 An official investigation into the conduct of Home Secretary Preeti Patel has found she is guilty of bullying her staff and therefore is in breach of the ministerial code. The ministerial code sets out the minimum standards required of a cabinet minister and convention is that if you've broken it you have to resign every time in the past that someone has been found to break the ministerial code they have resigned. But as we know this is a government of firsts and Boris Johnson overrindered the findings of the inquiry and Judge Patel has no case to answer the author of the report who was the independent investigator who was given the job of making this report he has resigned because his recommendations have been ignored. We're going to go through all of today's political fallout about this in one moment. First of all I want to get you up to speed on what this is all about. Why was Preeti Patel under investigation? What are the implications of it all? So we need to go back to March for the start of this story that's because that was when Sir Philip Rotnam who was the most senior civil servant in the Home Office resigned very publicly on television. My experience has been extreme but I consider there is evidence that it was part of a wider pattern of behaviour. One of my duties as permanent secretary was to protect the health, safety and well-being of our 35,000 people. This created tension with the Home Secretary and I have encouraged her to change her behaviours. I have received allegations that her conduct has included shouting and swearing, belittling people making unreasonable and repeated demands, behaviour that created fear and needed some bravery to call out. It's a video which political journalist claim is memorable because you never really have senior civil servants resigning live on TV. I think most people remember it for the guy holding the umbrella over his head throughout the interview. After that resignation and the allegations surrounding it an investigation was launched into Preeti Patel for bullying. That was in March. Why has it taken so long for us to learn about the results? That's because the government were sitting on the report partly under the premise that there was a pandemic to deal with but also it's been rumoured that Dominic Cummings was using its release as a threat against Preeti Patel to increase his leverage over how that seems to be the kind of guy he is. Anyway, last night finally a summary of the findings were released. The full document is still not being published even though there are demands from people in the standards commissions and the Labour Party to get it released. It won't be but the summary is here. I'm inspired by Sir Alex Allen. He concludes, my advice is that the Home Secretary has not consistently met the high standards required by the ministerial code of treating her civil servants with consideration and respect. Her approach on occasions has amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying in terms of the impact felt by individuals. To that extent her behaviour has been in breach of the ministerial code even if unintentionally. Now this is pretty clear. Preeti Patel has broken the ministerial code that's what he has judged he was the person the independent investigator who was given the job of finding out whether or not she had broken the ministerial code he says she had. Now there's obviously lots of pressure and for her to resign. Matt Hancock, there was this morning we now know the outcome but this morning Matt Hancock was the first person to go out to field questions about this. Surely she's going to have to resign. Here he is on BBC Breakfast and he's asked a question in the abstract whether a breach of the ministerial code should mean that a minister resigns. Well that is a judgment for the Prime Minister. What I'd say on this is that I've worked with Preeti Patel a lot. I think she's an excellent Home Secretary. She's been nothing but courteous and kind in all the dealings that I've had with her and I know that she's absolutely focused on delivering the commitments that we've made to improve the safety of our streets across this country for instance by recruiting 20,000 extra police and we've already recruited more than 5,000 extra over the last year so she's working very hard on that agenda. I'm not expecting you to comment on the character of one of your colleagues. What I'm asking I suppose is you are a member of the cabinet you are a minister and there is a ministerial code which you abide by. Would you feel comfortable sitting next to another minister who has been proven to have broken the ministerial code still in the job? Well that is a judgment for the Prime Minister not for me and what I would say though is that I feel very proud to serve in a cabinet with Preeti Patel and I think that she's doing an excellent job and is an excellent Home Secretary and really delivering on the things that matter to people the commitments that we made and on which we were elected and as I say in all the dealings I've ever had with her she's been nothing other than courteous. She can't be a workplace bully because she's always been nice to me. You have the same seniority as that you're another cabinet minister the fact that she's nice to you does not mean she's nice to the people who work under her which presumably Matt Hancock knows but they're just taking the country for false. Obviously the pressure for Boris Johnson to sack Preeti Patel he found a way to avoid that and it was in a sort of characteristically Boris Johnson type fashion he worked out that actually formally it's his ultimate responsibility whether or not to find someone has or has not broken the ministerial code so even though there's been a months long investigation by the person who was you know works as Boris Johnson's specific advisor on ministerial standards he can as Prime Minister he's the ultimate boss of Preeti Patel he can just overall that he can say no I've read the report and I disagree no ministerial code was broken. Preeti Patel for her part has at least said she's sorry. I'm sorry that my behavior has upset people and I've never intentionally set out to upset anyone. I work with thousands of brilliant civil servants every single day and we work together day in day out to deliver on the agenda of this government and I'm absolutely sorry for anyone that I have upset. I'm sorry for anyone that I have upset not for anything she's done you will note and Boris Johnson's controversial move to completely override and ignore and the results of the independent investigation has led to the resignation of the author of that inquiry that was Sir Alex Allen. I'm not surprised that a woman who takes extreme joy in throwing people into cages in calling Black Lives Matter protesters thugs sending dignies of desperate refugees back out into the sea is a bully. I wish there was more focus on the impact of her terrorization and her brutality on people whose names we will never know rather than only when it happens to senior civil servants you know that is a much bigger scandal to me you know the dramatic impacts that that has on you know physical health on mental health the breaking down of the spirit of individuals of communities the dehumanization that is wrought as a result of the policies that we see her enact she has gotten away with huge amounts of not just cruelty but pure corruption whether it's voting against making the detention of pregnant women illegal using like anti-semitic tropes around North London elites this is stuff that she gets away with and it's the fact that she kind of I'm all it's almost somewhat reassuring to know that she lives out her politics in her everyday life in the form of being of taking sort of some kind of thrill in dehumanizing the people around her. At least she's non-discriminatory in her arsehole rite she's not just an arsehole to people who are you know overly policed or people who are trying to migrate to the UK she's also an arsehole to middle class civil servants in Westminster although not to Matt Hancock apparently. The workplace bullying angle I do think is important as well because this isn't just something that applies to middle class people in in Whitehall workplace bullying is an incredibly you know it's a problem that most people will understand on a personal level it can ruin lives and sort of the dismissal of it and in the fashion that the conservatives have done which is just so well she's nice to me I do think does you know does have lasting damage. I want to for you know the sake of fairness point out that in this report there were some sort of mitigating factors which were cited and that's what the government are using to say look yeah she might have broken the ministerial code but you've got to focus on focus on the mitigating factors focus on those so we will read those there this is also from the summary of the you know the findings of that inquiry so Alan writes there is no evidence that she was aware of the impact of her behavior and no feedback was given to her at the time the high pressure and demands of the role in the home office coupled with the need for more supportive leadership from the top of the department has clearly been a contributory factor in particular I know the finding of different and more positive behavior since these issues were raised with her and Tory MPs have been really focusing on that line about the need for more supportive leadership within the home office so you'll have lots of MPs coming out saying we know how difficult the civil service are she was probably just responding to people who were fairly obstinate and not doing what she said the report did say that people could have been more responsive to her than than they were having more flexible with the words they used but others have suggested that you know this is saying oh she's only broken the ministerial code and there's all these mitigating factors so maybe we should just accept it but former permanent secretary at the Treasury gives us a different and I think useful perspective he's saying that the bar to have broken the ministerial code is actually pretty high and so this guy used to be the top civil servant of the treasury Nick McPherson he tweets two thoughts of the day bullying at work is never justified it can cause huge misery for those affected and their families in my experience things have to be very bad indeed for a cabinet office inquiry to find fault in a minister the system is rigged to conclude the contrary I think that points very important because people will wonder how can it be the case that the prime minister who clearly has a political interest in saving his home secretary is the final arbiter when it comes to whether or not someone has has broken this and the person who's writing the initial report is himself and fundamentally an employee of the prime minister not in indirectly because they're a civil servant they're a top civil servant in the employ of of Her Majesty's government so you might think this was always rigged from from the outset and this top civil servant is suggesting that probably is how you should look at it so even if they say yeah she broke it but there's some mitigating factors the bit that's surprising there is that this report came to her having broken it err on the side that it's worse than what was said in the report than that it was better than what was said in the report basically and here when it comes to this issue of workplace bullying saying if she bullied people they probably deserved it or maybe it was just people being overly sensitive and the person pushing back against this most heavily probably is the representative of people who work in the civil service this is Dave Penman I'm speaking earlier he's general secretary of the FDA so that's one of the civil service unions what is the point of the ministerial coding what is the point of the investigation if actually what we're saying is it doesn't matter what evidence is found it doesn't matter what the prime minister's own advisor on the ministerial code says if it is politically convenient for the prime minister to ignore it he will ignore it he's also minister for the civil service let's be clear this investigation has found the home secretary bullied her staff that's the conclusion that the prime minister's advisor on the ministerial code has reached including shouting and swearing at civil servants the prime minister in his forward to the ministerial code said there will be no bullying and no harassment he didn't mean it those words are whole now what message does it send not just the civil servants in the home office but across the civil service if you want to raise a complaint against the minister about the behavior the outcome of that will depend on the politics that's happening at the time that's the clear message to civil servants from the prime minister to a very powerful point there you're saying if you complain against your boss if it's not politically convenient for your boss to face consequences then the government will completely ignore it I think probably though more unedifying than the fact that pretty Patel hasn't resigned is the way Tory MPs are justifying it and we've seen all sorts of tweets which basically take this format we're going to start by going to Andrea Ledson she says I have known pretty Patel for many years as a friend and colleague yes she's strong and forthright in her views which is one of her great assets I have never seen her bully anyone she is also empathetic and incredibly kind now you know you could imagine I think this would be distasteful to sort of say when the allegations were first made as I've said already I don't think whether or not you are a workplace bully has much to do with whether or not you're nice to people who are you know you're equals when it comes to levels of of authority often the worst bosses are really you know brown nosy to the people above them so so the fact that a boss is nice to you very powerful person doesn't necessarily mean they're nice to the people that work under them but also yes I've never seen her bully anyone this is basically not just saying look she might have behaved badly but she's also a nice person maybe we should treat her sympathetically this is outright just denying that what was in the report is in the report they say oh they found that she's guilty of bullying I haven't seen it so I don't believe it it's like this person had the official role to do this independent investigation and they were tasked with doing it by your government it's not like an external organization that have come and it's not like the Guardian have done an investigation into Pretty Patel it is the person whose job is to do that investigation who works under Boris Johnson the other one is IDS apparently he's been sort of rallying the troops to come out with with tweets like this so he wrote I've worked with Pretty Patel for a number of years and always found her to be strong robust and determined to get the job done she's a hard-working and good home secretary there is a history of poor civil service leadership at the home office and the report is critical of that yes the report is critical of that the report also says that Pretty Patel is a bully which is the part of the report you are ignoring one of the problems here I think is is the fact that there's no gray area when you have this sort of zero tolerance policy if you've broken the code you have to resign and that means the government either have to say you're sacked or you didn't break the code and I think in this situation Pretty Patel should just be sacked obviously but I wouldn't really have minded if Boris Johnson had come out and said look she's clearly done some things wrong but the report also said she's her behavior has improved over the past six months and the report also sort of noted that this was a difficult situation so while what happened was obviously wrong absolute solidarity to anyone who who was who was bullied and she's going to do some training etc I think we should keep her in a job because of all her benefits obviously I don't think she has many benefits in that job but he does but they have instead said nope she didn't bully nope not bullying she was nice to me she's not a bully and it's it's exactly the same as with Dominic Cummings if they had said about Dominic Cummings look he broke the rules that's terrible and we condemn that in the strongest possible terms he's getting a massive telling off but ultimately we still are going to keep him in the job because we believe in second chances etc etc I would have thought that was a bit weak you know because the rule he broke was so audaciously bad but it was audaciously bad to break it in the way that he did but if they had said that I would have at least had a bit of respect for it instead what they said is they said nope he hadn't broken a rule you know they just lied to us so if they had been honest and saying look we're not going to fire them because we want them to have a second chance or we you know we we're taking into account them mitigating circumstances fine but don't stand up to the public and say no a bully is not a bully she she might have been found guilty of bullying but she's nice to me ah yes we might have evidence that he broke all of the lockdown rules but I've he didn't that was basically what they said is this sort of habit that this government have of kind of gaslighting the public of just saying what's what's the case is not the case because that's the way they get the outcome they want