No, Minister

The Tolley report is another example of the UK learning all the wrong lessons.

Dominic Raab resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary on Friday, following the publication of a report by Adam Tolley KC into allegations of “bullying” from civil servants.

I will state from the outset that what follows is not a defence of Raab, nor an endorsement of his policies - which include, inter alia, support for massive government over-reach on Covid, a false climate change narrative, and virtue-signalling support for vaccine coercion and unscientific mask mandates. His position on these issues is perfectly encapsulated in this example of his own social media output. A parody account could not have produced a better caricature.

I would be very wary of putting any faith at all in Raab, as I would every other politician of our times. My focus is not on him at all, but on the establishment witch-hunt which has defenestrated him so effectively, and on the political cowardice of Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, and the entire Westminster clique.

Although Raab resigned, it is clear that he did so reluctantly, giving an interview to the BBC and writing a piece for the Daily Telegraph in which he defended his record and clearly communicated his view that he has been ousted by a politicised Civil Service. Many commentators have questioned why, if that was the case, did he resign? The answer to that question seems blindingly obvious; Rishi Sunak was not prepared to support him. Sunak himself is only in post because he orchestrated coups against not one, but two, legitimately elected Prime Ministers in the space of a few months - supported, every step of the way, by one Dominic Raab; choose your “friends” carefully.

There are some key points regarding the background to, and logistics around, the report which, to the most superficially impartial observer, represent glaring red flags about the whole saga:

• The complaints against Raab were first made public by the Guardian newspaper, a far-left activist publication.

• Raab himself requested an independent investigation be carried out.

• It is traditional in the UK that such ‘independent’ enquiries, along with public enquiries, are conducted by members of the legal profession. Adam Tolley QC, who prepared the report, specialises in employment law.

• Tolley was appointed by the Prime Minister on November 23rd last year, with the report published on April 20th, so the investigation and report took five months to complete. Tolley’s terms of reference included this key statement (highlighting mine): “As set out in the Ministerial Code, the Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards.”

The outcome of, and reaction to, the report has been entirely predictable. The Guardian and their co-conspirators in the broadcast mainstream media (MSM) are ecstatic, Kier Starmer has regurgitated the usual sanctimonious waffle, and Rishi Sunak has meekly accepted Raab’s resignation.

One thing above all else is absolutely clear: Sunak has not in fact been the ‘ultimate judge’ of anything. This is the judgment of MSM and their usual ideological collaborators in the ‘blob’. Furthermore, by requesting the investigation in the first place, Raab was directly responsible for his own inevitable downfall - given that formal complaints had been made against him, there was always going to be enough of a ‘smoking gun’ to discredit him. Like many before him, Raab’s naïveté and hubris led him to believe that “if he had nothing to hide, he had nothing to fear” - he played a rigged game, and lost.

But a reasonable person might ask, as many already have; If Raab was indeed guilty of professional misconduct - “bullying” in contravention of employment law - it is surely right that he has fallen on his sword? Sadly, this reaction is every bit as naïve as Raab’s own behaviour. Consider a few details about the circumstances of the report.

1. The Tolley investigation was instigated originally on the basis of two formal complaints which had been made - one from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the other from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

   A third complaint, from the Department for Exiting the European Union DExEU, was ‘added to the charge sheet’ on 23rd November - the day that Sunak Commissioned Tolley’s report.

   Subsequently five additional complaints, received later from within the MoJ based on earlier internal reports, were added to the scope.

2. The Tories were elected with a huge majority in 2019 on the back of the promise to Get Brexit Done, but it is clear to everyone with eyes and ears that the Civil Service as a whole (as well as the legal profession and the entire ‘elite’ class) has resisted Brexit from the date of the original referendum result - and is still doing so to this day.

   There was and is always going to be tension between a Minister trying to Get Brexit Done and a left-wing, bureaucratic institution determined to thwart that ambition at every turn.

   Moreover, time is on the side of the civil servants; Ministers come and go, but the Civil Service is forever. All that a politically motivated apparatchik needs to do is obfuscate and delay until a more ‘sympathetic’ government, or individual minister, is elected/appointed.

   Following 3 years of such tactics by the very establishment that accused Raab of “bullying”, that same institution - aided and abetted by the Remainer MSM - has now succeeded in bringing him down.

3. Adam Tolley QC, whatever his personal attributes, is a 30 plus year product of the legal profession - possibly the ‘wokest of the woke’ cohort among the entire British establishment. Whether or not Tolley himself is able to view matters with a truly independent mindset, he has no direct personal experience of senior management in a commercial, industrial or government role. It is highly questionable whether such an individual can ever be qualified to judge ‘appropriate’ behaviour in such a setting.

   Incidentally, we are now making the exact same ‘mistake’ with the Covid enquiry. Baroness Hallett is coming to this with concrete (and erroneous) views already completely in line with the woke establishment consensus - the virus was an existential threat, lockdowns and masks were essential, the safe and effective vaccines saved millions of lives, and so on.

   The role of the legal profession in every one of these ‘independent’ enquiries guarantees that they will be anything but impartial. Yes, they are independent from parliament, but they have their own establishment bias - coupled to a complete lack of business, industry and technical/scientific expertise necessary to make truly informed, impartial judgments.

So what of the report itself - what damning evidence was presented, that Raab has been found guilty in ‘the court of public (far-left MSM) opinion’? Suffice to say, not much at all - quite the opposite in fact. In the words of our transatlantic cousins, the whole thing is quite the ‘nothing burger’.

Anyone interested in the details can read the report for themselves via the link in the first paragraph above, but I have included a discussion of various specific items below as an appendix to this article. For readers short on time, or with limited interest in the esoteric details, I will briefly summarise my conclusions here.

Tolley’s conclusions of culpability on Raab’s part, such as they exist at all, seem to rest on Tolley’s own belief that all complaints were made in good faith, therefore any psychological injury suffered by any complainant was, by definition, the result of some ‘abrasive’ or ‘unacceptable’ behaviour. Circular woke tautology at it’s finest: If offense was taken, offensive behaviour occurred. QED.

Charges of ‘bullying’, or any such accusations, against Raab - or any Government Minister - should never have seen the light of day. But for a political witch hunt by far-left elements of the MSM, and a woefully weak Prime Minister (the latest, it must be said, in a long line of ineffectual and inadequate Prime Ministers), the utter nonsense would never have got off the ground.

(In this specific matter) Raab was guilty of nothing more than demanding impartial, professional behaviour from civil servants. There is nothing in the report which a non-partisan, results-oriented manager in the business world would give the time of day to.

There has been much chatter in recent years about “The Science” and the agreed importance of high quality, peer reviewed publications. In the business world too, project management methodologies specify wide-ranging standards and peer-review mechanisms for key documents. Tolley’s publication shows no evidence of any such peer review process, nor any adherence to documented standards in terms of structure (it’s terrible) or anything else. This is the ill-conceived, inadequate product of one man.

If I were the recipient of such a document as a commissioning manager or reviewer in a business context, I would reject the entire thing, recognising/acknowledging that the whole exercise had been ill-advised and flawed from the outset.

I would then decide/recommend that a new report be commissioned, examining the culture and overall management accountability of the Civil Service, and the role of Ministers in that process. In keeping with professional standards of business management, alongside terms of reference I would define a budget and timescale for the exercise, as well as a quality assurance process; report structure, periodic progress reviews throughout the ‘project’, a formal review and sign-off process, etc.

The reaction of the usual MSM suspects - especially the ‘impartial public service broadcaster’ that is the BBC - is revealing and entirely as expected. They are completely uninterested in any indications of a dysfunctional, politicised Civil Service and focused only on kindergarten political gossip. As usual you can hardly get a cigarette paper between the views of BBC journalists and their counterparts at the Guardian. Their delight at the demise of a Tory Minister is transparent and palpable; they are a national disgrace.

The role of the legal profession in this nonsense also merits a serious review. Lawyers and Judges have no qualifications to manage a review process of this kind. Of course, they should be involved in the process - as subject matter experts (SME’s) - but responsibility for managing the process and actually producing the reports should be left to the professionals with experience in exactly these matters.

Following on from everything that has happened over the past 3 years, this has been another very dark episode for democracy. As Raab himself has implied, every Government Minister will now be fearful of being similarly nobbled by far-left activists launching coordinated, politically motivated attacks.

Appendix - Selected Review Comments

1. At paragraph 46, Tolley states “my investigation has therefore been concerned with standards of workplace behaviour” - unsurprising, given his status as an employment lawyer. There is no question that acceptable ‘standards of workplace behaviour’ have changed significantly over many decades, especially in large corporations and public sector employers. Some have pointed out that the behaviour of Gordon Brown was never investigated by an employment lawyer, or indeed demonised by the MSM.

   Laura Perrins, writing for The Conservative Woman, suggested that “the entire atmosphere now, particularly in the public sector, is much more feminised”. As a woman, Ms Perrins correctly recognises the female factor in a newly diverse workforce, but the changes go much deeper than that. Everyone is looking for examples of discrimination and oppression everywhere now - misogyny, racism, islamophobia, transphobia and more. The changes are not new - they have been building slowly for decades - and arise primarily from two factors, as discussed in a previous post; runaway health and safety culture and Long March woke insanity.

   Lawyers such as Tolley, instrumental in bringing about these changes, are not “independent” in the sense that the word is intended to imply any kind of impartiality; anything but. He was always going to bring his pre-conceptions regarding ‘standards of workplace behaviour’ to the exercise. Every time a lawyer gets involved in a workplace dispute involving ‘harassment’ or ‘discrimination’, the needle moves that little bit further. In this context, the fact that Raab almost escaped with a clean bill of health is frankly remarkable.

2. The report extends to a total of 47 pages. The first 23 pages are ‘procedural’, including much navel-gazing by Tolley as to the meaning of the word ‘bullying’.

   In the interests of transparency and clarity, one would generally expect a reasonably detailed introduction and discussion of the terms of reference and methodology in any similar report produced in the business world, but not for this to extend to half the overall length of the report.

   A critic might say it demonstrates legalistic, bureaucratic waffle.

3. Paragraph 121 includes this sentence (emphasis mine): “At the most extreme, and which would have been unacceptable, this was put as extending his hand directly out towards another person’s face with a view to making them stop talking.”

   Whatever it may or may not say in the law, the majority of the UK public would clearly view this as subjective, woke nonsense.

4. At paragraph 125, Tolley writes “What was sometimes suggested in the context of the MoJ Additional Complaints was that the DPM is vindictive and intended to harm those to whom his conduct was directed.”

   In spite of 23 pages of preliminary waffle, no reasonable person can have any idea of what this statement means. ‘Vindictive’? ‘Harm’?

   If these allegations are intended to imply that Raab intended psychological ‘harm’, e.g. to cause a person to cower or to gratuitously upset them, that would be a matter for legitimate criticism. If, on the other hand, the ‘harm’ was to get someone reassigned from a task which they were incapable of carrying out in a satisfactory professional manner, most would conclude that this is an entirely legitimate view for a Minister of State to adopt.

   No lawyer, including Tolley, is any more - or less - qualified than anyone else to make judgments about ‘vindictiveness’ or ‘intent to harm’ than anyone else. This is precisely why the PM should have been “the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected”, but Sunak is clearly incapable of such judgment.

5. Section C(8) effectively amounts to two Permanent Secretaries advising Raab that he should not directly ‘criticise’ the work of Civil Servants, but should address any concerns via them. Many may find this an illuminating insight into the mindset of the Civil Service as a whole. Should any civil servant really be immune to criticism by a Government Minister?

   As Tolley himself points out, Ministers have no line management responsibilities for civil servants. Perceived ‘hurty words’ from a Minister are just that. With a nod to Laura Perrins as mentioned above, perhaps some Civil Service snowflakes need to ‘man up’?

6. Paragraph 125 reads in full: “Although the merit of each Complaint varied, I find that the complainants were in every case acting in good faith in raising concerns which they genuinely held. In some cases, their experience involved a significant adverse impact on their health. While I have not been able to reach any findings on whether such effects were in fact caused by the DPM’s conduct, I recognise and accept that the impacts communicated to me had genuinely been experienced.”

   People experience stress at work, for a wide range of reasons. Sometimes it is because of workload, balancing workload with non-work commitments (family, social, other), or when they are not professionally competent (overwhelmed by the responsibilities of the job).

   Of course, it is the responsibility of line managers to address these issues, but if that is not done, to whom is a Civil Service department ultimately responsible, if not a democratically elected Government Minister of State?

   Tolley was not commissioned, and likely not qualified, to opine on questions of this nature - which is but one reason why the entire investigation was flawed from the outset.

7. At paragraph 152, Tolley opines thus: “The DPM … went beyond what was reasonably necessary in order to give effect to his decision and introduced a punitive element.”

   For reasons of confidentiality, we have no insight as to the nature of this ‘punitive element’, and we are expected to accept Tolley’s judgment as to what is and is not ‘reasonably necessary’.

   We have an employment lawyer, unilaterally and entirely lacking in transparency, deciding what is an appropriate approach for a Government Minister.

8. Paragraph 161 includes the most damning wording in the entire report - and it is not Raab who is damned (highlighting mine): “Only some of those individuals had any direct experience of the DPM; some had never met him at all but were seeking to support their colleagues.”

   In the overall context of the back story to the investigation, the ‘leaking’ of ‘insider stories’ to the MSM during the investigation, and everything else that has happened politically over the last few years, this indicates - at the very least - a concerted attempt by a politicised group of civil servants to curtail the ability of a Government Minister to enact Government policy. At worst, it reveals an explicit plot to oust a democratically appointed political figure.

   This is the issue into which the PM should now commission a comprehensive investigation.