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QUENTIN LETTS: Kemi Badenoch whacked back all the KC's questions with gusto as she had a cheerful biff at Whitehall By QUENTIN LETTS FOR THE DAILY MAIL Published: 21:44 GMT, 11 November 2024 | Updated: 22:32 GMT, 11 November 2024 e-mail View comments Smelling salts for m'learned friends. Kemi Badenoch , appearing at the Post Office Horizon inquiry, had a cheerful biff at Whitehall. The new Conservative leader expressed impatience that civil servants were so feebly reverential towards bureaucratic legalities.
Their faffing-about caused administrative blockages. In the Post Office Horizon affair it delayed justice for the sub-posties. As trade secretary she wanted to get compensation quickly to those victims but kept being told by mandarins that it all needed more time.
If company bosses behaved like rotters, civil servants hesitated to say so in memos. Instead they wrote something bland such as 'there are concerns'; busy ministers would then fail to spot the euphemism. Mrs Badenoch preferred briefings that 'waved a red flag'.
Kemi Badenoch batted back the KC's questions at the Post Office Horizon inquiry in a cheerful biff in Whitehall, writes QUENTIN LETTS Declaring that we 'shouldn't be afraid to challenge the system', the Tory leader said she preferred the 'unvarnished truth' from 'the vanilla version' 'The unvarnished truth is more helpful than the vanilla version,' she declared with a certain appetite. She was basically saying the Establishment was constipated. 'We shouldn't be afraid to challenge the system.
We shouldn't be afraid to challenge the law if we think the law is not delivering for the people.' She added: 'I am not one of life's natural bureaucrats.' Read More Kemi Badenoch blames Civil Service 'bureaucracy' for delays in paying compensation to sub-postmasters wrongly accused of breaking the law in Horizon scandal That was like a Patterdale terrier briefly lowering the half-chewed shin of an Evri delivery driver to announce that, by and large, it wasn't keen on celery.
Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry, shifted in his bags. Mr Beer is a solid customer. No small Beer.
Were Brother Beer a Dutchman he might be pressed into duty as a jumbo cork when a nearby dyke sprang a leak. His manner is slow. Despite that surname, the KC is not one of life's fizzers.
What, he enquired with the faintest burp of distaste, did Mrs Badenoch mean by saying there was 'too much vanilla' in Whitehall memos? One suspects that when Mr Beer visits an ice-cream parlour, vanilla may be his flavour of choice. Mrs Badenoch fleshed out her theory. Officials were paralysed by the fear of freedom-of-information requests and therefore made sure they never said anything too blunt in a document.
They might also, she continued, be worried by the thought of having it flashed up on screen at some public inquiry. Just like, er, the one now employing Mr J. Beer KC(ker-ching)! This inquiry is now in its fourth year and, along with Milady Hallett's Covid probe, may soon challenge The Mousetrap for the West End's most lucrative production.
Lawyers who clamber aboard these inquiries are on to a wonderful thing: sumptuous per diems, gallons of publicity, an almost open horizon on how long the voyage will last, and you don't even have to wear a wig. Lovely jubbly, as Mr Beer never said.Inquiry witnesses tend to grovel a bit.
Well, maybe grovel is too strong a word but they certainly tend to lower their voices and shrivel before all the legal apparatus of the hearing room. Ms Badenoch admitted to the inquiry that she was not 'one of life's bureaucrats' She added that it was wrong to think the law, while to be respected, was out of reach of criticism Mrs Badenoch was more forthright. She smacked out her answers and kept checking Mr Beer's references to computer documents.
Kemi preferred to look at the stuff in hard copy and to read the relevant page in an enormous folder in front of her. Did this annoy the KC? In closing remarks he sought to summarise Mrs Badenoch's view and said 'you think the rule of law stands in the way of service by government to the people'. She corrected him.
She felt it was wrong to think 'ooooh, it's the rule of law and we can't touch it'. While the law was to be respected, it was certainly 'not above criticism'. Mr Beer: 'Those are my questions.
Thank you very much for answering some of them.' At which he rolled his eyes to his sidekick. This clubland chestnut drew a laugh from the room's many lawyers.
It is the sort of put-down barristers boast about over port at the Garrick. But Mrs Badenoch had in fact answered all his questions, whacking them back at him with gusto. She has upset the Blob.
It's a start. Evri Kemi Badenoch Share or comment on this article: QUENTIN LETTS: Kemi Badenoch whacked back all the KC's questions with gusto as she had a cheerful biff at Whitehall e-mail Add comment More top stories.
