Tag Archives: Raab

Dominic Raab is to stand down as an MP. Will the tributes mention these moments?

Disgraced former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab is quitting Parliament at the next general election; he won’t stand for election again.

And it’s just as well, after he was found to have bullied civil servants on two occasions by an inquiry that reported just over a month ago.

The BBC report on his decision does its best to give him a reasonable send-off, covering his career in terms of the jobs he’s held in government.

This Writer feels no compulsion to exercise such restraint. So what shall we talk about?

How about his decision, as Justice Secretary, to refuse an inquiry into the sexual abuse of thousands of (now) men at youth detention centres when they were young boys? We still don’t know why he did that. Will we ever, now he is going?

His failure to get the late comedian and TV presenter Paul O’Grady’s name right while trying to pay tribute to him (and his ill-advised decision to combine this blunder with an attack on so-called ‘woke’ comedy)?

I’ve got a clip of this:

His plan to strip human rights protections from people who have been targeted by police for ‘stop and search’ procedures and/or questioning over their immigration status, which was dubbed racist because ethnic minority groups are far more likely to have been targeted in these ways?

His refusal to accept the facts of unemployment? I have audio of this:

His almost fact-free defence of Evgeny Lebedev’s elevation to the House of Lords?

His hopeless attempt to defend then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s failure to wear a mask during a hospital visit, when rules dictated that everybody should wear masks at all times? Let’s have some video of that as well, shall we?

His fascist claim that his planned overhaul of the Human Rights Act would include a mechanism to “correct” (ha ha!) rulings by the European Court of Human Rights?

His rejection of calls to treat misogyny as a hate crime – despite the fact that he didn’t know what misogyny is?

His speech to a Tory Party conference in which he used a hypothetical situation that it is doubtful any judge would allow to happen as an excuse to justify removing human rights from all of us?

His admission (as Foreign Secretary) that the evacuation of Afghanistan was a shambles because the UK’s intelligence agencies were outsmarted by a gang of desert-dwelling bandits?

The fact that he was on holiday in Crete when Kabul fell to the Taliban, and at first refused to return to the UK when the emergency was reported to him? He did deny paddleboarding while UK citizens scrambled to escape the new regime; according to Raab, the sea was “closed”.

His failure to realise that much of UK trade relies on the Dover-Calais crossing?

His 2018 tweet about wages rising faster than they had in years – which only brought attention to the fact that wages had fallen drastically under the Conservatives and had never been as high as they were under Gordon Brown?

The list goes on and on. The above only goes back five years!

Raab has been an utter disaster as a member of Parliament and a government minister and his departure will improve the quality of the UK’s leadership. Sadly, though, he isn’t even the worst Tory minister. What will it take to winkle them out?

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Brexit opposer makes claim of abuse and racism against Dominic Raab

Gina Miller: at one point in her fight against Brexit, she was afraid to leave her home because of threats of acid attacks. She alleges that Dominic Raab called her a “silly bitch”.

If these claims are true, one has to wonder how Dominic Raab could ever have thought the denials in his resignation letter would fly.

Raab resigned as UK Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister yesterday (Friday, April 21, 2023) after an inquiry found that he had bullied civil servants on two separate occasions.

In his resignation letter, he denied the findings and complained that the inquiry process was flawed.

Now people are lining up to accuse him – if they haven’t done so already.

Here’s Gina Miller, who took the Tory government to a judicial review on the legality of its Brexit, telling Piers Morgan and other guests on his show that Raab called her a “silly bitch”:

She had already expanded on this in an article for The Independent, in February:

The call came to appear on the BBC’s Today programme. I would be on with a Tory MP, Dominic Raab. I hit Google and found out that he was an arch Brexiteer and a lawyer. I thought we would have a robust but reasonable conversation about the merits of the case. How wrong I was.

We were sitting next to each other in the studio. The presenters introduced the case and turned to Raab, who launched into an abusive attack on me: I was a rich woman going against the will of the people; my challenge was a rather naked attempt to steal the referendum by the back door. My nervousness suddenly disappeared. I turned to him and said: “Mr Raab, have you read my case?”

His face was full of fury. The debate was won.

As we made our way out of the studio, the young runner showed us to the lift and said he would meet us downstairs. As the doors closed, Raab stared at me and said: “I can’t make up my mind if you’re naive, got too much money or just stupid. Just because you have deep pockets and friends in high legal places you think you can just go to court to stop the will of the people.”

I was stunned and stayed quiet.

The doors opened and the young man told me my car was just outside. Raab barked at the young man: “Where’s my car?”

The young man replied that they hadn’t been asked to arrange a car and that maybe Raab’s office had organised one instead. Raab was furious and shouted at the young man: “Go get me a f***ing car.”

The young man was shaking, I was even more shocked. I said “thank you” to the young man and suggested he went back inside and let Raab call his team.

She also discussed the incident (also on the video clip above) in which Raab mistook her brother for Nish Kumar in what she clearly took to be “they all look the same” racist stereotyping:

On 11 January 2018, I was invited to be on the BBC Question Time panel with Raab.

Raab entered with two of his team and made a beeline to my brother – a serious-looking, bespectacled, very short-haired doctor – and said, “I am Dominic Raab, look forward to being on the panel with you tonight” with that grin he does. I looked up from the papers I was reviewing in preparation. My brother was taken aback and said, “do you think I’m Nish Kumar? We’re not all the same, you know?”

Nish Kumar has confirmed the incident:

Some have chosen to question the validity of Ms Miller’s “silly bitch” story, claiming that it is impossible to verify as nobody else was in the lift with her and Raab.

The now-former minister himself has denied it.

But she clearly wasn’t lying about the Nish Kumar blunder.

And that lends validity to her other claim.

Not only that, but This Writer does not think Ms Miller’s are the only claims that will be made about Raab, now he has been found to be a workplace bully.

The information is coming out. Feel free to judge it for yourself.

Source: I was bullied and demeaned by Dominic Raab | The Independent

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Something for the weekend: let’s laugh at Dominic Raab

Dominic Raab: he was trying to justify himself to the Commons Foreign Affairs committee in this shot; he’s been trying to justify himself for years.

He’s gone; good riddance.

For clarity, let’s have a reminder of some of the events leading up to Dominic Raab’s departure from politics:

Some of us have been making fun of him since the allegations were first made:

But the best take-down This Writer has seen – so far – was by James O’Brien on LBC:

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Raab’s resignation over bullying is a sign of Sunak’s weakness

Happier times for them: Dominic Raab and Rishi Sunak.

Dominic Raab has resigned as Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, after making Rishi Sunak wait a day for him to do it.

He went with the ill grace that has characterised his ministerial career – blaming anybody else he could find.

An inquiry by Adam Tolley KC investigated eight allegations of bullying against Raab, and found him guilty of two.

He handed his report to prime minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday morning (April 21),

It seems Sunak then sat on it for 24 hours, waiting for Raab to do the right thing and resign.

Downing Street says no pressure was applied to Raab and there is no indication that Sunak ever considered sacking him. Resigning means Raab gets to keep his Ministerial pension, and this means that – in practice – any Tory Cabinet Minister found to have committed misdeeds is given the opportunity to resign. Remember how Priti Patel left Theresa May’s Cabinet?

According to the BBC, the report states that:

on a number of occasions, while meeting with policy officials, Raab “acted in a manner which was intimidating, in the sense of going further than was necessary or appropriate in delivering critical feedback, and also insulting, in the sense of making unconstructive critical comments about the quality of work done (whether or not as a matter of substance any criticism was justified).”

It concludes that while implementing a certain decision in the role “he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting.

“His conduct also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element.”

It looks at his behaviour in meetings with officials as justice secretary, and picks out an example where Raab complained about the absence of “basic information” from officials, about staff “whom he perceived to be resistant to his policies, and described some work as “utterly useless” and “woeful”.

Raab’s “interruptive style” is not in itself intimidating, the report says, but the combination of this with “unconstructive critical feedback is likely to have been experienced as intimidating, in the sense of being unreasonably difficult to deal with”.

It seems Raab had said he would resign if there was any finding of bullying at all and Sunak had simply waited for him to honour his word. Caught between a rock and a hard place – the findings of the report were always going to be publicised and his comments were already public knowledge – it was just a matter of time before Raab went.

But he didn’t go quietly.

Instead, he complained that Mr Tolley had set his standard for bullying at a very low level, meaning his inquiry had “set a dangerous precedent”.

Was this true, though? It seems to me that, if six allegations had been dismissed, then there must at least have been some reasonable basis for the level at which Mr Tolley decided bullying had taken place.

In his resignation letter, Raab made it clear that he did not agree with the findings against him. He said ministers “must be able to give direct critical feedback on briefings and submissions to senior officials, in order to set the standards and drive the reform the public expect of us.

“In setting the threshold for bullying so low, this inquiry has set a dangerous precedent.

“It will encourage spurious complaints against ministers, and have a chilling effect on those driving change on behalf of your government – and ultimately the British people.”

In another part of the letter he said he was “genuinely sorry for any unintended stress or offence that any officials felt, as a result of the pace, standards and challenge that I brought to the Ministry of Justice”.

This has been described as a “non-apology” by a person who “advised him at a senior level in a government department”. This person said: “Whilst the letter contains an apology, it’s one of the best examples of a ‘non-apology’ from a minister in recent years. It’s relatively easy to set pace, standards and challenge, it’s much harder to lead effectively to deliver against these objectives.”

This person continued: “Raab’s version of a Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister is one that should be learnt from and ultimately consigned to the history books. The level of relief from hard-working civil servants who can now, under new leadership, get on with the challenging and important jobs they signed up to do, is palpable.”

That claim has been borne out by responses to the BBC by civil servants. One said: “I feel relief – just huge relief.”

Another added: “It’s perhaps of note from his letter that he feels there are different, perhaps acceptable thresholds of bullying, which perhaps says all it needs to say about this whole fiasco.”

Sunak himself has stated that there were “shortcomings in the historic process” by which the inquiry was carried out, that have “negatively affected everyone involved”, and “we should learn from this how to better handle such matters in future”.

This is another indication of the prime minister’s personal weakness.

One of his ministers has been found to be a bully, but he’s not about to bring in measures to ensure that nobody else does the same.

Instead, it seems he wants to water down the process to ensure that it can’t make a similar finding against any of his other ministers, even if they deserve it.

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Legal challenge launched after Dominic Raab refuses public inquiry into youth detention centre abuses

Dominic Raab: he has spoken pretty words about human rights in the past, but apparently the human rights of young boys who were sexually abused in youth detention centres mean nothing to him.

Thousands of men say they were sexually abused at youth detention centres when they were young boys but Dominic Raab has refused to launch a public inquiry. Why?

That is the purpose of a judicial review demand that has been launched in the courts.

Raab has avoided commenting on the reasons for his decision – because the judicial review claim is taking place. Justice minister Damian Hinds, responding to a Parliamentary question, said it would be inappropriate to comment while legal proceedings are ongoing.

He did say the government has “the deepest sympathy for the men who suffered sexual or physical abuse while detained at Medomsley Detention Centre”.

But Medomsley is not the only place where these abuses are said to have happened.

It is true that more than 2,000 victims have come forward from Medomsley, but others have reported mistreatment at centres across England between the 1960s and the 1980s.

Several were raped and sexually abused by guards as children, and although several men have been prosecuted, survivors say the full extent of the horrors they suffered has not been properly investigated.

Lawyer David Greenwood said he had personally received reports of abuse at “every youth detention centre in the country” in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr Greenwood, the head of child abuse at Switalskis Solicitors, said he had been contacted by 160 people held at the former Eastwood Park youth detention centre in Gloucestershire, but believes the true number of victims there will be more than 1,000.

Claimants argue that Mr Raab’s decision was legally “irrational” and violates obligations under human rights laws, including the freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

A judicial review may overturn Raab’s decision and get an inquiry launched – and obviously this would be good for justice.

But will it tell us why Dominic Raab decided not to launch one in the first place?

For me, that is the important question.

We already know of many abuses that have taken place in these detention centres and it is clearly in the interests of justice to know how far the rot extended.

Raab – as the Secretary of State for Justice – has obstructed this.

I think we should be told the Justice Secretary’s reasons for wanting to hinder the course of justice.

Source: Dominic Raab refuses public inquiry into abuse of thousands of boys in youth detention centres | The Independent

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New claim that Dominic Raab is ‘100% a bully’ as inquiry fails to report back

Dominic Raab: I don’t know… does he look to you like the kind of man who could be a bully?

Another civil servant has said Dominic Raab is – not just a bully, but “100 per cent a bully” as an independent inquiry faces condemnation for failing to report back.

This is just an update for us all to enjoy as the screw turns a little tighter on a Deputy Prime Minister who might not have a job for much longer.

Enjoy:

Dominic Raab is “100% a bully”, and also took no steps to intervene in bullying by others, a former Foreign Office official has said in the latest accusations against the justice secretary and former foreign secretary.

The claims, reported by ITV News, came as Rishi Sunak declined to say why an independent inquiry into Raab’s behaviour had not yet reported back after more than four months, or if he would sack Raab if it uncovered misconduct.

The justice secretary, who vehemently denies that he has bullied or intimidated staff, oversaw a toxic atmosphere when in charge of the Foreign Office, the anonymous ex-staffer said, with his office viewed as “a hardship post”.

The official said that in deciding whether or not they believed Raab was a bully, he had looked up the dictionary definition. “I read it as someone that uses their influence to intimidate other people,” he said. “And if that is the definition then he was 100% a bully.”

Officials were “terrified to have interactions with him but also to interact with his office”, he said, adding that he had also witnessed Raab do “absolutely nothing” when a colleague was being bullied by someone else.

“He didn’t step in,” the official said. “One of the most powerful men in the country was condoning it and saying that kind of behaviour was acceptable.”

The joy of this is that, no matter what this “independent” (is it?) inquiry says, interviewers will be able to torture Raab for the rest of his career or life with the fact that the people who worked for him thought he was a really nasty piece of… work.

The sooner the end-of-career retrospectives start coming out, the better.

Source: Dominic Raab is ‘100% a bully’, says former Foreign Office official | Dominic Raab | The Guardian

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Crime triggers acrimonious exchange at PMQs

Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner ripped Dominic Raab a new one in a punitive masterclass on how to take apart a political opponent, using his government’s failures and his own record against him.

During a Prime Minister’s Questions that was led by the government and opposition’s deputy leaders, due to the funeral of former Speaker Betty Boothroyd, Rayner began by focusing on the government’s new anti-social behaviour strategy that she said had taken 13 years to arrive and could best be applied to Raab himself (referring to charges of bullying against him).

His best response was that he had never called anybody “scum” (a reference to her use of the word to describe members of his party).

Moving on to attack the Tory record on crime in general, Rayner quoted shocking figures that show 300 rapes take place every day but women brave enough to report them have just a 1.6 per cent chance of ever seeing their attacker face justice in court.

Raab’s response that 69 per cent of such cases result in conviction was pathetically weak; he was saying only one in every 100 rapes ever results in a conviction.

The figure supports Baroness Casey’s damning report on the “institutionally sexist” Metropolitan Police, which stated that rape might as well be legal in London.

And worse was to follow, with the revelation that the average wait for a rape case to reach court is now three years, and 175 have been abandoned because the victim was so brutalised by the experience that she felt unable to go on.

These are damning figures for which Raab had no coherent response.

And that’s the most damning part of it, because Dominic Raab is also the UK’s Secretary of State for Justice.

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Out of touch Tory Dominic Raab can’t get Paul O’Grady’s name right

UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab showed he was so out-of-touch he couldn’t even get late comedian Paul O’Grady’s name right – while paying tribute to him during Prime Minister’s Questions.

He compounded the offence by adding an unnecessary attack on ‘woke’ comedy:

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Dominic Raab fails to convince he’s not a bully in TV interview

Dominic Raab: look at those eyes, those hands, the set of his face. Could you believe a man like that could be a bully?

This is odd: Dominic Raab appeared on a TV show where he was asked about the bullying allegations against him – but ducked the questions by saying it was improper to discuss them while an inquiry was going on.

Even when talking more broadly about the issue, he was unconvincing.

Here’s Maximilien Robespierre’s appraisal of it:

The points are good; he never even said bullying is unacceptable.

Perhaps, having been appointed on the basis of loyalty to the leader rather than merit, he simply didn’t think he owed it to anybody working for him to have a respectful relationship with them?

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Was Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle just a bid to distract attention from Dominic Raab?

Dominic Raab: he reckons he has never raised his voice in a meeting, and denies all other bullying accusations against him. Do you believe him?

Rishi Sunak has performed a snap reshuffle of his Cabinet, splitting some departments to reflect his priorities (he says).

Good for him. But I have to question some of his decisions and motives.

Look at his new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (which isn’t even a clear explanation of what it is. Net Zero refers to the plan to get the UK down to no carbon dioxide emissions, but that’s not what it says).

The stated aim is “securing our long-term energy supply, bringing down bills and halving inflation” – but we know that absolutely no work will be required on the last aim because inflation will halve this year in any case. This is just a bid to take credit where it isn’t due.

Then there’s the appointment of nonentity Greg Hands as Tory Party Chairman, tasked with running the local election campaign (among other things). Is this a tacit admission that the Tories have no chance?

And what about the decision to make “30p Lee” Anderson vice-chairman? The apparent homophobe and transphobe who reckoned it was possible to cook a meal for 30p. This is barrel-scraping at its worst.

Check out this analysis from A Different Bias for more insight:

Dominic Raab stays in place as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM.

And Sunak made this decision on the day it was revealed that yet another bullying accusation has been made against Raab.

According to the BBC,

A former senior civil servant who worked closely with Dominic Raab has described his behaviour as “nasty and difficult”.

In an anonymous interview with BBC Newsnight, he accuses the deputy prime minister and justice secretary of using “demeaning tactics to make himself the most powerful person in the room”.

The former civil servant – who has not made a formal complaint against Mr Raab – told the BBC, “I saw him seething at other senior people, hard staring at you, you know like cold fury.

“It was pretty sinister – and raising his voice. He would make examples of very senior members of staff in front of more junior members and vice versa.”

When challenged on whether this was bullying or just a secretary of state being direct and assertive while doing an important job, the person said they had no doubt it was “unacceptable behaviour”.

“No, it’s bullying. I mean, the worst thing is the sort of the cold anger and making people wait in silence.

“Expecting people to turn up very, very quickly without knowing really why they’re there. Treating his private office with contempt and doing so publicly.

“There were long silences, which if you tried to continue speaking he would tell you to wait or stop talking.

“And he would expect everyone to have the answers to all his questions even when he wanted information on topics outside of the knowledge of the people in the room. He would get cross with his private office on these occasions for not ensuring all the right people were in the room”, he said.

Who’s got time for that kind of nonsense?

If anyone told me to sit in a meeting in silence I’d assert that, since nobody had anything to say, I’d get back to my job – and leave.

But that’s just me, I suppose.

The decision to leave Raab in post betrays a serious failure of judgement on Sunak’s part. It suggests that, if Raab is forced out eventually, Sunak may have to go too.

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