Dominic Raab’s resignation on Friday may have prompted those who don’t support the Conservatives to celebrate, but responses this weekend on the pages of traditionally rightwing newspapers were very different. The Daily Mail’s front page asked “Was this the day Britain became ungovernable?” adding that “Dominic Raab claimed last night that it was “almost impossible” for ministers to “deliver for British people”. On an inside spread a sub-heading about Adam Tolley’s findings read: “‘Bullying’ was little more than pulling civil servants up on poor performance, report concludes.” Columnist Andrew Pierce also argued that many may have been “left wondering whether Mr Raab was guilty of anything more than being a tough boss with high standards who was trying to get things done”. Veteran tub-thumper Richard Littlejohn refers to “trumped-up ‘guilty’ verdicts”, one of which “revolved around some pathetic snowflakes who claimed to have been ‘intimidated’ by mild criticism levelled in their direction by Raab, when they turned up hopelessly unprepared for a policy meeting.” On the Mail’s inside pages Raab himself warned that the precedent has now been set “for a small number of officials to target ministers, who negotiate robustly on behalf of the country, pursue bold reforms and persevere in holding civil servants to account.” Under the headline “Row over Spanish forces in Gibraltar sank Raab”, the Daily Telegraph claimed that Hugh Elliott, now the UK’s ambassador to Spain, had secretly proposed putting Spanish boots on the ground in Gibraltar during Brexit talks. The report says Elliott was confronted by Raab in London in November 2020 about what he had said and then been moved off the Brexit negotiations.
The Daily Express proclaimed that Raab was “Forced out for wanting best for Britain.” His only crime, according to allies, an “unwavering determination to make Britain better”. The Sun focused on the words of a whistleblower from inside the Ministry of Justice who puts the blame squarely on “failing” civil servants who, in its view, have been rightly blasted by Raab. After making “a basic error” the whistleblower was called into Raab’s office: “He was icy to the point of being rude, abrupt, and I left feeling about nine inches tall. And I totally deserved it.” The Sun’s source did concede that perhaps Raab’s “methods were not the right ones to get the ministry to start actually doing its job better”, but added: “Spare me the self-pity from civil servants with no experience of life outside the public sector.” Taking a calmer view of Raab’s departure, the Times painted a picture of a man who, if not heroic, fought to the last. Under the headline “Raab goes down swinging”, its front page described Raab’s view that the Sunak government “is being derailed by a tyranny of subjective hurt feelings and activist civil servants”.