Post Office: the musical is here. But first…

Hi

Lord and Lady Arbuthnot kindly invited me to their 40th wedding anniversary reception last night. I didn’t know what to expect, nor what to bring as a gift. Lord Arbuthnot is patron of the Horizon Scandal Fund, so I knocked an idea around with my fellow trustees involving collating some messages of thanks for the work he has done on the Post Office Scandal over the years.

Being disorganised (and on holiday) I didn’t really get to grips with things until this week, which rather limited my options. I ended up asking anyone if they wanted me to pass on a message via twitter (a platform I don’t think Lord A uses) which I could then print out and put in a gift box. This is where Mark and Erika Baker came in.

My appeal for contributions was seen by Mark who suggested finding his old Post Office scales, getting them engraved to declare Lord A an Honorary Subpostmaster and delivering them to me in time for me to hand them over last night.

This was Tuesday, which made things pretty tight. Nonetheless Mark and Erika leapt into action. They found the scales, tidied them up, took them to an engraver and drove them in a 3 hour round trip from Wiltshire to Surrey to hand them over to me on Wednesday afternoon.

By that stage I had begun collating the messages, and bought a more traditional joint anniversary present for the happy couple. The final piece of the jigsaw was tracking down a bottle of Johnnie Walker’s finest whisky as a personal gift from one of our trustees and lug it all up to London.

Thankfully Mark and Erika brought the scales over in a Post Office cardboard packing crate, so I squeezed everything into there and marched it from Charing Cross station to Inner Temple Hall where the box was taken off me by a helpful staff member and I never saw it again. I hope they got it.

Thanks to everyone who sent in messages of respect to the good lord (yesterday sporting a rather rakish beard). To those who missed the deadline, I will add your messages to the ones I’ve got on file and send them to Lord A electronically in the near future.

I know (and I am sure Lord Arbuthnot knows) he’s led a privileged and charmed life, light years away from the experience of so many people who may deserve to be honoured and thanked equally as much, but his work in exposing this scandal cannot be understated, and this just struck me as a good opportunity to try to recognise it in a meaningful way. I thought Mark and Erika’s idea was pitched perfectly. Hopefully, if you are a Subpostmaster, you will agree.

The event itself was good fun. I spoke to fellow hack Tom Witherow, Second Sight’s Ian Henderson and Ron Warmington, Horizon Compensation Advisory Board Chair Chris Hodges, former Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake and Tim Moloney KC. I think that was about it. Post Office people were just a tiny fraction of the guests attending, but I decided to stay in my lane.

Radio Times interview with Jo Hamilton

Former Subpostmaster Jo Hamilton (who was also present last night), is the subject of a big Radio Times interview this week to mark a new documentary about the impact of the ITV drama series on the Post Office scandal.

Hamilton’s continuing anger at the government, civil servants and politicians in general (save Lord Arthbuthnot – who she calls a “superhero”) comes over loud and clear in the interview. She describes getting the “usual bollocks” from the office of the new business minister Gareth Thomas, she hasn’t had a response to her letter to Keir Starmer and she says her new Lib Dem MP initially refused to see her.

Jo also confirms she has finally settled with the government and the Post Office for a sum “within” £20,000 of her claim, but says she won’t stop campaigning until “all the original 555 people we represented [in the Bates v Post Office group litigation] have been paid”.

Read the full interview here. Mr Bates vs the Post Office: the impact will be broadcast on ITV1 on Monday 9 September at 9pm.

Post Office: the musical

A new musical about the Post Office scandal debuts at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham in November. It’s called Make Good: the Post Office Scandal and says it’s “directly informed by conversations with affected Subpostmasters” resulting in a production “capturing the raw emotion, the betrayals, and the collective disbelief that this could be happening to innocent people.”

Tickets available here.

Legal news

The government has this week awarded solicitors Addleshaw Goddard a £10 million contract to advise on compensation for victims of the Horizon Scandal. This has annoyed campaigning Subpostmaster Chris Head, who has experience of dealing with AG over their administration of the Group Litigation Order scheme for the majority of the Bates v Post Office litigants.

He told Law.com International: “Although they are paying some claims they are not treating everyone equally in the GLO scheme… they are the cause of delays in reaching any kind of settlements. They work on 40 working days to make initial offers but subsequent communications in my own case have taken almost 3 months to respond between January and April earlier this year.”

Echoing Jo Hamilton’s complaint in her Radio Times interview, Head said: “Huge sums of money [are] going to these law firms over and over again. Whilst those impacted by the scandal still await full and final compensation as promised to put them back in the position they would have been in had it not been for the Horizon Scandal.”

One of the links I used to click on the article was paywalled, but the one in Chris Head’s tweet opened it up for free. Try this link, or if that comes up with a paywall, try going through Chris’s original tweet. Or buy a subscription. Good hacks need to eat!

Speaking of good hacks, Karl Flinders at Computer Weekly has written a piece called “Post Office and Fujitsu malevolence and incompetence means huge final taxpayers’ bill“.

From the Archive

On 27 Aug I started tweeting “On This Day” links to archive newsletters and the three blogs I have used to cover the Post Office scandal since I began reporting on it.

I aim to build this into a mammoth tweet thread which will probably be of no use to anyone, but it might pique some interest. Read the thread on X here, or (as part of the service to my beloved secret emailers) read the collated links below:

27 Aug 2021: Post Office Horizon Inquiry to consider “redress” for Subpostmasters28 August: No post!29 Aug 2023: “Racist ID codes. When did they leave the Met?“30 Aug 2020: “Trouble up North (of England) pt1” (a long read – thoroughly recommend this one)31 Aug 2018: “Kickstarter is live” – where this newsletter began.1 Sep 2012: “The future of journalism” (not PO related, but relevant).2 Sep 2019: “I hate everything about it. I will not go into a Post Office.” Nicki Arch’s story.3 Sep 2021: “First £100K interim payments land as Post Office refuses payouts for others – Fury from Subpostmasters left high and dry” (secret email)4 September: No post!5 Sep 2023: “Will Post Office execs continue to be given bonuses for their Inquiry work?“6 Sep 2022: “Barrister’s Letter to the DPP” (an inexcusably dull headline for what I think is quite a good read)

An afternoon in Otley you say? In November?!

I have updated the Live Events page on the Post Office Scandal website to take into account the various things I am doing in public over the next few months. I’ve got a couple more exciting events to confirm before the end of the year (and space to add more if your organisation wants me).

Most of them are corporate events which are open to interested parties, but often cost a small fortune to attend. This is the downside to not taking any financial risk in putting on a live event myself.

I think this is wise – the tour we did earlier this year was the most fun I think I have had in covering this story, but aggregated across the piece we were one box office disaster away from losing the shirts on our backs.

That said, I’ve always wanted to do a talk with former Subpostmaster Janet Skinner and so when the opportunity came up in Otley on Friday 22 November, it seemed like a sensible thing to do.

I think the evening session is pretty much sold out (there are a stubborn 10 tickets which refuse to shift for some reason), but there’s plenty of space at the 2pm matinée.

Do join us if you live anywhere near Otley. It’s a lovely venue, we have a lovely guest and David and Helen from Bath Publishing are going to hit the road to be there. They and I would be delighted to meet you.

Tickets are £17 (buy them here) which compares very favourably to the other events I’m signed up to.

That said, if you can get your work to pay for it, it would be fab to say hello in London or Belfast (and hopefully Dublin and Edinburgh once finally sorted).

Thanks

Congratulations for making it through to the end of another marathon newsletter. I started writing my new book this week, and it really is the worst of times.

Tens of thousands of words to write – all sorts of directions to dive off into, powerful doses of procrastination coursing through my veins…. I’ve also, perhaps stupidly, got lots of social events in my diary over the next few months.

The first half of this year was so insanely busy, I put a load of things off until, er, now, which is partly why I will be spending both days this weekend attending Boogietown, a slightly bizarre music festival which involves importing a load of US and British heritage acts to Walton-on-Thames to perform to a load of half-cut Gen X-ers sloshing around in wellies trying to recreate the Reading and Glastonbury festivals of their youth.

Tickets are still available if you want to join me watching KC and the Sunshine Band, Bananarama, Soul II Soul or Boney M tomorrow. Sunday brings us ABC, Culture Club, The Jacksons, The Village People and thundery showers. No that’s not a band, the forecast says actual thundery showers. Can’t wait.

This newsletter will be back towards the end of the month as the Inquiry ramps up once more.

Keep well

Nick