Rishi Sunak is backing cabinet minister Gavin Williamson despite increasing pressure to sack him over threatening and abusive texts sent to a colleague. The Prime Minister is said to retain full confidence in him, Downing Street has said, despite increasing calls from opposition leaders to get rid him.
Mr Sunak is under fire for bringing the twice-sacked minister back into the fold when he had been warned the former education secretary was under investigation for allegedly bullying Wendy Morton, the former chief whip. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said Sir Gavin is “clearly not suitable” for the job, and claimed the PM was “weak” to appoint him to the Cabinet Office in the first place.
In the texts exposed over the weekend, Sir Gavin angrily accused Ms Morton of seeking to “punish” MPs like him who were out of favour with then-premier Liz Truss by excluding them from the Queen’s funeral. Former Conservative Party chairman Sir Jake Berry informed Mr Sunak on the day he took office that Ms Morton had lodged a formal complaint over the messages.
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The Prime Minister has said the texts were not “not acceptable or right”, while Cabinet minister Grant Shapps added that the correspondence was “completely inappropriate”. But with questions raised over his judgment, Mr Sunak has sought to clarify what he knew and when.
While he was aware of a “disagreement”, he has said he was not familiar with the details of the exchange at the time he brought Sir Gavin back into Government. Asked on Monday if the PM had full confidence in the minister, his official spokesman said: “Yes.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has questioned the Prime Minister's judgement in the wake of this news. He said: "He’s clearly got people around the Cabinet table who are not fit to be there. That is because he was so weak and wanted to avoid an election within his own party."
The PM’s spokesman said he was “not aware” whether Mr Sunak had spoken with either Sir Gavin or Ms Morton since the matter came to light, but stressed he would not normally get into details of private conversations. He said Mr Sunak has a zero tolerance approach to bullying inside Government.
In the text messages, obtained by The Sunday Times, Sir Gavin complained it was “very poor” that MPs who weren’t “favoured” had been excluded from the Queen’s funeral at Westminster Abbey. Ms Morton repeatedly insisted that his claims were unfounded and that the Government had been allocated an “extremely limited” number of tickets.
Sir Gavin replied: “Well certainly looks it which think is very shit and perception becomes reality. Also don’t forget I know how this works so don’t puss (sic) me about. It’s very clear how you are going to treat a number of us which is very stupid and you are showing f*** all interest in pulling things together.
“Also this shows exactly how you have rigged it is is (sic) disgusting you are using her death to punish people who are just supportive, absolutely disgusting. Well let’s see how many more times you f*** us all over. There is a price for everything.”
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