Gavin-gate: a sorry indictment of the Westminster bubble

The outraged response to a few sweary texts has exposed the immaturity of our political class.

Has the gap between the political and media class and the British public ever been greater? For the past few days, journalists and politicians have worked themselves up into a tizzy over Cabinet Office minister Gavin Williamson’s WhatsApp messages. That a handful of snarky texts have made headlines three days in a row would be perplexing at any time. But when people are struggling to heat their homes, when the UK is facing the prospect of power cuts this winter, with a never-ending migrant crisis and people facing life-or-death waits for ambulances, frontpage stories about Williamson’s use of the f-word feel almost otherworldly.

Sir Gavin (as we are expected to call him) stands accused of sending ‘a series of expletive-laden messages’ to Wendy Morton back in September. Morton, as the then chief whip in Liz Truss’s short-lived government, was in charge of inviting MPs to the queen’s funeral. Williamson was clearly put out at not having made the cut. He was angry that colleagues who ‘aren’t favoured [by Truss] have been excluded from the funeral’. When told that this was not the case, Williamson replied: ‘Well certainly looks it which [I] think is very shit and perception becomes reality.’

In other messages to Morton, Williamson said: ‘You fuck us all over… there is a price for everything.’ Later on, he added: ‘Also don’t forget I know how this works so don’t puss me about.’ (My guess is that fat-fingered Gav meant ‘push’, but I might be wrong.) Each time Williamson was told he would not be attending the funeral, he pushed back: ‘It’s very clear how you are going to treat a number of us which is very stupid and you are showing fuck all interest in pulling things together.’ And so his rage continued for another three or four messages.