Gavin Williamson

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This article is written in the 'future' (2023) and thus does not reflect the state of affairs in the present day, 1954. It does however represent a premonition of what is to come.

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## Politics

### Ranks held

Truth Minister 2020-Business Minister 2019-2020 Chief Whip 2015-2019

**Gavin Alexander Williamson** is a British politician who has served as Minister of Truth of the Union of Britain since 2020. Previously a member of the United Democrats, he defected to the New Union Party in 2008, serving as its Chief Whip in the Common Assembly from 2015 to 2019, and as Minister of Business from 2019 to 2020. He has been Member of the Common Assembly for Aldershot since 2011, having previously represented Blackpool North and Fleetwood from 2004 to 2009.

Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, Williamson was the son of a TUC congressman. He attended Bradford University, studying Social Sciences, during which time he rose to national prominence after being elected chair of the Student Democratic Movement in 1997. He led the organisation through its official integration into the United Democrats that year, and in 2001 aged only 24 he was elected a UD councillor in the Yorkshire Assembly.

In 2004 he stood as the UD candidate for Blackpool North and Fleetwood, winning the ultra-marginal Labour seat on a 2.4 swing - smaller than the national swing of five points against Labour. He served on several backbench committees before being made an assistant whip in 2006 - the following year he was appointed PPS to the Minister of Education David Cameron. Williamson quickly earned the older man's trust, and in 2008 when Cameron cofounded the breakaway New Union Party, Williamson was entrusted with an important role organising and corralling defecting MCAs. He served briefly as shadow Europe Minister whilst remaining Cameron's PPS, before the defeat of the 2009 budget in April that year triggered a general election.

Williamson later admitted that in his role as a shadow minister and Cameron's PPS, he had allowed himself to neglect his role as an MCA. He paid for this in the 2009 election, where he lost his seat to Millennium Party challenger Paul Maynard on a massive 21-point-swing. His defeat did not mark a departure from Westminster politics, however - instead Cameron hired him as a special advisor, allowing Williamson to continue much of the job in which he had functioned as an elected assemblyman. Nonetheless he did not abandon his electoral ambitions, and he began to look around for a seat in which to be selected as the NU candidate from 2010, as the NU-MIL coalition began increasingly tenuous. He ultimately became PPC for the seat of Aldershot, aided by the disorganised nature of selections in the three-week timeframe for constituencies to nominate candidates ahead of the 2011 general election.

Williamson won the seat on a narrow swing, returning to the Common Assembly, yet faced a setback only a day later when his old boss Cameron was shuffled out as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Blacklisted by the ascendant 'Greys' of the party, the Home Minister Theresa May and new Foreign Minister Philip Hammond, Williamson quietly fell into the orbit of the Finance Minister George Osborne. In the 2013 coalition reshuffle he was promoted to Domestic Environment Minister, a junior position in the Ministry of the Environment - less than a year later, though, he was promoted to become Minister for Rail in the wake of the December 20th disaster, tasked with supervising the overhaul of Britain's rail infrastructure and with bringing the country's powerful rail trade unions to heel. The appointment briefly brought him back under David Cameron, who had served as Minister of Transport since his demotion from the Foreign Ministry, before the latter resigned in March 2014 ahead of the December 20th Inquiry.

Through his tenure as a Minister, Williamson continued to work consistently against the Greys to advance Osborne's interests whenever possible. Upon Alan Duncan's resignation as leader of the New Union Party in 2015, Williamson became chief of Osborne's campaign for the leadership, vowing to block the Home Minister Theresa May from ascending to the role. Osborne ultimately won the leadership, becoming Minister-President in the process - in recognition of his crucial role in securing Osborne's victory, Williamson was appointed to the position of Chief Whip, making him the Government's principle enforcer in the Common Assembly. By accounts, he excelled at the role, but the nature of the position made him rapidly hated by both the government's coalition allies and some amongst his own party; parts of his management style drew controversy, and allegations that Williamson took too much pleasure in his role to be appropriate. Infamously, he kept a live tarantula in a jar on his desk; United Democrat MCA Jo Cox in 2017 compared Williamson to an officer of the Internal Security Administration, a comment that sparked controversy and condemnation from coalition colleagues.

In the buildup to the 2017 election, Williamson was one Cabinet member tipped for advancement in the event of an NU victory - in the event, the resumption of the NU-UD coalition and an emboldened United Democrats drove Osborne to retain Williamson in his position as whip. This sparked a brief period of controversy when it was reported that Williamson had begun to manoeuvre against the Minister-President - reports that were only denied by Williamson supposedly following meetings with Osborne. Ultimately, Williamson received the advancement he craved in the 2019 coalition reshuffle, when he became a full member of the Cabinet as Minister of Business; his tenure was characterised by his management of the government's business furlough scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May 2020, in the wake of the Barnard Castle affair, Williamson was selected to succeed Dominic Cummings as Minister of Truth, tasked with establishing government policy, managing campaigns and the distribution of information. His tenure has faced similar controversy to his time as Chief Whip, with allegations of bullying towards members of the media and government officials. Williamson is widely seen as having continued his role as Osborne's principle enforcer throughout his Cabinet career, acting as a key ally of the Minister-President as relations between the New Union Party and its United Democrat allies increasingly sour. His position is complicated by the United Democrats' policy, announced in November 2021, that they would disband the Ministry of Information if they achieved power in the coming 2023 election. Many of the government's coalition allies thus refuse to recognise Williamson's authority as a Cabinet minister.