Saf Ismail, Board Director, unloads

Poor old Saf Ismail. He really does seem like a genuinely decent man. He’s a good businessman, running several Post Offices. He was elected to the Post Office board in 2021 as one of the new Subpostmaster representatives, something he said Nick Read privately came to regret.

Ismail realised very quickly he was dealing with a terrible organisation which cannot function properly and genuinely does not care about its Subpostmasters.

The quote in this email title came from a Subpostmaster Saf went to visit shortly after his appointment. Saf thinks it says it all about the Post Office’s attitude.

I wrote up Day 1 of Saf’s evidence here.

I’m listening to Day 2 right now. It’s almost tragic. You wonder at how many good people are going to keep breaking themselves on the Post Office’s wheel.

I am watching someone who is clearly intelligent, who cares about the network, who cares about his customers and his staff, and who cares about what happened to the Subpostmasters who were sacked and prosecuted and who has the moral compass and the tools in his locker to put things right.

According to his evidence, as far as the Post Office is concerned, Subpostmasters are expendable, and he is a troublesome target who needs to be neutered or eliminated. I can only conclude the Post Office as an organisation seems to thrive on its own toxicity. Maybe he’s wrong

But it’s not just Saf

The Post Office Inquiry has published a comprehensive independent survey into the attitudes of serving Subpostmasters and applicants to the Horizon Shortfall Scheme. Funnily enough the majority of Subpostmasters don’t appear to have a very high opinion of the board members Saf now calls colleagues.

I’ve written up the headlines here with a link to the full report.

My local Subpostmaster, H****** (I don’t want to make him a target for the PO), is the nicest, most helpful man I know. He goes out of his way to assist people and is recognised as a genuine diamond.

That is what Subpostmasters generally are. Helpful, selfless, kind and ridiculously hard-working. They just happen to work for a dysfunctional organisation which hates them. It has hated them for more than a hundred years and still hates them now. This, to me, does not seem normal. But there we are.

I’m in Leeds

In what looks and feels a bit like a prison cell. I am here because my daughter’s student housing contract fell through and she is currently homeless, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s house. It’s okay – we think we’ve found somewhere safe and secure and hopefully she can move in tomorrow, but forgive me if I am not wholly focused on the Inquiry this week.

Thanks to everyone who has joined the secret emailers over the last month. I am extremely grateful.

Nick Wallis