THE Post Office Horizon scandal is going to keep on giving, with former chief executive Paula Vennells handing back her CBE just the latest development.

It is the right thing for her to do, as the honour has now become tainted, but that is not the end of the matter. The Horizon scandal is raising so many questions about life in Britain today, where the over-paid and distant elite would rather take advice from a faulty computer programme than listen to their ordinary human employees, and so Ms Vennells’ honour raises questions about another part of our national life that many people suspect is very dubious: the honours system.

How was Ms Vennells awarded an honour “for services to the Post Office and charity” when court cases were collapsing around her, and subpostmasters, MPs and journalists were asking profound questions about her organisation’s behaviour? Why did the establishment turn a blind eye to the mounting evidence against the Post Office and give her the honour? What checks were run on her?

Although this is a symbolic victory for the postal workers, it is a bit of a hollow one. Ms Vennells has given back an honour that has become worthless; there’s no indication that she’ll be giving back any of £717,000 that she earned in her last year alone when her postmasters were being driven into bankruptcy.

This symbolic victory must not be allowed to detract from the real aims of the subpostmasters’ campaign: to get all the wrongful convictions overturned and to win fair compensation for all whose lives have been blighted for decades by an arm of the British state. There have been fine words from so many politicians in support of these aims this week, but will any of them speed up the process to get justice for the subpostmasters and mistresses?

READ MORE ECHO COMMENT ON THE HORIZON SCANDAL:

SHOULD THE POSTMASTERS ALL BE GIVEN HONOURS?

WHY THE ITV PROGRAMME MUST ACT AS A WARNING FOR US ALL