Last week, my colleague Rafael Behr warned that the “ultra-partisan tactics” being used by Michael Gove at the Department for Education and reported by the Observer were just the start, given that the Education Secretary is considered to be one of the most effective Tory minister in government.
He’s been proved right, and perhaps more quickly than we could have guessed, as today’s Observer carries further details of how Gove is now facing accusations that he “may have misled parliament over claims of bullying and intimidation by key advisers”. Toby Helm reports:
The Observer can reveal that a senior civil servant in the education secretary’s department has received a secret payoff of about £25,000 out of public funds, after a lengthy grievance procedure involving members of Gove’s team, including his special adviser, Dominic Cummings, and the department’s former head of communications, James Frayne.
While an investigation within the department cleared the men, and said no disciplinary action was necessary, the final judgment made clear that their conduct had on occasions fallen short of the levels expected and that the behaviour of Cummings and Frayne, who has since left the department, “has been perceived as intimidating”. After the internal investigation was launched in the spring of 2012, the civil servant also decided to lodge a case with a tribunal, where the allegations would have been heard in public. A date was set for last month, but after further negotiations the financial settlement was agreed and the tribunal was cancelled.
On 23 January, however, Gove – who under the ministerial and special advisers’ codes is responsible for the behaviour of his advisers (known as Spads) – denied knowledge of any allegations of misconduct during an appearance before the education select committee.
Observer columnist Nick Cohen has also weighed in on the subject, explaining how Gove stays above the fray as a “Tory gentleman”, allowing his advisers to do his enforcing:
Here is how the retaliation works. The gang around him treat any slight to their master as an affront. The lead comes from his special advisers Dominic Cummings and Henry de Zoete. Cummings is a piece of work. He is a political hack of such reputation that Andy Coulson tried to blackball him from working for the coalition. If a former editor of the News of the World, now awaiting trial, warned me that a potential employee was too unsavoury to touch, I would pay attention. Gove did not.
Cummings and de Zoete can call on the services of Paul Staines, author of the Guido Fawkes website. They also have Telegraph journalists, the Murdoch press and most of the rightwing blogosphere at their disposal.
Part of the allegations against Gove’s advisers revolve around their alleged use of the @ToryEducation Twitter feed to publish personal, partisan attacks against Gove’s critics. If Gove’s special advisers are indeed behind it, it would constitute a breach of both the special advisers’ and the civil service code. The virulent nature of its attacks have started attracting wider attention in recent weeks, as NS deputy editor Helen Lewis noted recently:
Has @toryeducation had a liquid lunch? Some very odd tweets been twootered from there this afternoon. #icebreakerofrevolution
— Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) February 7, 2013
It’s long been suspected that Gove considers himself a viable future Tory leader. As a former journalist, he already has excellent contacts among right-wing hacks, and it would seem that his advisers have made pains to maintain those links. Most definitely one to watch.
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