Gavin Williamson was already known at Westminster for his chutzpah, his meteoric rise to defence secretary followed by a dramatic fall from grace after being accused of leaking state secrets – and an equally rapid return to the front line a few months later.
But Monday’s defiant performance, in which the education secretary laid the blame for the exams fiasco squarely at the door of the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation, raised eyebrows among even his most jaded colleagues.
Nevertheless, Boris Johnson’s spokesman insisted that the prime minister had full confidence in Williamson, despite the education secretary’s promise that there would be “no U-turn, no change” falling by the wayside less than 72 hours after he made it.
Some of Williamson’s party colleagues don’t share Johnson’s view. But despite the extraordinary reversal, on Monday evening Williamson’s job appeared safe – for now. There are three key reasons his head is not yet on the chopping block despite perhaps the most chaotic, excruciating and fury-provoking government climbdowns of more than 10 executed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
One reason is the presence of the exam regulator Ofqual, which devised the now discredited exam results algorithm, as a firebreak. One Tory backbencher said: “Gavin Williamson needs to step up to the plate and chop some heads off at Ofqual – that’s what’s expected here. It’s up to the secretary of state to take firm action. If that doesn’t happen, then he’s toast.
“There’s an understanding that he’s not been involved in developing the algorithm but that it’s been left to the experts and it’s failed, and people are expecting the government to now sort this out.”
MPs on the education select committee were unimpressed by Ofqual’s chief executive, Sally Collier, when she gave evidence to them, and the regulator’s refusal to publish more details of the standardisation system earlier, to allow it to be scrutinised.
Giving Ofqual’s chair, Roger Taylor, the task of communicating Monday’s U-turn suggested a deliberate tactic of ensuring that the regulator, not Williamson himself, took responsibility.
Had the House of Commons been sitting, Williamson would have been forced to make a statement to MPs about the abrupt change of policy and face a barrage of questions from colleagues.
But while Taylor released an apologetic broadcast statement, Williamson initially said sorry to hundreds of thousands of affected students in an emailed press release before taking questions from journalists off camera and recording short TV clips.
A second reason for Williamson’s survival is the seriousness of the challenges facing the education sector in the coming weeks: most pressingly, ensuring that all children in England can return to school next month. Swapping education secretaries so close to the start of term could throw those complex plans off course, as well as removing a potential lightning rod for criticism, should they go awry.
Thirdly, Williamson – who hails from a family of Labour voters in Scarborough and became famous for having a pet tarantula – was an integral part of Johnson’s leadership campaign last summer, reaching into parts of the Tory party Johnson might not otherwise have accessed, threatening and cajoling MPs into line as chief whip. Downing Street may still hope those skills will serve Johnson well in the months ahead.
Johnson may need them: one former 1922 committee executive member said there had now been so many U-turns and botched policies in recent months that there were growing rumblings of discontent.
Extraordinarily, given the prime minister’s 80-strong majority, they even suggested that letters of no confidence in the prime minister could be delivered to the 1922 committee chair this autumn if the government does not start to appear more competent.
“I heard lots of rumblings leading up to recess. There’s only so much people can take – you either start to deliver, or you are out. People are holding back [sending in letters] for now, but if you carry on having these disasters, these letters will go in before Christmas, there’s no doubt about it,” they said.
Against that backdrop, Johnson may believe it is safer to keep his education secretary at his side for the moment – but Downing Street will also be watching very closely to see whether public fury over the exams fiasco dies down in the coming days.
