Gavin Williamson’s departure is about more than just the messages | Sam Coates

Published

2 years ago

November 9, 2022

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The pantomime villain of British politics has exited stage right – leaving for a third and presumably final time, with the crowd booing.

There are no public dissenting voices to his departure. It has been deemed inevitable.

But nothing about this case is as obvious as it seems. Perhaps the most intriguing opening question is why Rishi Sunak appointed Sir Gavin Williamson in the first place and whether it’s worth at least examining the argument for why the PM may in time regret accepting his resignation.

None of which is to excuse some of Sir Gavin’s messages and reported comments to colleagues, which are rightly judged harshly in the cold light of day.

Ultimately, that’s what has sealed his fate, and in Westminster there was an immediate consensus that his departure was necessary.

But this alone does not always mean it was the sensible course, and some of the judgements involved are more intriguing and nuanced.

However distasteful, the messages and testimony were not the only reason he went. Ultimately what has transpired over the last 48 hours is that Sir Gavin had too many enemies for Number 10 to cope with, deciding now was ripe for settling scores.

Last night, the new PM judged the cost of losing him had become a price worth paying. But it took two weeks for Rishi Sunak to reach this conclusion. Why and what changed?

From the moment of his appointment, Sir Gavin’s third act in government irritated colleagues. After a divisive tenure as chief whip, difficult time as defence secretary and deeply troubled time as education secretary.

Bluntly, he is unpopular.

Unusually for a politician, even Sir Gavin cheerily acknowledges this in private. Rishi Sunak will have had people telling him this too.

But the PM had appointed Sir Gavin as a troubleshooter, a position he needs more than almost any other right now, that under Boris Johnson was held by Nigel Adams, who stayed with Johnson in the bunker to the very end.

This signals a strong belief that whatever his troubled public profile, the PM trusted his political instincts and skills enough to keep him close.

If Mr Sunak’s decision to reappoint Suella Braverman to a big job (home secretary) was to appease an important caucus (the hard Brexiting ERG-ers), it is at least as significant Sir Gavin had a floating role which carried little meaning as far as the public was concerned, and has fewer than a dozen MPs he counts as friends, and certainly is not head of any faction.

The PM was never buying many friends by appointing Sir Gavin.

So the motive in getting him back in cabinet lay elsewhere. The truth is that Sir Gavin had the same appeal to every prime minister (bar Liz Truss) from David Cameron onwards. While never great at front of house, he understood the political reality of trying to coax, cajole and – yes – coerce a fractious, fighty, Conservative Party to march behind the prime minister of the day.

This is a smelly and unpleasant task, and Sir Gavin outwardly relished the unsavoury aspects too visibly.

However, he also understood MPs individual constituency needs, weak points, their venality and vanity, their selfish aspirations, personal difficulties and policy pressure points.

Sir Gavin’s talent was to understand and reflect back at MPs the bits of their personalities they wish the wider public didn’t know. Such a person was never going to be popular, and his caustic humour and talent for misjudging certain audiences meant he made the job of hating him easier than it should have been.

Yet there are fewer MPs with a talent for political management and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the kind of political and personal trivia than you might expect in SW1. It’s become an exponentially harder task the longer the Tories have been in power.

People with his skillset are few and far between.

And the challenge of keeping the Tories together is arguably the biggest Mr Sunak faces. Battle scarred by the Johnson years and the need to extract a landslide winning PM; traumatised by the Truss mistake, encircled by global and domestic challenges and now led by a man who lost the last Tory membership vote, Mr Sunak needed every piece of party management advice he could get; which is why he turned to Sir Gavin.

Selling spending cuts and tax rises to a sceptical party and convincing them compromise on Brexit in Northern Ireland is the right choice: each an impossible task.

For sure, his reputation meant he was not the person to sell the strategy to colleagues – that’s what the urbane chief whip Simon Hart is for. But Mr Sunak calculated there was a role for a man who could help with deciding the strategy in the first place

That was before the revelations of the last few days: most striking the testimony of Sir Gavin’s deputy Ann Milton about his enjoyment of using salacious personal details for leverage.

Yet the other examples less clear cut: Sir Gavin, then a backbencher, challenging chief whip Wendy Morton over WhatsApp. Rude? Yes. Juvenile? Yup. Pompous? Definitely. But bullying? She was the person at this point in power, not him. How feasible is it for a backbencher to bully the chief whip?

Are we really going to see a new era of rectitude amongst whips as they grapple with the challenges? Are we going to see more cabinet ministers ejected, I’m a Celebrity-style, when the herd turns?

Who will Rishi Sunak stick to when the going gets tough? As we enter week three of his premiership, Gavin Williamson is gone but Suella Braverman remains in post.

UK

School kids asking for advice on strangulation during sex – as abuse victim issues warning

Published

4 hours ago

May 9, 2025

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School kids asking for advice on strangulation during sex - as abuse victim issues warning

Schoolchildren are asking teachers how to strangle a partner during sex safely, a charity says, while official figures show an alarming rise in the crime related to domestic abuse cases.

Warning: This article contains references to strangulation, domestic abuse and distressing images.

It comes as a woman whose former partner almost strangled her to death in a rage has advised anyone in an abusive relationship to seek help and leave.

Bernie Ryan, chief executive of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, has been running the charity since its inception in 2022 after non-fatal strangulation became a standalone offence.

“It’s the ultimate form of control,” she says.

She says perpetrators and victims are getting younger, while the reason is unclear, but strangulation has seeped into popular culture and social media.

“We hear lots of sex education providers, teachers saying that they’re hearing it in schools.

“We know teachers have been asked, ‘how do I teach somebody to strangle safely?’

“Our message is there is no safe way to strangle – the anatomy is the anatomy. Reduction in oxygen to the brain or blood flow will result in the same medical consequences, regardless of context.”

A recent review by Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin recommended banning “degrading, violent and misogynistic content” online.

Violent pornography showing women being choked during sex she found was “rife on mainstream platforms”.

Ms Ryan says she “wants to make sure that young people don’t have access to activities that demonstrate that this is normal behaviour”.

Strangulation is a violent act that is often committed in abusive relationships.

It is the second most common method used by men to kill women, the first is stabbing.

According to statistics shared by the Crown Prosecution Service, in 2024 there was an almost 50% rise in incidents of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation – compared to the year before.

Domestic abuse victim Kerry Allan has a message for anyone who is in an abusive relationship.

Kerry met Michael Cosgrove in September 2022. While she said “at the beginning it was really good”, within months he became physically abusive.

In August last year her friends found his profile on a dating app.

“I confronted him and he denied it. I knew we were going to get into a big argument and I couldn’t face it, so I said I was going to my mum’s for a few days and take myself away from the situation.

“I came back a few days later and stupidly I agreed we could try again and everything escalated from that.”

In the early hours of 25 August the pair had come in from a night out at a concert and got into an argument.

“He was having a go at me, accusing me of flirting with other people, and I was angry. I told him he had a nerve after what he’d done to me in the week and how he humiliated me.

“I told him that I wanted to leave, that we were done and that I wanted to go to my mum’s and that’s when it got bad.

“He pinned me to the bed and that’s when he first strangled me.”

Kerry says this was the first time she’d ever been violently assaulted. Cosgrove was eerily silent as he eventually let go and Kerry gasped for air.

“I remember trying to get my breath back, I was crying and hyperventilating… I was sick on the bedroom floor and I was asking him to go.”

Cosgrove strangled her for a second time before letting go again.

“He was saying I wasn’t getting out of this bedroom alive. I was dead tonight, he hoped that I knew that. Just kept saying how I’d ruined his life.”

“I remember feeling a sort of shock thinking at this point, I’m not going to get out of this bedroom, he’s actually going to kill me.”

Kerry began screaming and shouting for help as loud as she could.

Her neighbours heard the commotion and called the police. While they were en route, Kerry was once again being assaulted.

“I ran over to the bedroom window and tried to jump out, he grabbed me as I went to open the window, and we struggled. And then I was back in the same position, he was on top of me on the bed, and his hands were round the throat again. But this time it didn’t stop.

“I remember trying to struggle and trying to kick out and hit him and I just kept thinking that I definitely was going to die, because at this point, it wasn’t stopping.”

The next memory Kerry has is opening her eyes to see police and paramedics in the bedroom.

Cosgrove had heard the sirens, jumped out of the bedroom window and went to hide in Kerry’s car.

Kerry remembers opening her eyes to paramedics caring for her: “I remember thinking, I’m alive. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I was alive and I wasn’t dead. My last memory is him being on top of me with his hands on my throat.”

She gives this advice to anyone who is in an abusive relationship: “Please speak to somebody, whether it’s friends, family, a work colleague, whether it’s somebody online, whether it’s a charity that you’re directed to, any sort of abuse is not okay.

“Whether it starts off emotional, they often start off that way, and they escalate, and they can escalate badly.

“Take what happened to me as a huge warning sign, because I wouldn’t want anyone else to be in the position I’ve been in the last eight months.”

Cosgrove was found guilty of attempting to murder Kerry and intentional strangulation.

He will be sentenced in July.

UK

King Charles echoes his grandfather’s historic VE Day speech as he marks 80th anniversary

Published

4 hours ago

May 9, 2025

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King Charles echoes his grandfather's historic VE Day speech as he marks 80th anniversary

The King echoed the words of his grandfather as he delivered a speech at the precise moment King George VI addressed the nation to mark VE Day 80 years ago.

At 9pm, Charles spoke at Horse Guards Parade in central London and called on the country to “rededicate ourselves” to “the cause of freedom” and “the prevention of conflict”.

His grandfather spoke to the nation from Buckingham Palace at 9pm on 8 May 1945, to thank the country for their contribution as war came to an end in Europe.

Recalling the VE Day speeches, Charles said: “We should remind ourselves of the words of our great wartime leader, Sir Winston Churchill, who said ‘meeting jaw to jaw is better than war’.

“In so doing, we should also rededicate ourselves not only to the cause of freedom but to renewing global commitments to restoring a just peace where there is war, to diplomacy, and to the prevention of conflict.

“For as my grandfather put it, ‘We shall have failed, and the blood of our dearest will have flowed in vain, if the victory which they died to win does not lead to a lasting peace, founded on justice and established in good will’.

Stressing the responsibility we still hold today, he added: “Just as those exceptional men and women fulfilled their duty to each other, to humankind, and to God, bound by an unshakeable commitment to nation and service, in turn it falls to us to protect and continue their precious legacy – so that one day hence generations yet unborn may say of us: ‘they too bequeathed a better world’.”

The King’s words were designed to be a reminder of current conflicts.

In recent months, the monarch has been placed at the forefront of diplomatic matters, making his call for “unity” even more pertinent.

“The Allied victory being celebrated then, as now, was a result of unity between nations, races, religions and ideologies, fighting back against an existential threat to humanity,” the King said. “Their collective endeavour remains a powerful reminder of what can be achieved when countries stand together in the face of tyranny.”

After a week which has seen the Royal Family make it a priority to ensure VE Day commemorations have been special for the surviving veterans, the King thanked not just those who served in uniform but acknowledged the contribution of those left back home.

“We unite to celebrate and remember with an unwavering and heartfelt gratitude, the service and sacrifice of the wartime generation who made that hard-fought victory possible,” he said. “While our greatest debt is owed to all those who paid the ultimate price, we should never forget how the war changed the lives of virtually everyone.”

Like families up and down the country remembering VE Day, it was clear Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was at the forefront of his mind.

Remembering his mother’s story of what happened when she was allowed to leave the palace, he said: “The celebration that evening was marked by my own late mother who, just 19 years old, described in her diary how she mingled anonymously in the crowds across central London and ‘walked for miles’ among them.

“The rejoicing continued into the next day, when she wrote ‘Out in the crowd again. Embankment, Piccadilly. Rained, so fewer people. Conga-ed into House. Sang till 2am. Bed at 3am!’.

Charles continued: “I do hope your celebrations tonight are almost as joyful, although I rather doubt I shall have the energy to sing until 2am, let alone lead you all in a giant conga from here back to Buckingham Palace.”

Earlier in the week, at a tea party held at Buckingham Palace, the King said to one veteran: “Do you do the conga? I remember doing congas with my grandmother round and round the house.”

UK

Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says

Published

4 hours ago

May 9, 2025

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Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says

Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.

Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.

Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.

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They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.

Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.

But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.

The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.

Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.

Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.

She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.

“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”

Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.

“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.

“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”

A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.

Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.

Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.

One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.

“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.

“There is a lack of vision from this government.”

Another added: “Everyone was furious.”

Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.