Former Tory party chairman Sir Jake Berry clashed with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop in a TV bust-up over the Post Office Horizon scandal.
The senior Conservative MP and journalist were engaged in heated exchanges on ITV’s Peston political programme.
Presenter Robert Peston stressed there was no system in place in Britain to claw back bonuses from top executives involved in failures like the Post Office scandal.
Sir Jake suggested emergency legislation could be passed by Parliament, as is happening to exonerate the Horizon victims, to cut the “massive” taxpayer-funded pensions of ex-Post Office bosses if they are found responsible for the scandal.
But Mr Hislop intervened: “Why couldn’t you do it so long ago?”
He added: “The fact that it takes an ITV drama and suddenly having been told their entire campaigning life ‘this is very difficult, you’ll have to go in front of a judge. This is very very expensive’.
“Oh, this morning it isn’t, tomorrow we will pass legislation and you are all exonerated.
“It’s absolutely fatuous for this Government to claim ‘we are really acting now’....did nothing...”
But Sir Jake hit back: “That is demonstrably, complete and utter...”
However, Mr Hislop probed why then Post Office chief Paula Vennells was given a CBE in 2019.
As they fired off words at each other, he jibed: “You talk over everyone else and you have been doing it the entire programme.”
Mr Peston intervened: “Ian, let him speak.”
Sir Jake then argued that Mr Hislop “claimed to love so much” ITV’s “amazing” drama, Mr Bates Vs The Post Office starring actor Toby Jones, which has sparked revulsion around Britain over the treatment of hundreds of sub-postmasters and postmistresses wrongly convicted of fraud, theft or false accounting due to the faulty Horizon sofware.
But the Private Eye editor fumed: “Why am I ‘claiming’ to love that programme, I did like that programme.
“You can’t just talk nonsense and not be interrupted.”
However, Sir Jake continued: “That programme ends in 2019 with that court case. In the intervening period, £130 million plus has been paid out...”
As the two continued their stand off, Mr Peston had to declare the programme “over” as it run out of time.
Ms Vennells has said she will hand back her CBE after a petition calling for her to be stripped of it got more than 1.2 million signatures.
Whitehall’s forfeiture committee will now go through the formal process of withdrawing it.
Postal services minister Kevin Hollinrake has said there may be attempts to claw back some of her bonuses, of more than £2 million, if an inquiry into the scandal finds she is to blame.
Other Post Office executives could be in a similar situation.
Cabinet minister Esther McVey has suggested Mr Bates, one of the victims of the scandal, should get a knighthood for his years of campaigning to expose it.
Ministers have also made clear that Japanese tech giant Fujitsu, whose faulty Horizon sofware is blamed for the fictitious shortfalls suffered by many of the victim postmasters, could face action to force it to pay millions towards the compensation bill.
A spokesman for the company said: “Fujitsu is fully committed to supporting the Inquiry in order to understand what happened and to learn from it.”
