Extract from a column in today's The Times by Max Hastings:-
Defence chiefs assemble today in Westminster Abbey for what some people think a bizarre occasion. Clergy will confer a blessing on 50 years of the Royal Navy’s submarine nuclear deterrent. Yet the brass now has a pleasing opportunity to rebrand the service as a thanksgiving for delivery from Gavin Williamson. Nobody will mind getting down on their knees for that.
The sacked defence secretary inspired heroic disdain among those obliged to work with him, ministers and public servants alike. He represented a mismatch between ambition and ability that seemed striking even by the standards of this government.
Williamson believed he could use his office as a stepping stone to the premiership. He advanced personal initiatives — for instance, to restore Britain’s “out of area” capabilities, projecting power far afield — which exasperated both Downing Street and service chiefs. His personal behaviour was crass: he scrawled an obscenity about Theresa May on a written rebuke from her office, which shocked his own staff as much as it will startle historians when eventually they get the chance to read it.
I know no one in the defence and political loop who is not confident of Williamson’s culpability for the leak from the National Security Council which cost him his job. Indeed, their anger focuses upon the prime minister’s refusal to trigger a criminal investigation into a breach of the Official Secrets Act for which he might be convicted by a court.
Clearly not a fan...