Ed Davey says sorry, finally

For Sir Ed Davey, sorry seems to be the hardest word to say. Three weeks ago, the embattled Lib Dem leader was asked to apologise for his role in the Post Office scandal but refused to do so ten times in an interview with ITV. Yet now, with his party plummeting in the polls, the former cabinet minister has thrown in the towel and uttered the forbidden word beginning with ‘s’.

Writing in the Guardian, Davey, whose business minister role from 2010 to 2012 involved oversight of the Post Office, said officials had initially advised him to not meet Alan Bates, who led the campaign into the unjust targeting of post office operators. ‘The Horizon Post Office scandal is the greatest miscarriage of justice of our time, and I am deeply sorry for the families who have had their lives ruined by it,’ he wrote. He continued:

As one of the ministers over the 20 years of this scandal, including my time as minister responsible for postal affairs, I’m sorry I did not see through the Post Office’s lies – and that it took me five months to meet Alan Bates, the man who has done so much to uncover it.