Priti Patel

[Walkaround]

Is it actually possible to unintentionally bully someone? I always thought there had to be some knowledge of abuse of power - it’s supremely difficult to intimidate or coerce someone accidentally. The fact that the people Priti Patel works with as equals- other ministers - are falling over themselves to say how delightful she is to work with, whereas those who work for her accuse her of bullying surely makes it more likely her behaviour is deliberate bullying? Otherwise, her equals would find her to have an frightening, tyrannical demeanour, too!

@StormzyinaTCup - and I think tit for tat insults are extremely immature. It’s just more of the same, ridiculous justifying of behaviour by arguing that it’s OK simply because you think someone else is just as bad as you are. The Permanent Secretary at the Home Office left his job over this, now it is time for Priti Patel to do the same.

I feel sorry for teachers. You just know some know it all school hooligan is going to hear "unintentionally" bullied and use that as an excuse for being a twat.

There is no tit for tat I’m saying as I find, that was a nasty comment that was quoted.

Maybe she does need to resign (I think there is more to come out of this personally) but there also does need to be an overhaul of what goes on in the civil service and has been going on for some time by exactly these types of men who think it’s ok to throw around nasty comments like that.

unherd.com/2020/02/every-home-secretary-must-fight-the-home-office/

By all accounts she is intellectually limited, very limited.

However, she is a woman and not white - definitely not a white male middle aged Old Etonian. Moreover she obeys orders from above and is prepared to say horrible racist things.

As a child of refugees (I assume from Africa of Gujarati extraction) she has a free hand to communicate publicly hate of immigrants and foreign types, particularly if they arrive as asylum seekers.

If you can bitch shout openly there is no need to dog whistle after all.

As such she is beloved by the blue rinse roots of the tory party, and Johnson doesn't want to lose another one, but he also wants to limit the errors. So he only wields her out for stock well-rehearsed speeches and photo opportunities.

@StormzyinaTCup - well, hopefully an overhaul would stop ministers blaming the civil service when ministers make ludicrous promises based on lies and then fail to deliver. Likewise with Brexit - no more hiding behind the pretence that the country is held back by Brussels bureaucrats. I have seen zero evidence so far of ministerial competence during the pandemic, though, so wonder why they persist on being the bad workmen who always blame their tools.

Let's not forget she has form, and it's not just men complaining...

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-bully-staff-suicide-conservative-boris-johnson-a9370731.html

By all accounts she is intellectually limited, very limited. Well she isn't good with numbers going by the mess she made of reading out a number at a briefing. Of course not everyone is good with numbers and she might be great at something else.

I do think she got away quite lightly with that mess if you compare it to the way Diane Abbott was treated for a miscalculation.

ShatnersWig, that is hard to read, particularly for anyone who has ever been bullied at work.

My prediction for the future: bullies, incompetents and liars will continue to pull existing systems apart and their changes will make no improvements whatsoever to the state of the country, they will just prove to have been destructive and destabilising.

Well she isn't good with numbers going by the mess she made of reading out a number at a briefing. Of course not everyone is good with numbers and she might be great at something else.

Management and leadership also crossed off the list I expect too.

I would feel able to support change if I felt the people leading the change had integrity, though, that’s the problem. There is no evidence of integrity, so I have no trust in the changes.

The Committee on standards in public life is trying to make life better for all public sector staff

so that a more diverse and dynamic set of people are willing to apply

this has set that back to the day Eric Pickles abolished the Standards Board and the Audit Commission

Bad behaviour and corruption are the way of it with the current government

.

Eurg. I despise work bullies. This is not a debate about race or gender. She's a bully and should resign or be fired.

I have no idea whether she's a bully or not, but I do find that if people ask direct or challenging question of their employees they often get accused of bullying. Even more so if it's a woman doing the challenging.

Interviews with her constituents make me think she's very nice to them. PP can turn on charm when she wants.

I think it’s possible not to realise your behaviour is bullying. However, if you are shouting and swearing at people you categorically know you are being an arsehole. Continuing to do so shows dreadful arrogance.

BenoneBeauty I really agree with you. There are a lot of behaviours more traditionally seen as masculine that are seen as very negative and unacceptable in women.

@BenoneBeauty - knowing how MPs, particularly cabinet ministers, behave towards each other in the House of Commons and in public life, do you really think civil servants are unused to being asked direct or challenging questions?! That sounds highly implausible to me. The idea that direct and challenging questions are a unique speciality of Priti Patel’s that civil servants are unused to having to deal with is risible. Also laughable that anyone should feel the need to shout their questions as their employees and swear at them.

That message on the WA group is what's behind all these ridiculous posts excusing Priti Patel's bullying because she's a woman/ her victims deserved it/ other people are worse @SabrinaThwaite.

People have become bullying-apologist sheep just because Bojo told them to.

Those who say they would never swear at colleagues have obviously never witnessed a dealing floor under pressure either 🤣

It doesn't make it right or even ideal, but most give as good as they get.

As I mentioned earlier the HO needs a blimmin good shake up. My guess is that PP is ruffling the feathers of people in the dept who object to reform of their empire.

I'm not a fan of unelected suits dictating policy to elected politicians. I hope she succeeds in this. I would hate her job!

It's been publicly admitted that she did the bullying. That's not even in question. In fact, it is BJ we should be disgusted at for allowing her to stay even though it's acknowledged her behaviour was wrong. There are now three separate government departments where she's been accused of bullying. To be honest, if you're so unaware what bullying behaviour looks like that you've been doing it "unintentionally" then you clearly shouldn't be in a powerful leadership position. It's not rocket science.

This theory that we should excuse her behaviour because she's a woman in a tough culture is incredibly disappointing and a disservice to the genuine problems that women in the workplace face. There have been many, many female Home Secretaries over the past couple of decades who have managed to lead the department without bullying people.

You just have to look at all PP's past behaviour (the Israel meetings, highly unpleasant remarks about how we should threaten the Irish with food shortages to get them to agree a Brexit deal - remember when a British government starved the Irish a couple of centuries ago), to realise that she sounds like neither an intelligent nor a pleasant person. It says quite a lot about our current government that someone like this should hold such a senior position.

I expect she'll be out once Brexit is "sorted" and BJ doesn't need to fill the cabinet with no-hopers just because they were pro-Brexit.

It’s not just one department, it’s several, that these accusations have come from, which would imply that it is a pattern of behaviour from her.

I work in a school - I wouldn’t excuse bullying from the children I work with on the grounds that it was unintentional. Would you accept that excuse from people if they bullied your child? “Sorry, I didn’t know I was doing it.” If you went to your child’s school to complain about your child being bullied, would you be happy if the staff said “We’re not doing anything because the bully didn’t realise.”

Bullying is bullying when it is targeted at someone, and when it is repeated. Losing your temper once and shouting at someone, even swearing, isn’t bullying, it’s a loss of control. And not great. I can keep my temper when I’m being hit and kicked by someone in my class, so I don’t see why she can’t keep her temper. It’s not professional to shout and swear at work but nonetheless, it’s not bullying. If she has been found to be bullying then it is targeted and repeated, and that’s not a mistake. That’s deliberate.
I would come down hard on any child doing that, even if they claimed not know they were doing it. I want someone who is involved in running my country to be held to higher standards than the kids I work with, not lower ones.

@mellongoose - and trading floors are famous for being macho, unpleasant, probably still sexist, bullying working environments that the vast majority of people would loathe to work in. Not really a good idea to hold them up as paragons of an acceptable working place. Certainly not a good idea to suggest that it is necessary for a Cabinet Office to work like a trading floor!

As I said, it is not ideal, but it does exist. I stand by my comments that she is dealing with a massive brick wall in her department.

She should not have sworn, but I hope she succeeds in breaking that unelected empire apart.