In the dunghill of contemporary politics, Williamson has been a top dung beetle
You will never catch this column putting “Sir” in front of the name Gavin Williamson. We still have some standards at Pearson Towers. History is full of nasty twerps who have made themselves useful to their masters by bullying and doing all the dirty work. The deceitful servant Mosca got it right in Ben Jonson’s Volpone: “Almost all the wise world is little else, in nature, but parasites or sub-parasites.”
In the dunghill of contemporary politics, Williamson has been a top dung beetle, waging head-to-head matches in the Westminster dung tunnel and coming out on top.
That’s Williamson, alright. Loathsome, invariably ridiculous, but top-notch at burying the s–t his bosses want to keep hidden.
The former fireplace salesman served as defence secretary under Theresa May and education secretary under Boris Johnson during Covid, somehow managing to keep British schools closed longer than any comparable country while making a fiasco of exams. He was sacked from both roles. Astoundingly, Boris awarded him a knighthood in March.