Theresa May repeatedly declined to say she believed her defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, told her the truth about why he left a fireplace firm after a reported affair with a colleague.
Sources close to the company, which employed Williamson as a managing director, told the Guardian he attended a meeting to discuss his future after colleagues became aware of his relationship with a junior member of staff.
The former chief whip, tipped as a possible prime minister, took the extraordinary step of giving an interview to the Daily Mail to talk about the “flirtatious relationship” he had with the woman when he was at Elgin & Hall, based in North Yorkshire.
Before Westminster
Born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, he had a comprehensive education before going on to gain a degree in social science at the University of Bradford. Williamson then worked for a while in the pottery industry and for an architectural design firm before being elected MP for South Staffordshire in 2010 at the age of 33.
The rapid rise
Just a few years after his election, Williamson became David Cameron’s parliamentary aide, acting as his eyes and ears among MPs. But when Cameron stepped down, Williamson quickly threw his lot in with Theresa May as the most effective stop-Boris candidate and was adopted as her campaign manager. Having impressed with his organisational skills, he was elevated to chief whip, despite not having previously served as a minister.
Defence secretary
After becoming pivotal in the deal with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), Williamson earned May's respect for managing difficult parliamentary votes with the slimmest of DUP-backed majorities. His move into the cabinet after Sir Michael Fallon resigned over allegations of sexual harassment appears to position him as a potential Conservative leader, but the backlash among MPs was significant.
Spider man
He is best known in Westminster for keeping a tarantula called Cronus in a glass box on his desk, seemingly to intimidate MPs who have stepped out of line. The creature is named after the Greek god who came to power by castrating his own father before eating his own children to ensure they would not oust him.
In his own words
“I don’t very much believe in the stick, but it’s amazing what can be achieved with a sharpened carrot.”
The revelation came on the same day Williamson gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he warned Russian cyber-attacks could kill “thousands and thousands and thousands” of Britons.
Lawyers for Williamson have refused to answer questions from the Guardian over whether the woman reported his behaviour to her line manager, the terms on which he departed and whether he received a payoff.
May, who was speaking to reporters during her trip to China, was asked whether she was confident Williamson had told her the whole truth about his departure from the firm. The prime minister declined to answer directly. “Gavin has told people about something that happened before he became a member of parliament, let alone became a minister,” she said.
May also implied she did not see a parallel with Williamson and that of the first secretary of state Damian Green, who was sacked by May after a cabinet office investigation found he had not been truthful in his account of how pornography was found on his parliamentary computer. “In relation to Damian Green, the report showed the ministerial code had been broken. It was on that basis that I took the decision,” May said.
Williamson told the Mail the fling “never went further” than sharing a kiss with the woman “a couple of times” and that it “stopped as suddenly as it had started”. It is understood he informed the Cabinet Office before deciding to speak to the newspaper.
Downing Street told reporters on Monday that the prime minister considered the affair a private matter and had full confidence in her defence secretary.
