Sir Ed Davey is being treated unfairly over the Post Office Horizon scandal - Yorkshire Post Letters

I write to express my concern at what I see as the disgracefully unfair treatment being meted out to Sir Ed Davey over the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Davey became the Business Secretary in May 2010 , shortly after the general election of that month. Almost immediately Alan Bates, our sub-postmaster hero, got in touch with Sir Ed requesting a meeting, even before the latter had got his bearings.

Davey was advised by officials not to meet Mr Bates and wrote a courteous letter of refusal. This letter has been quoted time and again in the last week as evidence of Davey's ‘guilt’ in this matter.

What the media very rarely adds is that by October, now with a bit of experience under his wings, Sir Ed did meet Mr Bates. Davey was the first minister to meet Mr Bates.

Some of the media, to their credit, have carried the comment recently made by Davey, that he “was deeply misled by Post Office executives”. In short, he was lied to.

Just before the Horizon Programme became operable, Tony Blair the then PM, received a briefing from experts expressing their concerns that the programme was faulty. Blair chose not to act.

Between the launch of Horizon and today there have been over a dozen Business Secretaries with oversight of the Post Office. Some have been Labour and some have been Conservative. If any culpability attaches to Sir Ed Davey then the other dozen are equally guilty.

What is glaringly obvious is that Davey has been singled out by the pro-Conservative elements in the media for special treatment in an attempt to minimise Tory seat losses to the Liberal Democrats in the up-coming general election.