Will the corruption ever end? Gavin Williamson resigns

Whitewavemark2

“Gavin Williamson will pick up £16,876 in severance pay for lasting exactly TWO weeks in government (plus £2,589 in gross pay).

As it's the third time he's been sacked/ forced to quit govt, presumably he's done quite nicely out of taxpayer.”

I can hear the ghost of Yasser Hughes saying

'You're incompetent, right? I can be incompetent. I can, honest. Go on, Gi'z a job? Gi'z a job, go on.'

NanKate

What was he knighted for?

The ability to keep him mouth shut when in possession of damaging facts about the behaviour of senior colleagues.

Well, a particular senior colleague who happened to have knighthoods in his gift, anyway.

What was he knighted for?

Actually Iam64 it’s good to illustrate that the Telegraph also has unbiased columnists. Some people call it the ‘Torygraph’ and dismiss it out of hand (without reading it!).

I liked it when someone likened Williamson to the hapless Private Frank Pike (Don’t tell ‘em Pike!) from the Home Guard in the tv series ‘Dad’s Army’.
🤣

Iam64

Excellent article, thanks urmston. My inability to link stopped me posting John Crace from this morning’s Guardian. It’s another excellent summary of Williamson’s talents and his appeal to Tory leaders 😏

Here you are, Iam

Petera

M0nica

Being a bully is not corruption. As far as I know Gavin Williamson has not been charged with using his influence to get opportunites for others close to him, nor accepting money for favours.

I am not defending him, he should never have been given the job in the first place and I am glad to see him go, but he is not corrupt and has not been charged with corruption.

I agree with you M0nica on the narrow point of the definition of Williamson's behavour, but the people who supported him allegedly to prevent their behaviour from becoming public are guilty of corruption.

I don’t think we know if he’s actually behaved in a corrupt way or not. I wonder what it was that persuaded Sunak to give him a cabinet role, knowing he’d been sacked twice before, Williamson must hold some sway surely - what is it though?

M0nica

Being a bully is not corruption. As far as I know Gavin Williamson has not been charged with using his influence to get opportunites for others close to him, nor accepting money for favours.

I am not defending him, he should never have been given the job in the first place and I am glad to see him go, but he is not corrupt and has not been charged with corruption.

I agree with you M0nica on the narrow point of the definition of Williamson's behavour, but the people who supported him allegedly to prevent their behaviour from becoming public are guilty of corruption.

Excellent article, thanks urmston. My inability to link stopped me posting John Crace from this morning’s Guardian. It’s another excellent summary of Williamson’s talents and his appeal to Tory leaders 😏

'Dung beetle' .

When people say he was a fireplace salesman - was he going to people's houses helping customers to choose between living flame and electric bars, or is it like calling Terence Conran a furniture salesman?

Not that it matters, but if it's the former it makes his rise to prominence seem even more questionable.

Love this, taken from an article about him in the Telegraph this morning:

“The former fireplace salesman served as defence secretary under Theresa May and education secretary under Boris Johnson during Covid, somehow managing to keep British schools closed longer than any comparable country while making a fiasco of exams. He was sacked from both roles. Astoundingly, Boris awarded him a knighthood in March.

When I saw that Rishi Sunak had appointed him Minister without Portfolio, I thought:

1. Not trusted to be given a proper job but too feared not to be given a job. He knows too much.

2. Payback time for twisting arms during the Tory leadership campaign.

3. This will be a disaster that “professionalism and integrity” Sunak lives to regret.

Sure enough, it was just weeks before leaked text messages appeared to show Williamson threatening the then chief whip Wendy Morton for not getting him an invitation to the Queen’s funeral. He whinged at being excluded from Westminster Abbey and accused Ms Morton of “rigging the ticket allocation” to punish people like him who had not supported Liz Truss. He seemed to warn the chief whip not to “push him about” saying darkly, “there is a price for everything”.

Ms Morton sent the messages to the Conservative Party after making a formal complaint about Williamson’s behaviour. She has now referred him to Parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme.

“I of course regret getting frustrated about the way colleagues and I felt we were being treated,” apologised Williamson, unapologetically – though this time, it wasnt enough to save his bacon and last night he resigned.

Until yesterday, he enjoyed the Prime Minister’s “full confidence”. but claims that Williamson had told a senior civil servant to “slit your throat” and “jump out of a window” made his position untenable. In classic Alan Partridge style, he did not deny using those words but “disputed they amounted to bullying”. Slit your throat being a term of endearment in the fireplace community. Can you imagine such behaviour in any other workplace?”

Sums up the dung beetle nicely I think.

I’ve just read that Williamson says he won’t take the severance pay.
Pity Truss didn’t refuse her hand out
What a shower

I used to (like to) think that corruption was rare in the UK - but no more. Surely, severance pay should be similar to redundancy, reasonable and linked to length of service? Still, working in education, it always seemed that the useless ones were soon 'rewarded' with redundancy - and the rest of us battled on

All this money for getting sacked needs to be stopped, doesn’t it? I can understand a severance payment when cabinet ministers (or possibly also MPs) are voted out in a change of government. The point of paying MPs was that if we didn’t leadership would be skewed to the rich* as working people couldn’t afford to do it otherwise. I suppose that would also apply to losing their jobs, if they’d given one up to carry out their ministerial duties properly. If they’ve kept a side hustle going, or been sacked, however, I think it’s different and it’s getting very close to corruption when the system rewards bad behaviour.

* I know - I was talking generally, not about this dreadful bunch of upper class twits.

I would say he is definitely corrupt given the dodgy deals he has done regarding hiding PMs and MPs behaviour.

He has a knighthood out of it for gods sake!

He knows too much and thinks he is invincible.

“Gavin Williamson will pick up £16,876 in severance pay for lasting exactly TWO weeks in government (plus £2,589 in gross pay).

As it's the third time he's been sacked/ forced to quit govt, presumably he's done quite nicely out of taxpayer.”

I would say that corruption has to have an element of swindling to qualify , but I’m not invested enough to bother looking it up to prove it

I don't know which dictionary you're using, but the first definition I found (in the Cambridge) is "illegal, bad, or dishonest behaviour, especially by people in positions of power".

Corruption doesn't need to be tested legally. You can think you're as pedantic as you like, but this definition includes "bad or dishonest", which is what Williamson has been.

I think that his decoration was corrupt, but his behaviour was ‘just’ heinous.

Private Eye (they can’t make things up or they get sued) has written about Williamson’s knighthood. It was basically awarded for him keeping quiet about Boris Johnson’s convoluted love life.

It’s not corruption but you just cannot email a colleague and tell them to “slit their throat” and “ jump out of the window”.
How ever frustrated you feel about their actions that is going much too far.

Sorry, I am being pedantic, but whatever an individual wants a word to mean, we are stuck with what most people think a word means and that is the meaning given formally in a dictionary, which in this case means, fraudulent and dishonest behaviour.

As I said I am not defending Williamson, bullying is a nasty way of of getting your own way by violence and intimidation, and given the general acceptance that this kind of behaviour is considered unacceptable in any circumstances, especially for someone in the public eye like this, it is also a very stupid to thing to do, because, as has happened here, once you are accused of it, especially formally in a goldfish bowl like parliament, the door marked Exit swings open and you are on your way out. Your career overshadowed by bullying claims for life.

However this kind of behaviour, however heinous, us not corruption.

As far as I know, he was not on best friends terms with the Queen, so to get in a fury over not getting an invite to her funeral just shows him up as a complete arse licker. The fact that the last 3 PMs have hired him and fired him, shows how incompetent this whole bunch are. He got him knighthood for services to Boris Johnson, which is corruption in my book.

Wyllow3

Actually, I think it is corrupt to bully. Intimidation to get your way is corrupt imo.

I agree. Using your influence to stop others from facing the consequences others would face or getting something not deserved is corruption Maybe it wouldn't stand a legal test, but morally it's corruption.

If he got his knighthood for his ‘achievements’ in office, then IMO it should be rescinded.

I’m waiting for him to tell us where the bodies are buried.