AN ex-postmistress launched a blistering attack on bumbling Sir Ed Davey – demanding the Lib Dem leader quit over his ‘whitewashing’ of the Post Office scandal.
Yvonne Tracey declared bumbling Sir Ed’s bungee jumping stunts were “trying to take the limelight away from the Post Office” because “he doesn’t want to be quizzed.”
Sir Ed, 58, was postal affairs minister in the coalition government while dozens of postmasters were wrongly convicted of false accounting because of glitches in the dodgy Horizon computer system.
Ms Tracey, 68, who is running against Sir Ed on Thursday, told our Never Mind The Ballots show: “I think he should quit because I don’t think you should choose who you help and who you don’t help.
“It’s no good saying he was lied to when the lies were in front of him.
“So he chose to not rock the boat.
“In my opinion, it was much easier to go with the Post Office than help these ordinary little people.
“We deserve MPs helping out everyone regardless of whether you’re a big company or a little ordinary person asking for help.
“If you don’t want to help everybody, don’t do the job.”
She continued: “I’ve had messages of support and people saying, ‘Thank you for doing this’.
“I had one lady who rang me and said I’m so glad you’re doing this because I lost my post office, I lost my livelihood, It affected my children, they didn’t go to uni because I had no income, we had no home.
“She said, ‘I really want people like Ed Davey held to account because he didn’t help us and he could have helped us… 14 years later we’re still waiting for help.
“I really don’t think somebody like that deserves to be an MP.”
The Lib Dem leader, whose party may scoop as many as 70 seats on Thursday, has already drawn scorn for refusing to meet with legendary campaigner Sir Alan Bates in 2012.
Sir Ed insisted he had been reassured by Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells that the accounting system could not make errors.
Mr Bates’ heroic activism eventually forced an independent inquiry and inspired the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
The series was credited with forcing the government to squash all convictions of postmasters found guilty of fiddling with Horizon, with a significant compensation package due later this year.
Pushed on Mr Davey’s stunts, fall off a paddleboard five times, visit Thorpe Park and take part in a zumba class, she fumed: “He looks absolutely ridiculous.
“So undignified, and this is a man who potentially would like to be our prime minister. Thank goodness he won’t.
“But I suppose in a way it’s working.
“I think he’s doing these stunts, but he doesn’t want to be quizzed on the Post Office.
“So he’s trying to take the limelight away from the post office and do these sorts of stunts and it seems to be working because nobody’s asking him about it.”
Ms Tracey agreed Sir Ed was “whitewashing his past”, blasting: “It affected so many lives, why are they not asking him about the Post Office?”
“We all make mistakes.
“So if he just said, when it all came out, ‘You know I was wrong. I should have helped these people up. I was wrong.’…
“He’s never said he was wrong. All he said is, ‘I’m sorry, I was lied to’.
“Now that’s not good enough because, as I say, proof was in front of him.
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“It was in black and white in front of him.
“And he’s never once admitted he was wrong and he didn’t do the due diligence that he should have done.”
The independent candidate also said she had yet to see Sir Ed out and about in his Kingston and Surbiton constituency – claiming the party boss had “gone to ground”.
She said of the Lib Dem failing to turn up on locals’ doorsteps: “I think it’s a pretty poor show, even if he only did one (event).
“In the last election he did things locally, so it’s a pretty poor show.”
Earlier this month Sir Ed was shown a video message of wrongly convicted postie Lee Castleton, who slammed him for his “buffoonery”.
The wronged subpostmaster, played by Will Mellor in the telly adaptation, said: “It’s really, really important we trust him and trust is never going to be built by swinging around on ropes or paddleboarding in Cumbria.”
Asked what she would tell Sir Ed if they came face-to-face, Ms Tracey fumed today: “I would actually say, these people want you to admit that you should have helped them, that you were wrong not to help them.
“Each one of them was saying it, you only had to ask.
“There were 555 people. Surely that must make you look… why won’t you admit you were wrong?
“By 2010, all the information was there. If he’d asked the right questions, we could have had this finished 14 years ago.
“Instead it’s dragged on for another 14 years since then.”
