Gavin Williamson: the tarantula-wielding Tory minister accused of bullying

Embattled Tory minister Gavin Williamson is facing fresh bullying allegations that have prompted a cabinet colleague to warn that “we are all sackable”.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride told Sky News that Williamson was an “important member” of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, but added: “As we have seen in the recent past, even the prime minister is sackable.”

Williamson was already under investigation for alleged bullying when The Guardian reported yesterday that he had told a senior civil servant to “slit your throat” and had “deliberately demeaned and intimidated” staff. The claims pile further pressure on Sunak to axe the former chief whip, who has strongly rejected the allegations of bullying.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What is Williamson’s background?

Born on 25 June 1976, Williamson grew up in Scarborough in North Yorkshire. His father, Ray, was a council planner and his mother, Beverly, worked in a job centre. Both were Labour supporters.

The future Tory MP attended a state comprehensive, Raincliffe School, and Scarborough Sixth Form College, and went on to study social sciences at the University of Bradford. He was also active in politics during his university days, serving as national chair of the now-defunct Conservative Students.

Williamson has claimed that after graduating in 1997, he was offered a job with the Tory party. But he became a fireplace salesperson instead after his father advised him to “get a real job”. Williamson went on to become managing director of Aynsley China, a Staffordshire-based pottery firm, and sat on the board of the British Ceramic Confederation.

He remained active in politics, however. In 2001, “while still only 24”, he was elected as a North Yorkshire county councillor in the Seamer and Ayton ward, said The Yorkshire Post. That same year he married primary school teacher Joanne Eland, with whom he has two children.

Williamson also “held leading roles” in Conservative associations in the Staffordshire area, Stoke-on-Trent and Derbyshire Dales, before standing for parliament in the 2005 election, said political magazine The House. His bid to become the MP for Blackpool North and Fleetwood failed, with Williamson finishing more than 5,000 votes behind Labour MP Joan Humble.

But five years later, he was elected as the Conservative MP for the safe seat of South Staffordshire, and was returned in 2019 with a majority of 28,250 votes as his political star continued to rise.

Williamson has served as personal private secretary (PPS) to a number of cabinet ministers, including David Cameron, and ran Theresa May’s successful 2016 Tory leadership bid, earning a promotion to chief whip.

He also played a crucial role in negotiating the confidence-and-supply agreement with the DUP that propped up May’s minority government after the 2017 general election.

Described by May’s senior adviser Nick Timothy as an “excellent” chief whip who was “a shrewd tactician”, Williamson also earned the nickname the “baby-faced assassin”.

The Independent reported in 2017 that the nickname was “enhanced by his extraordinary rise to defence secretary”. The promotion, the news site said, came after Williamson apparently played “a key role in the sacking of his predecessor Michael Fallon”. His formidable reputation was then strengthened further by the revelation that he kept a tarantula called Cronus on his office desk.

Setting out his style of politics to the Conservative Party conference in 2017 he said: “We take a carrot and stick approach… Personally I don’t much like the stick, but it is amazing what can be achieved with a sharpened carrot.”

The rapid political ascent came to an abrupt halt in 2019 when Williamson was sacked as defence secretary over his alleged leaking of information about Huawei’s potential involvement in the British 5G network.

An early backer of Boris Johnson as Tory leader, he was appointed secretary of state for education in 2019. Politics Home said he “initially appeared to suit his role; he went to a comprehensive school, is married to a former teacher and has previously been a school governor and county councillor”.

But he hit the headlines over what the Daily Express described as the “shambles of A-level results” during the pandemic. Williamson was criticised over his handling of school closures and exams, and after a series of humiliating climbdowns was eventually replaced by Nadhim Zahawi in 2021.

Williamson’s “rise through the Conservative ranks has been blown off course by a number of separate scandals”, said BBC political reporter Becky Morton. “However, he has been widely seen as a political survivor, serving under four different prime ministers.”

One of them, Johnson, rewarded him with a knighthood in 2022.

Effective enforcer or overbearing bully?

Brought back into the cabinet by Sunak, whom he backed in the latest Tory leadership election, Williamson has been at the centre of a series of bullying allegations that once again threaten his position.

Last week The Sunday Times reported that former chief whip Wendy Morton had handed over a series of expletive-laden text messages from Williamson to Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme.

The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar then revealed that Williamson had told a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence to “jump out of the window”, in a series of furious exchanges that it is alleged constituted a sustained campaign of bullying.

Former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan revealed that she is no fan of her erstwhile colleague. “I had my run-ins with Gavin Williamson when he was Theresa May’s chief whip; none of this surprises me, sadly,” she told Kate McCann on TalkTV.

Morgan added that it would be “very difficult” for Sunak not to ask Williamson to quit, “but if he’s desperate to protect Williamson, Downing Street can of course stick to the line that it’s an anonymous allegation and no official complaint was made”, said Politico.

The question many are asking is why Williamson was brought back in the first place. He “might not be a great reforming secretary of state but he does know how to count”, said The Spectator, fuelling suggestions he is effectively running the whips office from behind the scenes.

With the Tory party still bitterly divided, his experience corralling rebellious MPs may be invaluable for the new prime minister, but keeping Williamson on remains “a gamble”, said Politico, “seeing as Westminster is expecting more to come out about Gav’s past niceties, which could mean sustained damage for the PM. And if Sunak is forced to sack him in the end, he’ll look like a chump after appointing the controversial MP while knowing there was an existing complaint against him from the Truss administration.”