Aide says her boss is difficult, dismissive and thinks he’s PM
DOMINIC Raab’s aide allegedly claimed the Tory minister was ‘difficult to work with’ and often acted as if he was the prime minister.
The diary secretary described her boss as being ‘ dismissive of women’ and putting ‘ himself above everybody’.
The 20-year-old civil servant said Mr Raab had ‘ tunnel vision’ and that ‘ just managing him had been really hard’.
Mr Raab, the minister for housing and planning, became the MP for Esher and Walton in 2010.
The 44-year-old has been identified by some Westminster watchers as a future Tory leader and prime minister.
Mr Raab’s secretary told an undercover Daily Mirror journalist: ‘ I’m not his biggest fan.
‘You have to be very straight with him. He finds it difficult dealing with women. He’s very dismissive.’
She said that Mr Raab struggled with the fact that there were three women on his team, adding: ‘It’s something everybody’s noticed, so we find it very difficult to manage him.
‘He’s very tunnel vision. He’s not very open-minded, not very open to discussion. He’s difficult to work with. I think he thinks he’s the prime minister.
‘He puts himself above everybody – he’s not the favourite minister I’ve worked for.
However, she added: ‘He’s an enjoyable challenge.
‘ I like being the strong woman who can handle him, showing the other women around me you don’t have to put up with his s**t. No, I find it a healthy challenge.’
The secretary, who was suspended on Wednesday, told the Daily Mirror how Mr Raab’s staff toasted his departure with a bottle of prosecco when he left London for his constituency home at the start of the Easter holiday.
The young woman, who does not normally drink alcohol, said: ‘The team managed to pressure me into drinking a glass of prosecco. They said it had been a dreadful week.
‘It had been a horrendous week with Dom. He had been really flighty. Just managing him had been really hard.’
She suggested he should relax by getting high on a hash brownie – a cake baked with marijuana. She said: ‘He needs loosening up. He’s very uptight. That’s the word for him. I would love to get him high. He would lose his s**t, he would.
‘Oh my God. When things go out of line he panics.’
Mr Raab is a married father- of- two who was a high- flying lawyer before embarking on a career in politics.
He held two posts in the Ministry of Justice from 2015 to 2018, initially working on human rights before being made Minister of State, assisting on court services and reform, as well as supporting the Secretary of State for Justice on EU Exit and international business.
He caused controversy in 2011 when he claimed that ‘feminists are now amongst the most obnoxious bigots’.
There are fears that the aide’s willingness to talk about Mr Raab’s role and movements could leave her open to blackmail.
Her boss’s role as Minister of State for Housing includes the sensitive responsibility of having to deal with the many London properties owned by Russian oligarchs.
In the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack last month, Mr Raab also said the Kremlin could face ‘economic, financial, diplomatic’ retaliation.