Why is Patel still in her job? Because the boss needs her there | Martin Kettle

The home secretary represents the Tory’s authoritarian wing, and her presence helps preserve party unity

Priti Patel is a very lucky home secretary. Twenty-five years ago, when Michael Howard did her current job, the Conservative party lapped up his hardline penal policy of “three strikes and you’re out”. Patel shares much of Howard’s philosophy. But she is lucky his three strikes doctrine has gone. Patel would not be in her job if it applied.

In less than a week, three separate bullying charges have been lodged against Patel. The earliest, from when she was a junior minister at the Department for Work and Pensions in 2015, centres on a formal complaint of bullying and harassment. The second, from her time as international development secretary in 2017, involves what has been called a “tsunami of allegations” as well as “shocking” bullying of her own private secretary. The third, which came in her permanent secretary’s resignation statement, accuses her of creating fear by shouting, swearing, belittling, and making unreasonable and repeated demands.

In Cummings’s world, the loss of Patel would be both a victory for the hated Whitehall “blob” and for the hated BBC

Related: Priti Patel accused of bullying a third senior civil servant

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