How has Gavin Williamson survived – part one

In a two-part anlaysis Sean Coughlan, BBC News education and family correspondent, explores how, after nearly a year of catastrophies, Gavin Williamson is still education secretary

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on BBC News

Gavin Williamson’s political obituary has been written so many times he must sometimes feel like the walking dead.So, how has England’s under-pressure education secretary survived in his job? Or is there a counter-narrative that he’s been unfairly blamed for decisions not really his own?

Last month, on a single day, he saw the demolition of two of his biggest policies; the commitments to keeping schools open and continuing with exams were swept away in the new lockdown. Having told millions of families of the vital importance of getting primary school children back into class, on the very same day he had to tell them of the vital importance of staying at home.

Insiders say it wasn’t his choice, and he’d been overtaken by changing evidence about the virus, but it cut the ground from under him and left Williamson, once again, looking beleaguered and besieged, fending off hostile questions.

Labour taunted him for bringing ‘chaos and confusion’ wherever he went. In a poll of 6,000 teachers, 92% thought he should resign, and a leader article in The Times pronounced that Williamson was the cabinet’s ‘worst performer’ who had ‘sacrificed his own future in government’.

Exams fiasco

But how much of the criticism is justified, and what is the reality behind a politician who gets accused both of being a ruthless Machiavelli and a hapless bungler, like Private Pike in Dad’s Army?

Former Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw says there has to be some sympathy for Williamson for facing the overwhelming disruption of the pandemic – and having to defend decisions that were not always of his making. But the sympathy doesn’t go much further.

“Confidence needs to be restored. This is a weak secretary of state. No-one knows if he’s got the autonomy to make decisions or whether the strings are being pulled by Number 10,” says Sir Michael. “The exams fiasco was a major problem – and he didn’t take responsibility.”

Sir Michael, aged 74, was back teaching in schools last term, as they struggled with staff shortages because of COVID outbreaks. He thinks the education secretary has shown no real understanding of the front-line pressures and has not inspired trust. “Education is in a bad place,” says Sir Michael.

But allies of Williamson think he’s being unfairly condemned for decisions driven by the changing pandemic. Political historian Sir Anthony Seldon defends the education secretary for facing competing demands that were impossible to meet – whether from teachers, parents or factions within his own party.

Googling ‘Frank Spencer’

Either way, his character seems to intrigue the Googling public because among the most common searches alongside ‘Gavin Williamson’ is ‘Frank Spencer’, the 1970s sit-com character who destroyed everything he tried his hardest to put right.

People are also searching his age – and maybe it’s because he looks and sounds younger than his 44 years. That’s not necessarily an asset in a political storm – as ‘youthful’ for his supporters will be ‘immature’ for his critics.

He described himself as ‘mid-life’ according to the woman who sold him a pet tarantula, who recalled that the MP described it as a ‘mid-life choice’ between the spider and a sports car.

Williamson has been chief whip – a parliamentary enforcer – and in a message that was as hairy and unmissable as his spider, he called the tarantula ‘Cronus’ – a mythical figure who devoured his own children and castrated his father.

But back to the question of taking responsibility. He has become a lightning rod for criticism of the government’s handling of schools during pandemic, and a fellow Tory MP shares the view, privately, that Williamson now looks even weaker because he didn’t make a dignified exit after the summer exams chaos – when the head of the exams watchdog and the Department for Education’s top civil servant were forced out.

How the U-turns started

It’s worth going back to how accusations about Williamson being the U-turner in chief began. It started when plans were made last summer to bring primary pupils back into school.

Many parents, whose voices often get lost in education debates, were keen to get children back into lessons, particularly among those not able to work from home. This was going to be the voluntary return of specific year groups in early June – and, despite some pushback from teachers’ unions, from the government’s perspective this would have been seen as a good news story.

Except – and it’s an open question as to how – the government’s wider announcement also included the unexpected ambition for all primary pupils to go back for a month in the summer term, a claim school leaders immediately warned was an impossibility when social distancing had cut classroom capacity by half. The Department for Education had to go along with a claim that everyone in the school sector knew would have to be dropped.

When this suggestion was, inevitably, scrapped there was irritation and confusion among families already feeling the frustrations of the lockdown – with a bigger impact than might have been realised.

Around this time Gary Lineker tweeted a claim that a football game shown live on BBC television had given the English premiership its biggest ever TV audience in the UK, with 5.7m watching; but the story on the BBC website about the U-turn on primary schools had been read by almost 6.1m people – it was important to many people, and a narrative had begun.

Late night, last minute

For journalists covering what became a series of U-turn stories – whether on free school meals, exams or closing schools – it’s often not been clear whether the decision-making, often late night and last minute, has been in the same place as the blame.

You can see how public opinion shifted in a YouGov tracking survey; from the first lockdown last March, and through to May, the public mostly thought education was being well-handled. However, from June onwards, public opinion switched to being unimpressed and stayed that way, with YouGov figures this week showing that about 60% think education is being badly handled.

The leader of the ASCL head teachers’ union, Geoff Barton, says headteachers have been “exasperated” by so many last-minute announcements and sudden changes in direction. School leaders, acutely aware of their accountability on results, have not taken kindly to political leaders appearing to shirk accountability for their own. Mary Bousted, co-leader of the National Education Union, accused Williamson of only being an expert in “putting his head in the sand”.