordered to ‘hobble’ into election

Oliver Shah
A top civil servant told the former chairman of the Post Office to “hobble” into the election and not to “rip off the band aid” in terms of its finances, according to a memo unearthed on Tuesday.
Sarah Munby, who was then permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy department, warned Henry Staunton that “politicians do not necessarily like to confront reality” and that “now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues”, according to a contemporaneous note of their first meeting on January 5 last year.
Staunton wrote the note that night and emailed it to himself. He
Henry Staunton wrote the memo to himself after his first meeting with the permanent secretary last year and sent a copy to the chief executive the next day
JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

forwarded a copy to Nick Read, the Post Office’s chief executive, the following day.
Staunton discovered the memo in his personal emails yesterday and shared it with The Times. Its emergence will reignite the fierce row between the former WH Smith chair-
man and the government over the handling of the Horizon IT scandal.
Staunton, 75, who was fired as Post Office chairman last month, gave an explosive interview to The Sunday Times last weekend in which he claimed that soon after he took the role, an unnamed senior
Whitehall official told him to stall on spending on compensation to sub-postmasters wrongly convicted due to glitches caused by a software system supplied by Fujitsu. More than 900 sub-postmasters and others were wrongly prosecuted between 1999 and 2015, in what has come to be seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
Staunton said that he was ordered to “limp into the election” to save the government money. “It was not an anti-postmaster thing, it was just straight financials,” he told The Sunday Times. He said that until “the dam broke” thanks to the release of the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office last month, efforts to help sub-postmasters were “getting absolutely nowhere”.
His claims drew a furious response from Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, who accused him of peddling “made-up anecdotes and a series of falsehoods”. Badenoch told the Commons on Monday that Staunton’s allegation that he was ordered to stall on compensation to sub-postmasters was “completely false”.
Her department published a letter from Munby to Staunton con

as Post Office chairman and setting out three priorities for him, one of which was “reaching settlements with claimants” in the Horizon scandal.
The discovery of the January 5 memo now raises serious questions over the accuracy of Badenoch’s denial and her decision to brand Staunton a liar.
Staunton’s first meeting with Munby came a month after he took over from Tim Parker in December 2022. His memo says that he told Munby that he “had been on over a dozen public company boards and not seen one with so many challenges”. It says that the board had identified a financial shortfall of £160 million as of September 2022 and that “there was a likelihood of a significant reduction in post offices if funding [from the government] was not [requested]”.
“Sarah was sympathetic to all of the above,” the memo says. “She understood the ‘huge commercial challenge’ and the ‘seriousness’ of the financial position. She described ‘all the options as unattractive’. However, ‘politicians do not necessarily like to confront reality’. This particularly
applied when there was no obvious ‘route to profitability’.
“She said we needed to know that in the run-up to the election there was no appetite to ‘rip off the band aid’. ‘Now was not the time for dealing with long-term issues.’ We needed a plan to ‘hobble’ up to the election.”
Although the note suggests that Munby was referring to the Post Office’s overall finances, Staunton said that by far the two biggest items where the Post Office was able to vary its spending were compensation payments and replacement of the Horizon system.
According to the memo, Munby also referred to “’operational’ issues colouring [the Treasury’s] thinking”. She said that “’trust’ in the [Post Office] board and management has not been high” and warned of appearing to present the government with “another ‘begging bowl’ request”.
It records Staunton replying that “the funding issues revolved around poor decisions made many years ago [with regard to] Horizon and related legal issues”.
The meeting appears to have ended with Munby telling Staunton that Grant Shapps, who had re-
placed

placed Kwasi Kwarteng as business secretary, was “nice and easy but not interested in meetings… We should expect him to be ‘pushy and demanding’.”
Munby, who is now permanent secretary at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, is understood to categorically deny telling Staunton to stall on compensation for sub-postmasters.
The government said in response to Staunton’s original claim: “We utterly refute these allegations. The government has sped up compensation to victims, and consistently encouraged postmasters to come forward with their claims. To suggest any actions or conversations happened to the contrary is incorrect.”

Few bits missing but wanted to get it copied quickly because sometimes Times articles disappear throughout the day….

Please don’t suggest this govt is acting quickly! As with everything else they’ve had 14+ years to sort this out, it took a drama to bring this to the attention of the “masses”. This govt is a complete disgrace!

What we really need is Sir Humphrey to sort all this out

Grantanow

I wait to see the relevant papers - the contemporaneous note and the letters from the Department. But I note Badenoch gave her response in the Commons thereby benefiting from Parliamentary privilege which is not open to Staunton.

It was pointed out by several twitter folk yesterday that, although her denunciation of Staunton might be subject to parliamentary privilege, if she is lying to the House that could be subject to disciplinary action. (Remember that Johnson was expelled for 'misleading Parliament')

She also seems to have sparked something of a diplomatic row by claiming that trade negotiations with Canada have merely been put on hold. The Canadian High Commissioner for the UK has written to say that these negotiations don't exist. The trade expert I follow has this to say:

David Henig 🇺🇦
@DavidHenigUK
·
13h
Just going to point out that embassies don't normally explicitly contradict government ministers and something is going badly wrong when this happens.

More 'misleading Parliament'?

Katie59

I just don't understand how anybody in their right mind can see her as a future party leader or PM.

There are a great many Tory voters that back her views, don’t write her off.

I wish I could write her off. I wish I had an MP who knew where her constituency is actually situated too.

Munby, who is now permanent secretary at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, is understood to categorically deny telling Staunton to stall on compensation for sub-postmasters.

Sarnia

Henry Staunton either needs to name the senior civil servant or that person needs to come forward, immediately. I don't care about the finer feelings of anyone responsible for this appalling mess. At the moment it just seems yet another reason for delay. What an utter shambles it all is.

This.

Listening to the Times journalist.

Seems Badenoch (the self confessed hacker) is bang to rights.

Oh dear apparently Badenoch has lied about meeting people from the trans community according to a Labour MP
(PMQs)

She’s another Johnson!!

She is not present for PMQ’s, and Sunak is failing to repeat or stand by her claims about Staunton, which is telling, I think.

The difficulty with ‘contemporaneous notes’ is proving that they are indeed ‘contemporaneous’.

Here is the letter sent to Mr.Staunton from Ms Lunby

Germanshepherdsmum

The difficulty with ‘contemporaneous notes’ is proving that they are indeed ‘contemporaneous’.

He apparently emailed them to some people. I don't think that the date on an email with a number of recipients could be changed in any way. It would be helpful if one of the recipients were to come forward.

I really can't see why a 75 year old with a successful, reasonably high profile, career behind him, who appears to be known for his probity, would be bothered about taking 'revenge' on the Minister wo sacked him, to the extent of 'lying' in an interview for publication in a still respected newspaper.

While the minister has form for being economical with the truth...

GrannyGravy13

Here is the letter sent to Mr.Staunton from Ms Lunby

Staunton's claims relate to a telephone conversation, not the letter.

Badenoch certainly comes across as very angry.

HousePlantQueen

Badenoch certainly comes across as very angry.

She's out of her depth, bigoted and also very arrogant. She's had people pulling her strings and lying seems to be the only way she can cover her own back.

growstuff

HousePlantQueen

Badenoch certainly comes across as very angry.

She's out of her depth, bigoted and also very arrogant. She's had people pulling her strings and lying seems to be the only way she can cover her own back.

Well, she may have bitten off more than she can chew this time.. It is being reported in the Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/21/rishi-sunak-kemi-badenoch-claims-former-post-office-chair that Sunak is not repeating Badenoch's claims.

I think you may have been living in a different country? I suggest you check out both male and female Labour MPs who have sent Rosie Duffield MP to Coventry. Angela Eagle for a start.
Women’s rights will never be safe under Labour, SNP, the Greens and the Lib Dems. I will not be voting Tory so am politically homeless.
I never said that Badenoch, Patel or Braverman were leadership material but I can’t help liking the fact that Badenoch at least isn’t afraid to stand up for women’s rights - unlike the rest of the shower at Westminster and Edinburgh.

Badenoch has also claimed the 100% of post office claims have been paid, according to the Guardian