How keeping Priti Patel as home secretary could cause Boris Johnson more problems

For how long can bullying allegations continue to hog the political news agenda, asks Sean O'Grady

The PM backs his minister... for now (AFP/Getty)

It may or may not have been Alastair Campbell who invented what came to be known as “Campbell’s Rule”, but it has come to be received wisdom in journalistic circles. It commonly states (there are variations) that if a media frenzy is still raging after a period of 10 days then the political personality at the centre of it is “toast”. If so, then the home secretary, Priti Patel, still in post after a fortnight of hostile coverage, “should” survive, except that, such is the rich back catalogue of allegations being made against her – all of which she denies – the Campbell calendar keeps getting reset in an almost perpetual fashion.

Patel’s troubles began on 20 February. It was then reported that she had attempted to have the permanent secretary at the Home Office, her most senior civil servant, Sir Philip Rutnam, moved to another job. It was said – and denied by Patel – that there was a “toxic atmosphere” and that she had created an “atmosphere of fear”. There were lurid allegations about bullying, belittling officials in meetings and making unreasonable demands, particularly on the new points-based immigration system. The cabinet secretary, Mark Sedwill, was drawn into the saga, the rest of Fleet Street sniffed a good tale with plenty of human interest, and opposition MPs started to call for her sacking. Conveniently, the Patel story fitted nicely into a pattern and growing movement highlighting workplace bullying along with allegations against speaker John Bercow (which he has denied) and the Westminster/Whitehall culture of bullying – a strong “narrative”, as the saying goes.

The story rumbled on, as they do, for a few days. There was a “briefing war”, Tory MPs lined up to support Patel against a supposedly recalcitrant civil service, and Downing Street expressed varying degrees of confidence in her. The Patel/bullying story was starting to lose momentum, overtaken by the flooding and, of course, coronavirus. The public and the press were starting to get distracted.

The “10-day rule” period was up, so to speak, on Saturday 29 February. Had the story petered out at that point, Patel might well be more confident of her survival. However, with impeccable timing, it was at that very point that Rutnam decided to make a dramatic on-camera resignation, all the more newsworthy for happening on a weekend. He declared that he had refused offers to keep his trap shut with a generous payoff, and would be taking Patel to an employment tribunal. This would mean the home secretary would be forced to give witness evidence, be cross-examined on oath (presumably by a QC) and potentially humiliated.

It was and is difficult for any government or minister to view such an event with equanimity. The Rutnam resignation and new allegations certainly dominated the news agenda for days afterwards. The 10-day rule was reset. Even the hurriedly released news on the Saturday of the Symonds-Johnson baby plus engagement failed to protect Patel from some more rough coverage.

Since that point, yet more allegations have emerged, the most damaging being that one civil servant, it was reported again in banner headlines, had tried to take her own life after an encounter with Patel. The Cabinet Office has announced an inquiry, and Downing Street started to be more equivocal about her. When Michael Gove faced the Commons and announced an official internal inquiry, he called Patel a “superb” minister, a suspiciously over-the-top commendation. A few days before, another colleague, Mike Hancock, stressed that he wasn’t close to events in the Home Office while professing routine loyalty. On the other hand, at the latest prime minister’s questions, Boris Johnson sat pointedly next to Patel in solidarity and said he was “sticking by her”. Then again, it has also been reported that the prime minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, hasn’t much trust in her abilities.

Can she survive now? Again, it is difficult to envisage a home secretary, of all people, being filmed going into a court room, with a circus of reporters observing the proceedings (as they are entitled to do). If they are going to let her go, the question is when. To borrow another legendary spin doctor remark, they may be better off picking a “good day to bury bad news”, and Patel’s career.

It is possible to sack a minister prematurely, when there is chance of survival and they could be perceived to have been treated harshly. However, it generally denotes a certain ruthlessness and strength in a PM, and that can burnish the image. This was supposedly the attitude Tony Blair took, advised as he was by Campbell. To sack a minister too late, after declaring complete confidence in them, is more of an error, and makes a prime minister look weak – many of John Major’s difficulties arose when he attempted to defy media and public pressure to get rid of a minister, or deselect an MP – notably in the so-called “sleaze” era with Neil Hamilton. (It was Major’s very dithering, or loyalty to colleagues, that gave rise to Campbell promulgating his eponymous rule.)

More recently, Theresa May also probably hung on to the likes of Michael Fallon and Damian Green for rather too long. So, most notably, did David Cameron with his own spin doctor, Andy Coulson, back in 2011 (during the phone-hacking scandal).

The “shock” resignation of Sajid Javid – not a pure sacking – should also remind all concerned that the general public tends not to be particularly moved by the fates of individual politicians, even the most senior. In the case of Patel, rightly or wrongly, she is probably now a net political liability in her current position, and her departure would be a relief for the government as a whole. The usual advice in such a situation is to get a sacking over with quickly – and to get a new home secretary in place to get on with the new immigration system and recruiting thousands of police officers.

Patel will surely become an unsupportable liability as the date for a hearing at the Central London Employment Tribunal approaches, and she find herself having to brief solicitors and barristers about what she did and did not do in her various ministerial jobs, and particularly in the Home Office. Meanwhile, an insatiable media – with a few exceptions determined to ignore the whole business for political reasons – will be looking for ever more example of Patel’s style of personnel management. Her record as a minister at Work and Pensions, International Development and now the Home Office is the gift that keeps on giving. She, with the media, has turned the 10-day rule into something with perpetual force – until Johnson decides to be ruthless. Thus far he has proved a reluctant butcher, but the knives may be out for Patel before another 10 days have passed.