Norman Baker
Norman Baker has told how Theresa May and her closest aides repeatedly set out to shut down his activities at the Home Office as he defended his decision to quit as a minister.
The Home Secretary’s special advisers scrutinised what he was up to then “tried to minimise my room for manoeuvre”, he said.
The criticism came as Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that Lynne Featherstone, the MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, will be replacing Mr Baker as the Liberal Democrats’ representative in the department.
Ms Featherstone, who previously served as equalities minister, said she was “very happy to be returning to the Home Office”.
Seemingly contradicting Mr Baker’s assessment, she said: “I have always had a very constructive relationship with Theresa May and I look forward to working with her again.”
Conservative former minister Damian Green insisted that Mr Baker had been the cause of tensions in the department because he tried to act as if he had the same ministerial rank as Mrs May.
Theresa May
But the Lewes MP denied the claims and laid the blame for his departure firmly at Mrs May’s door.
“I’m afraid that the Home Secretary, who I think is a formidable woman and a very competent Home Secretary, has one great drawback, which is that she regards this a Conservative department in a Conservative government and it’s not,” he said. “It’s a Coalition department in a Coalition government and I’m afraid that mindset has rather soured things.”
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may.jpg Theresa May
baker.jpg Norman Baker