Alas poor Gav … But what a fortnight! A triumph of professionalism, integrity and accountability.
Devastated. Heartbroken. When King Charles dabbed away a tear at his mother’s funeral, it wasn’t because he was moved by the poetry with which Liz Truss read the lesson. Or even the solemnity of the occasion. What had upset him so profoundly was the jokey text message from Kwasi Kwarteng informing him that Gavin Williamson had been left off the guest list by Wendy Morton. Thank God the Queen was no longer alive to witness one of her oldest friends being “pussed about”.
Few knew how close the Queen and Gav had been. Fewer still knew that they had spoken every day by phone to natter about staffing issues. Who was bullying whom. That kind of thing. The two had met when Gav had come to Sandringham to sell the Queen a new fireplace. One from the ever-popular Elizabethan range.
The Queen had been the first to write to congratulate him when he subsequently won Fireplace Salesman of the Year in 2007 and from then on the pair were inseparable. The Queen had even made a point of presenting Gav with the coveted trophy again the following year. The first time any fireplace salesman had ever won the award in back to back years. Stick with the winners! Liz had.
After that, the rapport had just developed naturally. The Queen hadn’t quite seen why Gav had had to be sacked as defence minister for leaking national security council briefings. Surely he was just being picked on for his easygoing and pleasant manner. Nor could she see why he was also sacked as education secretary just because he made a complete mess of the exams system. Still, it had been the proudest day of her life when she finally got to knight him. Arise, Sir Gav.
The King thought back to his last conversation with his mother. How she had implored him to intercede with whoever happened to be prime minister that week – even she was struggling to keep up – to get justice for Gav. The least he deserved was another cabinet job. Even if no one, including Gav, really knew what he was meant to be doing. The royal family, better than most, knew the value of non-jobs.
So when Rishi Sunak became prime minister, Charles had been happy to put a good word in. A last act of duty to the Queen from a devoted son. To the King’s surprise, it had been like pushing at an open door. Rish! had been been only too happy to insist that Gav’s reputation as a total liability, who could only be depended on to be the most untrustworthy and unpleasant person in any room, was entirely undeserved. The fact you couldn’t find anyone to admit they hadn’t been bullied by Gav proved it was all a plot.
It would be an honour to have someone whom even Boris Johnson had been obliged to sack back in the cabinet. Not out of weakness. Far from it. Everyone knew that Rish! had never needed to make any grubby deals to ensure his coronation as prime minister.
No. It was from a position of strength. Gav was clearly the right person for the job. Whatever that job happened to be. He’d work out those kind of details later. For now it was just nice to have Gav back around the place. Minister without portfolio. To convey the right “Don’t give a toss” attitude to the cost of living crisis. Gav was a man made for levitas.
Perhaps in time, Rish! had thought, he would find something for Gav to do. Minister for making everyone feel good about being British. Minister for something to do with national security: that would give him something to leak. Minister for government press officers – or minister for bullying, as it was otherwise known. That would do. Not that Gav was a bully. Just a bit high-spirited and excitable. Someone who couldn’t help getting priapic at his proximity to power. Someone whose sense of humour was to take whipping literally.
So Gav had told the chief whip to fuck off. To stop pussing him about. That was just everyday bantz. And he had told a senior civil servant at the ministry of defence to slit his throat. That had been an act of kindness. He had simply thought the person had been choking on a crisp and was merely suggesting an emergency tracheotomy. He was trying to save a life.
And as for Gav telling someone to jump out the window, that was just a bit of fun. He had never intended anyone to die. Just to get paralysed from the waist down. People should just learn to chill a bit more. So, Rish! wanted everyone to know that Little Gav had his utmost confidence.
Up to the point when more evidence emerged that Gav was yet another Billy-No-Mates Bully with a fragile ego. Then Sunak would pretend he had no idea about Gav’s reputation for treating people in an unacceptable manner. And no one had mentioned to him Gav had twice been sacked for disloyalty and incompetence. But if push came to shove, Rish! would sack him in a heartbeat. Anything to protect himself.
And so it proved. As it turned out that virtually everyone who had ever worked with Gav had found him irresistibly hateful – to know him is to loathe him – and that the complaints system was in danger of grinding to a halt under the weight of people coming forward to tell their truth, Brave Rish! chose to pull the plug. Third time unlucky. “It’s not me, it’s you,” he had said to a tearful Gav. “One of us has a career to worry about.” Though he might have thought of that sooner. So much for his integrity, professionalism and accountability. In the background you could hear Suella whoop. She could have sworn it should have been her to be the first cabinet minister to be sacked. Two weeks and counting …
It was left to cabinet office minister Jeremy Quin – Sunak’s iteration of the unctuous Michael Ellis, who could be sent to the Commons to defend any irretrievable situation – to try to salvage a shred of decency on behalf of the government. He didn’t succeed. Labour’s shadow home secretary had used a humble address to try to force the government to reveal all the evidence that had been available to the prime minister before handing out cabinet jobs to Suella Braverman and the Gavster. It wasn’t successful, but that was beside the point. What it did was expose the hollow emptiness at the heart of government. The moral vacuum.
All Yvette Cooper wanted to see were papers, scraps, anything that would help the country to understand why Leaky Sue and Gav had been given their jobs when they both had a track record both for breaking the ministerial code and being generally useless. Didn’t we deserve something a bit better than this? Apparently not. The Tory party was clean out of talent. So we just had to suck it up. And the government wouldn’t be releasing any documents because… … Just because.
Much the same arguments had been used in an earlier opposition day debate in which Labour tried to get the government to commit to the pension triple lock. “Sorry,” said the work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride. He couldn’t possibly second guess what was going to be in next week’s autumn budget. Er, right. But it was the Tories who had committed to it in their manifesto. Surely someone ought to be able to confirm whether Sunak was going to do what he had promised? He couldn’t.
We were just going to have to wait and see. Live dangerously. Live like Gav.
• A year in Westminster with John Crace and Marina Hyde
Join John Crace and Marina Hyde for a look back at another chaotic year in Westminster, live at Kings Place in London, or via the livestream. Wednesday 7 December 2022, 7pm-8.15pm GMT. Book tickets here.
