Fierce, no-nonsense and self-assured. Those are the qualities that helped Gillian Keegan go from leaving school at 16 to a successful business and political career – culminating in her reaching the cabinet.
But they have also proved a setback, as the education secretary found herself at the centre of a storm this week over her handling of the crumbling concrete in schools crisis.
“Does anyone ever say: ‘You know what, you’ve done a fucking good job, because everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing’?” she raged, seconds after a TV interview where she had been challenged about school closures.
It was a hot mic moment when the normally collected Keegan’s true temperament was revealed in a flash. It riled some, and endeared her to others.
Keegan’s background is a far cry from the “men in grey suits” stereotype of Tory MPs. Brought up in Huyton, near Liverpool, she called getting 10 O-levels “something of a miracle”. The options for progressing to A-levels were practically nonexistent, so Keegan left school at 16 to become an apprentice at a car factory in nearby Kirkby.
Keegan was inspired to support the Conservative party by her experiences growing up in Liverpool in the 1980s, where the Militant group dominated the city council. Time on the factory floor also shaped her political views: she was frustrated by the unions’ resistance to changing working practices.
After gaining a business degree from Liverpool John Moores and later a master’s from the London Business School, Keegan entered the corporate world – taking jobs at General Motors, NatWest and Mastercard.
It was her business connections that would later help her succeed with a jump across into politics. At a drinks event for London Business School graduates, Keegan collared Justine Greening, who at the time was education secretary.
With typical forthrightness, Keegan told Greening she was keen on running for parliament and sought her advice. Within the year she had become director of Women2Win, a group set up by Theresa May and Anne Jenkin to help more Conservative women into politics. She was “exactly the type of person” David Cameron was looking for in his ambition to modernise the party, said one ally.
Keegan was selected and went on to become MP for Chichester in 2017, a Tory stronghold nestled in the Sussex South Downs. She served as a backbencher for nearly four years – using her maiden speech to push for greater investment in apprenticeships. “I am here today because of the life chance I had at 16. Everybody deserves that chance,” she said.
Several months on, Greening held a debate on social mobility in the Commons chamber. She looked around in despair from the dispatch box at the thin turnout of MPs waiting to contribute. But of the four Tories perched on the green benches behind her, Keegan was one of them.
Keegan was not a complete political neophyte: the last MP to bear her surname was her father-in-law, Denis Keegan, who represented Nottingham South for the Conservatives in the 1950s. She is also the godmother of two of former House of Commons Speaker John Bercow’s children. Her husband, Michael, was a longtime friend of Bercow’s and donated frequently to his election campaign funds.
Despite the move from Merseyside to Westminster, Keegan remembers her roots. Her Commons office is furnished with two personal pieces of family history – her grandfather’s miner’s lamp and her grandmother’s membership of the Liverpool West Derby Labour party certificate.
Politically, she is revered by members of the “One Nation” caucus of more moderate Conservatives. Keegan endorsed Rory Stewart for the 2019 leadership election. However, she was still given a ministerial job in the Department for Education when Boris Johnson won.
A further climb up the rungs in Westminster to minister of state at the Department of Health hit a setback when she endorsed Rishi Sunak in the 2022 leadership race – leading winner Liz Truss to make her Africa minister, widely viewed as a demotion.
But when Sunak was installed in Downing Street in October, he gave Keegan her her dream job of education secretary.
She has experienced some hiccups – coming under fire for being on holiday during the DfE’s mishandling of summer exam results due to disruption caused by Covid when she was a minister there in 2020.
“What she really needed was to work with a great secretary of state as a junior minister to learn the ropes … who did she get instead? Gavin Williamson,” sighed one senior Tory. “Gavin didn’t know what he was doing, so it was hardly like she was getting any good tips.”
Keegan sees herself as a tough nut. But her outburst this week caused some frustration among Tory MPs. “She’s capable and very clever, but she’s been hideously arrogant by expecting people to ever thank her for doing her job,” said one.
Keegan also breaks the Westminster mould by being unapologetic about her spending habits. Normally, MPs go to great lengths to conceal their wealth to appear more in touch with hard-up voters.
But one colleague of Keegan’s said: “She isn’t embarrassed about her wealth – she will tell you the designer brand of each item of clothing she’s wearing and how much she paid for them.”
Keegan relishes the attention – joking privately to supporters this week that some journalists had revealed the cost of “my watch, my trousers, my shoes – they haven’t caught the bag yet, but they will do”. She even laughed off a striking photograph of her posing over the rim of her sunglasses outside No 10 this week, calling it “Devil Wears Prada does politics”.
She retains a ferocious attitude to work, meaning civil servants are occasionally kept for briefings late into the evening and some have found her untrusting of them and abrasive. Despite that, she still commands their respect with her passion for apprenticeships and education.
Keegan enjoys standing out – and an MP friend of hers says she is the Conservatives’ “most relatable frontbencher”.
“Keir Starmer is basically an AI-generated politician – a local authority jobsworth with a clipboard. She’s the total opposite, but unfortunately she has to play by the same rules,” they said.
