Allegations of bullying against Dominic Raab are “plausible”, a former top civil servant has said following a slew of reports about the deputy PM’s behaviour.
Lord Simon McDonald, who was permanent secretary at the Foreign Office between 2015 and 2020, said Mr Raab was a “tough boss” and the claims about him are believable.
The allegations relate to his previous stint as justice secretary under Boris Johnson, with staff reportedly offered a “route out” of his department when he was reinstated in October.
Civil servants who worked with him told The Guardian he was a “very rude and aggressive” boss while another report claimed the justice secretary had acquired the nickname “The Incinerator” because he “burns through” staff.
And a survey of 20 people working in Mr Raab’s private office when he was foreign secretary in 2019 showed that 40% reported personal experience of bullying and harassment – though not necessarily by Mr Raab – and 75% witnessed it, ITV reported on Sunday.
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Lord McDonald, who as Sir Simon McDonald was the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office while Mr Raab was foreign secretary, said bullying allegations were believable.
Asked by LBC radio if characterisation of Mr Raab as someone who could bully and around whom bullying could happen, he replied: “Yes.”
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“Dominic Raab is one of the most driven people I ever worked for, he was a tough boss,” he said.
“Maybe they are euphemisms, but I worked closely with him and I didn’t see everything that happened.”
Lord McDonald said he worked in the Foreign Office for nearly 40 years and while “pressure characterised most of those years… fractured relations between ministers and civil service were much more obvious at the end than at the beginning”.
He said there is bullying in Whitehall and it is “very difficult for the system to deal with… especially when it happens at the top”.
His comments came after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he did not “recognise that characterisation” of the man he reappointed as justice secretary and deputy PM, and denied knowing about any formal complaints against Mr Raab.
Sunak stands by Raab
On Monday, Mr Sunak stood by his close ally, telling reporters travelling with him to Indonesia for the G20 summit: “I don’t recognise that characterisation of Dominic and I’m not aware of any formal complaints about him.
“Of course there are established procedures for civil servants if they want to bring to light any issues.
“I’m not aware of any formal complaint about Dominic.”
But additional weight was added to the claims on Monday night following a report that Simon Case, the head of the civil service, was told by senior officials of concerns about Mr Raab’s abrasive treatment of junior staff and took steps to try to improve his behaviour.
According to Bloomberg, senior officials raised their objections about Mr Raab’s treatment of staff directly to Mr Case and while it did not constitute a formal complaint, the cabinet secretary took action by holding discussions with other officials over how to bring about changes in the justice secretary’s behaviour.
Antonia Romeo, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, reportedly then discussed the matter personally with Mr Raab.
In response to the report, a spokesperson from the MoJ told Sky News Mr Raab and the permanent secretary “meet frequently to discuss the effective running of the department that they’re both responsible for”.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We have no record of any formal complaints.”
The allegations will prove troublesome for Mr Sunak, whose choice of cabinet colleagues has already been called into question.
The prime minister came under fire for reappointing Sir Gavin Williamson to his senior team despite being told he was under investigation for allegedly bullying a colleague, claims that caused Sir Gavin to quit.
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Prime minister Rishi Sunak has been announcing his new cabinet. Jeremy Hunt remains chancellor, with Suella Braverman brought back in as home secretary.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has reiterated demands for an independent investigation to be launched.
“It is anti-bullying week, but instead of holding the bullies to account this prime minister is cowering behind them. Rishi Sunak clearly knew about Dominic Raab’s reputation when he reappointed him to his cabinet,” she said.
“Rishi Sunak put the Tory Party before the country and cut a series of grubby deals to avoid facing a leadership contest, his cabinet is overflowing with ministers embroiled in misconduct allegations. An independent investigation into Dominic Raab must urgently be launched.”
The Liberal Democrats have written to Mr Case to ask for a list to be published of ministers with “credible allegations of bullying” made against them.
Despite the stream of allegations, Mr Raab will face MPs when he stands in for his party leader during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.
A spokesman for Mr Raab said of previous reports: “Dominic has high standards, works hard, and expects a lot from his team as well as himself.
“He has worked well with officials to drive the government’s agenda across Whitehall in multiple government departments and always acts with the utmost professionalism.”
Headlights illuminate a group of soldiers smoking and drinking steaming cups of coffee on the side of a road in northeastern Ukraine.
A fine sleet on another freezing night falls on the silhouetted barrel of a Soviet-era anti-aircraft gun mounted on an ancient, battered lorry.
These are the men of a mobile air defence unit, preparing for another night of tracking and attempting to shoot out of the skies the Russian drones heading for cities and power plants across Ukraine.
We joined the units over 48 hours in the southern sector of the city of Sumy, near the border with Russia.
Captain Serhii, of the 117th Brigade, is a commander in charge of 160 of these men in eight mobile units protecting this area of northeastern Ukraine.
We met up with him in an empty car park next to a high-rise apartment block in Sumy.
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Sitting in his 4×4 he squinted in concentration as his scanner showed a handful of drones on a flight path heading towards us from Russia.
Air raid sirens blared in the background.
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He signalled for us to follow, and he sped off into the night weaving through checkpoints along empty, darkened country roads.
He had said the drone was near, but we were confused when he suddenly pulled off the road and jumped out of his cab.
Within moments the skies were lit up by mobile anti-aircraft batteries firing into the sky.
Tracers from the bullets flew over our heads and above us we could hear the monotonous sound of the drone as it passed overhead.
Searchlights reflected off a dank, dense fog that had enveloped the countryside criss-crossed in the sky as the units tried to spot the drone.
They didn’t spot or hit the drone, and slowly the sound of its motors grew dimmer and dimmer until there was silence.
“You can see the current weather conditions, it’s foggy, so we’re basically working off sound alone, as thermal imaging and other devices can’t pick them up,” Captain Serhii told me.
“A spotlight is completely pointless, the speed of these drones isn’t particularly high, so technically, we could hit them, but the weather makes it impossible,” he added.
Every night across Ukraine the tarpaulin covers are pulled off these Soviet-era anti-aircraft guns and prepared for action.
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On battered trucks they rumble into the night to take up defensive positions.
These old guns are the country’s main defence against an increasing number of drone attacks from Russia.
The units here say they mostly encounter two types of drones which are usually deployed at the same time: Gerberas and Shaheds.
Gerberas do not carry an explosive payload but instead are designed to confuse Ukraine’s air defence, while the Iranian-supplied Shahed drones carry explosives with pre-programmed targets.
One of the soldiers, Volodymyr, tracks the drones on a handheld tablet. All the men wait, watch the screen, and listen.
“They generally fly between 200-300m up to 3km,” Volodymyr tells me.
“If they’re flying lower than 300m above sea level, the radar won’t pick them up.”
The men start to gather around their anti-air battery unit as a drone flies closer towards our location.
The gunner then jumps onto the truck and searches for the target on a radar attached to his weapon.
He will fire when it’s within a 10km range of his position.
The night-time silence in the middle of the field is suddenly shattered by the deafening sound of firing as the gunner goes for the drone.
Then in the fields all around us other units join the attack – it’s so dark we had no idea they were even there.
It’s absolutely relentless.
Captain Serhii tells me their critical job would be made easier with more sophisticated weapons like the American-made Patriot system.
“We need a stronger, more automated air defence system that operates independently of human involvement,” he said.
“Winter is approaching, and our guys who are on duty 24/7 will face incredibly tough conditions, they aren’t made of steel, so having an automated system would be ideal.”
He believes any political negotiations with Russia will just end badly for Ukraine.
“A frozen conflict is typically just a temporary pause, and you can’t trust [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, because any agreement made will likely work in Russia’s favour,” he told me.
“They’ll stockpile resources, more Shaheds, rockets, soldiers, even North Koreans, and then they’ll return, and they’ll come back stronger than they did in 2022.”
Satellite images show that smog in Pakistan can be seen from space, as the country battles record levels of air pollution.
Images from NASA Worldview show the east of the country cloaked in a toxic haze, with smog also reaching into India’s northern regions and New Dehli.
Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab region and home to 14 million people, had an air quality index of more than 400 on Tuesday morning, according to IQAir, which tracks global air quality.
Any reading above 300 is considered hazardous – anything between 0 to 50 is considered good.
Earlier in November, parts of Lahore had a reading above 1,900, marking a record high.
IQAir also reported on Tuesday that the concentration of PM2.5 – microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs and can cause cancer – in Lahore was more than 50 times above recommended guidelines.
The city in eastern Pakistan is often ranked as one of the worst places in the world for air pollution.
Regional authorities have banned most outdoor activities, ordered shops to close early, and closed schools and public spaces until 17 November in response to the air pollution.
Health officials said more than 40,000 people have already been treated for respiratory ailments, while hospitals in the region have reported an unprecedented rise in patients with eye and throat irritation and pink eye disease.
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It comes as a UN agency warned the health of 11 million children in the Punjab region is at risk if efforts aren’t made to tackle the toxic smog.
Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF’s representative in the country, said in a statement: “Prior to these record-breaking levels of air pollution, about 12% of deaths in children under five in Pakistan were due to air pollution.
“The impact of this year’s extraordinary smog will take time to assess, but we know that doubling and tripling the amount of pollution in the air will have devastating effects, particularly on children and pregnant women.”
Several South Asian countries are engulfed by smog each winter as cold air traps dust, emissions and smoke from farm fires.
Thirty-five people have been killed and another 43 injured after a motorist deliberately drove his car into people exercising at a sports centre in the Chinese city of Zhuhai, police said.
A 62-year-old man, identified only by his family name of Fan, was detained at the centre late on Monday.
He was discovered in the car with a knife and wounds to his neck that were thought to be self-inflicted, according to a police statement.
Fan was reported to be unconscious and receiving medical care.
A motive has not been confirmed but police said a preliminary investigation found he was unhappy with the split of financial assets in his divorce.
Officers said a “number of” pedestrians were knocked down in the incident which took place on the eve of of an annual People’s Liberation Army exhibition in the southern Chinese city.
China’s president Xi Jinping has called for “all-out efforts” to treat those injured in the disaster, the country’s state media has said.
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Mr Xi also said the perpetrator should be punished in “accordance with the law”.
Meanwhile, one of the four hospitals that took in casualties said it had more than 20 injured, state media reported.
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Video shared on social media showed emergency services performing CPR on people at the scene, as others were told to leave the area.
Some were shared by news blogger and dissident Li Ying, who is better known on X as Teacher Li. His account posts daily news based on user submissions.
The clips showed dozens of people lying on the sports centre’s running track, with a woman in one saying: “My foot is broken.”
By Tuesday morning, searches for the incident were heavily censored on Chinese social media platforms.
A search on Weibo for the sports centre only turned up a few posts, with only a couple referring to the fact that something had happened, without pictures or details.
Articles by Chinese media about the incident from Monday night were taken down.
Chinese internet censors take extra care to check social media ahead of and during major events, such as the meeting of the National People’s Congress, where the government announces its major policy initiatives for the coming year.
The sports centre for the city district of Xiangzhou regularly attracts hundreds of residents, where they can run on the track field, play soccer and take part in social dances. Following the incident, the centre announced that it would be closed until further notice.
China has seen a number of attacks in which suspects appear to target random people such as schoolchildren.
In October, a 50-year-old man was detained after he allegedly used a knife to attack children at a school in Beijing. Five people were injured.
In September, three people were killed in a knife attack in a Shanghai supermarket.