Post Office ex-chairman hits back at Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch emerged from this morning’s Commons evidence session strengthened by the testimony of one of her top officials. But this afternoon a very different story emerged as Henry Staunton – the man she forced out as Post Office chairman – got his say before the Business Select Committee. He said he had been the target of a ‘smear campaign’ led by Badenoch and fought back against allegations that he had told ‘lies’.

The key moment of Staunton’s evidence concerned claims that he was forced out at the Post Office after bullying allegations were made against him. But, in an astonishing turn of events, he insisted it was the company’s current chief executive, Nick Read, who was the subject of an internal investigation, not him. Clutching a page of what he claimed was an 80-page dossier, Staunton said he was only under investigation for ‘one paragraph’ in the document, relating to ‘politically incorrect comments’ made, but that he ‘strenuously denies’ this allegation.