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

Russell Brand charged with rape and sexual assault

Published

11 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Russell Brand has been charged with rape and two counts of sexual assault between 1999 and 2005.

The Metropolitan Police say the 50-year-old comedian, actor and author has also been charged with one count of oral rape and one count of indecent assault.

The charges relate to four women.

He is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday 2 May.

Police have said Brand is accused of raping a woman in the Bournemouth area in 1999 and indecently assaulting a woman in the Westminster area of London in 2001.

He is also accused of orally raping and sexually assaulting a woman in Westminster in 2004.

The fourth charge alleges that a woman was sexually assaulted in Westminster between 2004 and 2005.

Police began investigating Brand, from Oxfordshire, in September 2023 after receiving a number of allegations.

The comedian has previously denied the accusations, and said all his sexual relationships were “absolutely always consensual”.

Met Police Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who is leading the investigation, said: “The women who have made reports continue to receive support from specially trained officers.

“The Met’s investigation remains open and detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police.”

UK

Last UK blast furnaces days from closure as Chinese owners cut off crucial supplies

Published

18 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Last UK blast furnaces days from closure as Chinese owners cut off crucial supplies

The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.

Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.

The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.

The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.

The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.

The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.

The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.

However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.

Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.

However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.

They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.

The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.

Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.

“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”

British Steel declined to comment.

UK

Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released

Published

21 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Prince Andrew's Pitch@Palace branded 'crude attempt to enrich himself' as Chinese spy documents set to be released

Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.

Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.

In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.

Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.

So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?

In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.

The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.

Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.

Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.

But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.

Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.

He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…

“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.

Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.

He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.

He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.

“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”

We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.

With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.