Sir Ed Davey has been grilled for his "fun" general election campaign as was asked: "What do you think subpostmasters make of you clowning around?"
The Lib Dem leader has recently come under fire for failing to do more to help wrongly-convicted subpostmasters when he held the brief and for initially refusing to meet Alan Bates in 2010.
Speaking to GB News political editor Christopher Hope, he said: "Well, listen, my heart has gone out to subpostmasters about what's happened with the worst miscarriage of justice in British history over horizon.
"I've said sorry for the mistakes I made when I was a minister, when I didn't see Alan Bates straight away. And then when I did see him not seeing through the lies that they told to me.
"So I hope they understand that I'm campaigning now, both for constituents of mine who are subpostmasters who are involved in this and had a really, really tough time.
"I'm campaigning for compensation. Compensation for all subpostmasters affected. Far more generous, far more quickly. And I supported this inquiry, which is so important to get to the bottom of it. So I hope they've heard that."
