Isabel Hardman
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Whenever the schools do return, the Education Secretary will have an even bigger piece of work to complete than his current test of trying to make remote learning work. The attainment gap has widened like a canyon over the past year and it should take up a vast amount of government energy and vision to close it again. Few Tory MPs, even those who think Williamson has become the scapegoat for wider problems in government, think he is the person to lead that programme. One senior backbencher says: ‘He’s too leaden-footed. There’s no lightness of touch or vision.’ Another says he has lost so much political capital in trying — and ultimately failing — to keep schools open and with his repeated U-turns on policies that he can never recover. ‘Gavin is now fatally weak and the unions and Department of Health are feasting on his weakness. He’s now not strong enough to resist the calls from the health lobby to lock everything down.’ It is unlikely that he will stay in the job when Boris Johnson carries out his next reshuffle, and as James says on our latest Coffee House Shots podcast, he would be happier in a party-facing role which suits his skillset as an operator. But this move, when it comes, won’t be in response to Labour calling today for Williamson to go, and it will be very difficult for the opposition to reap political credit when he does.
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