Conservative ministers have in recent years bullied civil servants, been criminally sanctioned for breaking the law and sent restricted material to those unauthorised to receive it. Now there is a new misdemeanour to add to the list: the science and innovation secretary, Michelle Donelan, has had to pay damages and apologise to two academics after they launched legal action, accusing her of libelling them.
Last October, Donelan wrote to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a non-departmental umbrella body that oversees seven higher education research councils, Innovate UK and Research England, to complain about two members of the latter’s new equality, diversity and inclusion expert advisory group. She accused the two academics of “sharing extremist views on social media”, expressed her “disgust and outrage” at their appointment, and asked UKRI’s chief executive to disband the working group.
