First it was Suella Braverman, then it was Gavin Williamson, now it is Dominic Raab. Three ministers have been in the crosshairs of Westminster’s press pack these past three weeks. The first survived, the second resigned and now it is the turn of the Deputy Prime Minister to experience life at the centre of a media storm. The questions facing Raab are of personal conduct, with anonymous briefings aplenty about his allegedly aggressive demeanour, treatment of staff and aversion to Pret sandwiches.
One person though who is more than happy to go public with his views is Sir Simon McDonald, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office between 2019 to 2020 when Raab was Foreign Secretary. McDonald has done several interviews in the last few days, telling Times Radio that many Foreign Office staff were ‘scared to go into his [Raab’s] office’ and that he was ‘abrasive and controlling’ to ministers and officials. Asked by Andrew Marr on LBC if the characterisation of Raab ‘as somebody who could bully, and around whom bullying happened, is a plausible one?’ McDonald replied ‘yes.’
Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of Raab for a moment, it’s worth reflecting on McDonald’s own credentials. The former mandarin has little reason to feel charitable to the current government, having been forced to take early retirement in 2020 when Boris Johnson signalled he wanted someone new to head the ministry upon its merger.
McDonald’s credibility in office was meanwhile called in to question during the Harry Dunn affair, during which he had to U-turn on evidence he gave to Parliament twice in just one week. He also had to write to the Foreign Affairs Committee stating that he had ‘inadvertently and wrongly’ misadvised the panel at the height of the pandemic on the decision not to join an EU scheme to source medical equipment.
A record Mr S will bear all this in mind when he begins reading Sir Simon’s newly-published book – out this month – titled: ‘Leadership: Lessons from a Life in Diplomacy.’
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