The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-06)

Five employees accuse Tory

deputy chairman of bullying

The Sunday Times February 6, 2022 9

POLITICS

with Philip” — her husband of four dec-

ades, whom May describes as her “rock”.

Those close to May say she changed her

mind about speaking out because the

parties scandal — featuring a prime minis-

ter breaking rules that he had written,

denying there had been parties and then

claiming he knew nothing about them —

was an affair that might have been

designed to offend every notion of public

duty and decency that May holds dear.

“This particular story would offend

her view of what it is to be prime minister

and what the basic expectations of the

job are,” a former No 10 official said. “The

way [Johnson] has behaved since the alle-

gations came to light would have made it

a lot worse. If he had come to the dispatch

box and said, ‘This happened. It should

not have happened and I apologise,’ I

don’t think she would have intervened.”

Those familiar with her thinking say

Revenge of the

MAYBOT

Friends also think she would be pre-

pared to take on “a big international job”

if one came up. “She had some discus-

sions about doing something on human

trafficking, which she is particularly pas-

sionate about,” one ally said.

But most of those around her believe

May is happy as a backbencher. “My view

is that as long as she is healthy, she will

carry on in the House,” one said. “She

gets a great deal of satisfaction from being

[a constituency MP] in a way

that some former prime

ministers didn’t.”

Giving her first words on the new

crisis to her local paper was typical of this

approach. Six months after May returned

to the back benches, she held a Westmin-

ster Hall debate on rail services in Twy-

ford. “She did that when she was home

secretary and prime minister,” said

another longstanding aide. “When she

was at the Home Office the US interior

minister wanted to get hold of her and

she was at a cake sale.

“She is the first former PM since Jim

Callaghan to get elected again. She was

first elected in 1997 and was on the front

bench by 1998, so she’s never really been

Rule-breaking, flimsy denials

and claims of ignorance — the

parties scandal might have

been precision-engineered to

offend Theresa May. Little

wonder that the former PM

has seized the opportunity

to get her own back on the

man who helped

drive her from office,

writes Tim Shipman

May’s opposition to Johnson was both

personal and political. Throughout the

pandemic, May has been a cautious critic

of draconian lockdown rules. “She’s been

saying that she accepts the need to do

some things, but some of the regulations

go way too far,” an ally said. In classic May

fashion, “she read the regulations and

worked out which bits she agreed with”,

and her take on Johnson was: “You didn’t

bother to bloody read them, did you?”

The way May phrased her question

was significant, since it allowed for the

idea that Johnson did not know his own

rules. There is subtext here, in that May

and her team have always believed that

Johnson did not understand the detail of

Brexit either.

“The relationship was never a good

one, because ultimately her test of peo-

ple is not ideological, it is about serious-

ness,” one of her most senior former

aides said. “Although she didn’t get on

with Michael Gove at all, she always

respected him, because whenever he

came to see her about anything he was

always on top of the brief. That was her

test of seriousness. Whereas in [meet-

ings] with Boris, she would often ask him

a question and he wouldn’t have a clue.”

One May ally suggested she “regrets”

appointing Johnson as her foreign secre-

tary, having originally made the decision

in the hope that it would tie his hands

while removing responsibility for Brexit

policy from the Foreign Office.

While May did not consult widely

about her move against Johnson, since

leaving office she has maintained a small

inner circle of former staff who support

her and act as a sounding board. They

meet in her House of Commons office,

and conducted online meetings during

lockdown, but insiders say there has not

been a significant gathering

The keepers of May’s flame include

Lord Barwell, her former chief of staff,

his former deputy Baroness Penn, the

press aide Liz Sanderson, plus the politi-

cal aide Lord Parkinson, the former pol-

icy chief James Marshall and sometimes

Keelan Carr, her former speechwriter,

although he has returned to government

in Gove’s department of levelling up.

Since leaving Downing Street in July

2019, May has racked up more than

£1.9 million in fees from the Washington

Speakers Bureau, which also handles

Sir Tony Blair.

W

hen a group of Theresa

May’s close allies met for

dinner two weeks ago to

honour Sir George Holling-

bery, her former parlia-

mentary private secretary,

the conversation on peo-

ple’s lips was not his role

as the new British ambassador to Cuba

but the crisis and chaos that has engulfed

Downing Street under her successor,

Boris Johnson.

May, whose time as prime minister

was made immeasurably more difficult

by Johnson, did not pull her punches.

“She was deeply distressed about it all

and thought it was a terrible mess,” said

one of those present. “But she had

avoided saying it in public because she

knew what a big deal it would be if she did

say something.”

But by last Monday, May’s distress had

palpably turned to anger. An “update” on

the report by the civil servant Sue Gray

into lockdown-busting parties in Down-

ing Street criticised the “leadership” in

No 10 and revealed that gatherings,

including some attended by the prime

minister, were the subject of criminal

inquiries by the Metropolitan police.

Even before Johnson’s blustering dis-

play, May had decided not to pull her

punches. She adopted the glaring disap-

proval of a maiden aunt confronting a

nephew who has removed his trousers in

church and said: “What the Gray report

does show is that No 10 Downing Street

was not observing the regulations they

had imposed on members of the public.

So either my right honourable friend had

not read the rules, or didn’t understand

what they meant, and others around

him, or they didn’t think the rules

applied to No 10. Which was it?”

It was tantamount to calling Johnson

negligent, stupid or a liar. He told her to

“wait [for] the conclusion of the inquiry”.

The intervention electrified the Com-

mons. A few days earlier, May had written

a letter to her local newspaper, the Maid-

enhead Advertiser, in which she said

she was “angry” about the revelations,

argued that “nobody is above the law”

and insisted there should be “full

accountability” if deliberate wrongdoing

was uncovered.

“That is not something she would have

done lightly,” a close ally said. “She will

have agonised about it and discussed it

a backbencher. She has relished the

opportunity.”

Some allies think this has led to her

saying too much, speaking out about

planning reforms, HS2 and other matters

where most former prime ministers

would keep their counsel.

“There have been views about

whether she should be intervening so

much,” a former minister close to May

said. “A lot of her interventions are what

she feels and thinks as a backbencher, but

I think a lot of other prime ministers

would filter more out and pick their

spots. There were one or two alarm bells

about how often it was happening.”

Yet no one close to her thinks she

deserves criticism for attacking Johnson.

Everyone spoke their minds in public

while she was PM, including Boris,” said

the former minister. “So she doesn’t

worry about it too much.”

ILLUSTRATION: TONY BELL

May questioning Johnson on Monday

concerns known to human

resources staff at CCHQ last

year. Tomlinson has denied

the claims, saying: “This is

absolutely untrue.” He added:

“I do not recognise what you

have said.”

According to Tory sources,

none of those raising their

concerns have made a formal

complaint despite being

reminded of the party’s

grievance procedure. They

said officials would seek to

resolve grievances internally

but had regrettably been

unable to prevent one

individual from leaving.

A party spokesman said:

“CCHQ takes allegations like

this incredibly seriously ...

We have a well-established

complaints procedure and

helpline open to all staff,

should they wish to use it. We

have never received a

[formal] complaint about the

deputy chairman.”

It comes after the Muslim

Conservative MP Nusrat

Ghani, 49, said last month

that her “Muslimness was

raised as an issue” when she

was sacked as a transport

minister in 2020. She said

The Conservative Party’s

deputy chairman is

embroiled in a bullying row

after five members of staff

came forward with

complaints about his alleged

behaviour, sources have

claimed.

Justin Tomlinson, a former

minister who is the MP for

North Swindon, has been

accused of bullying and

sending inappropriate

“unprofessional” and

“belittling” messages to

employees at Conservative

Campaign Headquarters

(CCHQ). There is no

suggestion that they were

sexual in nature. Tomlinson,

45, is also accused of using an

aggressive tone in person.

One staffer is said to have

quit as a result and a female

employee told the party she

would not want to be alone

with him in the office,

although she makes no claim

that anything untoward had

happened.

It is understood that five

employees made their

Caroline Wheeler and

Gabriel Pogrund

Justin Tomlinson

faces complaints

of having sent

“unprofessional”

and “belittling”

messages to

party staff

that she chose not to pursue a

complaint. An inquiry into

Islamophobia in the

Conservative Party two years

ago found no evidence of

“institutional Islamophobia”,

but was critical of senior Tory

figures including Boris

Johnson.

Some of the allegations

concerning Tomlinson are

understood to relate to a

by-election last year. As

deputy chairman, he plays a

key role interacting with staff

as well as grassroots activists.

Tomlinson was demoted as

a minister for disabled

people, work and health last

year, but has remained

supportive of the prime

minister.

It is not the first time that

he has faced controversy. He

was suspended from

parliament in 2016 for leaking

the findings of an inquiry into

regulating consumer credit

with the payday lender

Wonga.com. He apologised

for breaking the rules. As a

junior minister he suggested

that those facing a universal

credit cap could take in a

lodger.