Gavin Williamson is Missing

Where is he? Has anyone seen Gavin Williamson?

If you have forgotten (as he seems to have) he is the minister for education and he has been having a hard time recently.

First “A refusal to make contingency plans was the “most unforgivable” element of the UK government’s handling of education during the pandemic, according to a damning report detailing widespread failures. In the findings, based on interviews with senior officials, the Institute for Government, a think-tank, on Wednesday laid out what happened behind the scenes in a year of policy twists and turns as schools struggled to keep up with conflicting advice from ministers.The account paints an unflattering picture of both the Department for Education and Downing Street, suggesting both were opposed to local authorities and fixated on centralisation.” (Source The Financial Times)

Then there is the scandal of the confusion when this year’s GCSE and A-level exams were dropped in January after the government had insisted for months they would go ahead.

Then there is the huge, and growing, discrepancy between the results obtained by the independent schools, and the results of the schools the rest us use. (Hardly surprising that he doesn’t care about this when Good Ol’ Gav had to be shamed into even feeding poor kids.) You would have thought that e would come out hitting, defending his department but he has been strangely quiet, hidden from the press and public. Can’t say that I blame him, perhaps he has a sense of shame after all.

Gavin Williamson, the Sly Schemer

For someone who seems so affable and reliable Gavin (or Good Ol’ Gav, as no one calls him) has attracted some oddly negative comments from those on his own side, let alone The Opposition, parents, or anyone who knows him in fact. Take Alan Duncan’s wonderfully indelicate diaries (Amazon link). Duncan has a few choice words to say about Gavin, the diaries are contemporanious so they show how prescient Duncan is. In November 2017 Gavin was promoted to Secretary of State for Defence, and Duncan wrote;

“In quite the most extraordinary cabinet appointment I can think of, Gavin Williamson has been promoted Defence Secretary. It is absolutely absurd. He seems to have pushed himself forward for this undeserved promotion. It is a brazenly self-serving manoeuvre that will further embed the view of him as a sly schemer, which he undoubtedly is,”

“He is also ludicrously unqualified for the heavyweight job of defence secretary, having never run anything. His experience amounts to having been a fireplace salesman, then bag-carrier for two PMs, then chief whip for a year. What on earth was the PM thinking?”

Gavin Williamson, a venomous, self-seeking little shit

Duncan reports that Gavin Williamson is suspected of leaking against Cabinet colleagues and so is “universally detested” by those on his own benches. He accuses Williamson of scheming against former Defence Secretary Amber Rudd. He also accused him of working against the then Prime MInister. His comment is that Gavin Williamson is a “venomous, self-seeking little shit”. Don’t you just hate it when people sit on the fence.

Gavin Williamson, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?

There is, it would seem, a good chance that Williamson will be thrown to the wolves at the next reshuffle, as reported in The Guardian. The one question I have is whether that will ever happen. Remember, he used to be chief whip and knows where the bodies are buried. He also, apparently, a history of coniving against his rivals and friends (although there are few of them). He has a list of all the scandals, the rumours, the schemes and the lies.

Can you see him going quietly? Neither can I. If he does go what price will he demand, and get from Johnson?

Tags: Politics, Theresa May, Tory Party