Jumped before he was pushed - again.
No-one likes him.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnis...h-burying-s-t/
"You will never catch this column putting “Sir” in front of the name Gavin Williamson. We still have some standards at Pearson Towers. History is full of nasty twerps who have made themselves useful to their masters by bullying and doing all the dirty work. The deceitful servant Mosca got it right in Ben Jonson’s Volpone: “Almost all the wise world is little else, in nature, but parasites or sub-parasites.”
In the dunghill of contemporary politics, Williamson has been a top dung beetle, waging head-to-head matches in the Westminster dung tunnel and coming out on top.
That’s Williamson, alright. Loathsome, invariably ridiculous, but top-notch at burying the s--t his bosses want to keep hidden.
The former fireplace salesman served as defence secretary under Theresa May and education secretary under Boris Johnson during Covid, somehow managing to keep British schools closed longer than any comparable country while making a fiasco of exams. He was sacked from both roles. Astoundingly, Boris awarded him a knighthood in March.
When I saw that Rishi Sunak had appointed him Minister without Portfolio, I thought:
1. Not trusted to be given a proper job but too feared not to be given a job. He knows too much.
2. Payback time for twisting arms during the Tory leadership campaign.
3. This will be a disaster that “professionalism and integrity” Sunak lives to regret.
Sure enough, it was just weeks before leaked text messages appeared to show Williamson threatening the then chief whip Wendy Morton for not getting him an invitation to the Queen’s funeral. He whinged at being excluded from Westminster Abbey and accused Ms Morton of “rigging the ticket allocation” to punish people like him who had not supported Liz Truss. He seemed to warn the chief whip not to “push him about” saying darkly, “there is a price for everything”.
Ms Morton sent the messages to the Conservative Party after making a formal complaint about Williamson’s behaviour. She has now referred him to Parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...terial-mishaps
It is perhaps the greatest testament to Gavin Williamson’s mastery of the baser political arts that three separate prime ministers have seemingly found him indispensable despite his striking record of ministerial mishaps and, at times, sheer ineptitude.
Further evidence of Williamson’s political antennae comes from his parallel habit of backing winners: he was an early supporter of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, proving invaluable in marshalling support among Tory MPs.
The same fundamental paradox has, however, emerged under all three: Williamson is seemingly much better at acquiring ministerial roles than carrying them out, with the exception of being chief whip.
May was so impressed by the South Staffordshire MP as chief whip that she promoted him to become defence secretary, a role in which he visibly struggled. May then sacked him after she concluded he had leaked sensitive telecoms information from a meeting of the national security council.
Williamson bitterly complained he had been wronged, while May’s aides were equally adamant the evidence of the leak was watertight. As it turned out, less than three months later Johnson returned him to the cabinet as education secretary.
While it is possible that Michael Gove was an education secretary more disliked by teaching unions for his breakneck programme of schools reform, Williamson is almost universally seen as the least-competent modern occupant of the role, and he was dismissed by Johnson last year. Even then, Johnson handed Williamson a knighthood six months later.
The list of Williamson’s moments of ministerial ignominy is long, even before the recent days of controversy over allegations of bullying and expletive-laden messages to fellow MPs.
As defence secretary, many worried that Williamson’s much-reported comment that Russia “should go away and should shut up” perhaps indicated a politician lacking the necessary gravitas for the job.
While Williamson’s tenure in education was made hugely difficult by the impact of Covid, he nonetheless showed minimal aptitude for making things better, most notably with the debacle over A-level grading in 2020, when he initially stood by the controversial system of computer algorithm and teacher assessments, before an inevitable U-turn.
Williamson even made his own contribution to the Johnson-led controversy over extending free school meals for poorer children, telling a newspaper he had held a Zoom meeting with Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United footballer and anti-poverty campaigner, when he in fact met a different black sportsman, Maro Itoje, a rugby player.
For all this, Williamson’s more terminal political downfall appears likely to come as a corollary of his greatest talent: as a politician even his foes accept is brilliant at gauging support levels, knowing secrets about everyone and everything, and using the various levers at a whip’s disposal to exert pressure.
Williamson has visibly enjoyed this reputation, gaining his first beyond-Westminster renown as a chief whip who kept a pet tarantula called Cronus in a glass box on his desk.
“I don’t very much believe in the stick,” Williamson joked at a May-era Conservative party conference. “But it’s amazing what can be achieved with a sharpened carrot.”
What has emerged in recent days is the sense that Williamson’s evident enjoyment of the inevitable menace of a whip’s role can, critics allege, spill over into bullying, abuse or just plain pettiness.
One of the most damaging recent claims is the fact that Williamson not only sent furious messages to Wendy Morton, who filled the chief whip’s role under Liz Truss, but did so because he could not believe he had not been invited to the Queen’s funeral.
No-one likes him.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnis...h-burying-s-t/
"You will never catch this column putting “Sir” in front of the name Gavin Williamson. We still have some standards at Pearson Towers. History is full of nasty twerps who have made themselves useful to their masters by bullying and doing all the dirty work. The deceitful servant Mosca got it right in Ben Jonson’s Volpone: “Almost all the wise world is little else, in nature, but parasites or sub-parasites.”
In the dunghill of contemporary politics, Williamson has been a top dung beetle, waging head-to-head matches in the Westminster dung tunnel and coming out on top.
That’s Williamson, alright. Loathsome, invariably ridiculous, but top-notch at burying the s--t his bosses want to keep hidden.
The former fireplace salesman served as defence secretary under Theresa May and education secretary under Boris Johnson during Covid, somehow managing to keep British schools closed longer than any comparable country while making a fiasco of exams. He was sacked from both roles. Astoundingly, Boris awarded him a knighthood in March.
When I saw that Rishi Sunak had appointed him Minister without Portfolio, I thought:
1. Not trusted to be given a proper job but too feared not to be given a job. He knows too much.
2. Payback time for twisting arms during the Tory leadership campaign.
3. This will be a disaster that “professionalism and integrity” Sunak lives to regret.
Sure enough, it was just weeks before leaked text messages appeared to show Williamson threatening the then chief whip Wendy Morton for not getting him an invitation to the Queen’s funeral. He whinged at being excluded from Westminster Abbey and accused Ms Morton of “rigging the ticket allocation” to punish people like him who had not supported Liz Truss. He seemed to warn the chief whip not to “push him about” saying darkly, “there is a price for everything”.
Ms Morton sent the messages to the Conservative Party after making a formal complaint about Williamson’s behaviour. She has now referred him to Parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...terial-mishaps
It is perhaps the greatest testament to Gavin Williamson’s mastery of the baser political arts that three separate prime ministers have seemingly found him indispensable despite his striking record of ministerial mishaps and, at times, sheer ineptitude.
Further evidence of Williamson’s political antennae comes from his parallel habit of backing winners: he was an early supporter of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, proving invaluable in marshalling support among Tory MPs.
The same fundamental paradox has, however, emerged under all three: Williamson is seemingly much better at acquiring ministerial roles than carrying them out, with the exception of being chief whip.
May was so impressed by the South Staffordshire MP as chief whip that she promoted him to become defence secretary, a role in which he visibly struggled. May then sacked him after she concluded he had leaked sensitive telecoms information from a meeting of the national security council.
Williamson bitterly complained he had been wronged, while May’s aides were equally adamant the evidence of the leak was watertight. As it turned out, less than three months later Johnson returned him to the cabinet as education secretary.
While it is possible that Michael Gove was an education secretary more disliked by teaching unions for his breakneck programme of schools reform, Williamson is almost universally seen as the least-competent modern occupant of the role, and he was dismissed by Johnson last year. Even then, Johnson handed Williamson a knighthood six months later.
The list of Williamson’s moments of ministerial ignominy is long, even before the recent days of controversy over allegations of bullying and expletive-laden messages to fellow MPs.
As defence secretary, many worried that Williamson’s much-reported comment that Russia “should go away and should shut up” perhaps indicated a politician lacking the necessary gravitas for the job.
While Williamson’s tenure in education was made hugely difficult by the impact of Covid, he nonetheless showed minimal aptitude for making things better, most notably with the debacle over A-level grading in 2020, when he initially stood by the controversial system of computer algorithm and teacher assessments, before an inevitable U-turn.
Williamson even made his own contribution to the Johnson-led controversy over extending free school meals for poorer children, telling a newspaper he had held a Zoom meeting with Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United footballer and anti-poverty campaigner, when he in fact met a different black sportsman, Maro Itoje, a rugby player.
For all this, Williamson’s more terminal political downfall appears likely to come as a corollary of his greatest talent: as a politician even his foes accept is brilliant at gauging support levels, knowing secrets about everyone and everything, and using the various levers at a whip’s disposal to exert pressure.
Williamson has visibly enjoyed this reputation, gaining his first beyond-Westminster renown as a chief whip who kept a pet tarantula called Cronus in a glass box on his desk.
“I don’t very much believe in the stick,” Williamson joked at a May-era Conservative party conference. “But it’s amazing what can be achieved with a sharpened carrot.”
What has emerged in recent days is the sense that Williamson’s evident enjoyment of the inevitable menace of a whip’s role can, critics allege, spill over into bullying, abuse or just plain pettiness.
One of the most damaging recent claims is the fact that Williamson not only sent furious messages to Wendy Morton, who filled the chief whip’s role under Liz Truss, but did so because he could not believe he had not been invited to the Queen’s funeral.
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