PM’S DISGUST AT STUDENT TSAR’S SORDID TWEETS
May slams obscene and sexist posts by university watchdog as female MPs call for his scalp
THERESA MAY was last night engulfed in a row over obscene tweets sent by her controversial new university tsar – casting a huge shadow over her imminent Cabinet reshuffle.
The Prime Minister last night voiced her ‘distaste’ for a string of sexist and obscene tweets sent by Toby Young – whose position on the new Office For Students watchdog was put into deeper jeopardy as it was revealed that he posted a sick sexual ‘joke’ about starving children on Comic Relief.
The campaigner’s misogynistic Twitter messages threaten to undermine Mrs May’s attempts to rebrand the Tories as a womenfriendly Party with the expected promotion
of several female MPs to the Cabinet tomorrow.
The Prime Minister is under growing pressure to scrap Mr Young’s appointment after two senior female Conservative MPs said his position was now ‘untenable’.
It was further revealed yesterday that Mr Young – a close friend of Cabinet Ministers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – was a self-confessed pornography addict who had watched thousands of adult films.
But his tweet ‘joking’ about a sex act and scenes of starving African children in a BBC Comic Relief segment fronted by Simon Cowell may prove the final straw.
Former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: ‘In continuing to defend Mr Young when the party needs to appeal to women and young people, we risk alienating those we need to re-engage with to win the next Election.’
Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, chairman of the Commons Health Select Committee, said: ‘I feel deeply uncomfortable about someone who says things like this being appointed to a high-profile public role.’
Last night there were signs that Mr Young was in danger of losing support from Mrs May, despite Mr Johnson leading a defiant rearguard action to save him.
A Downing Street source said: ‘Toby Young has a great record in
‘They are revolting and impossible to defend’
setting up free schools. However, the Prime Minister was not aware of these tweets when she appointed him and, like most people, sees them as distasteful. Now he has a public role, any repeat of those kinds of comments would be clearly incompatible with that position.’
The tweet that threatens to end his appointment stems from 2009, when Cowell was filmed in Kenya with children scavenging from a rubbish dump to survive. The pop mogul called it ‘hell on Earth’:
A female tweeted she had ‘gone through 5 boxes of Kleenex’ watching the harrowing scenes. Minutes later, just after midnight, Young tweeted a sarcastic and sick response, saying: ‘Me Too, I havn’t [sic] w ***** so much in ages.’
Mr Young told The Mail on Sunday last night he had ‘no recollection’ of posting the tweet. He said he had been a ‘provocative journalist’ for 30 years, whose stock in trade was saying ‘controversial, outrageous things’ so it was no surprise people were able to ‘dredge up’ material to embarrass him.
All the offending messages date back at least five years and most much longer. Mr Young insisted he was a changed man, saying: ‘I’m a more serious person now.’
He spent three months in Kenya in 2013 to help a friend trying to establish a primary school.
If ‘anyone who has said anything offensive on Twitter’ was to be banned from public life, it would ‘become even more homogenous and anaemic than it is at present,’ said Mr Young.
But Ms Morgan said: ‘Many will find it hard to understand how someone who expresses the views in Mr Young’s tweets can be appointed to a body responsible for universities. There must be someone better suited to the position.’
Ms Wollaston said: ‘Initially, I thought this was a confected explosion of rage against Toby from people opposed to him for political reasons over free schools. But it is increasingly clear that someone did not do due diligence when they appointed him to this post.’
Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘These tweets are revolting and impossible to defend. But I am a huge admirer of Mr Young’s pioneering work in free schools and do not believe he is unsuitable to work with young people in universities.’
Labour equalities spokesman Dawn Butler said: ‘To mock children in desperate need with a sexually explicit joke is truly beyond the pale. The spotlight should also turn on his chief defender Boris Johnson whose own misogynistic fantasies make him unfit for high office.’
But there is no sign Boris or his brother, Universities Minister Jo – who announced Mr Young’s appointment – will withdraw their support. A source close to the Foreign Secretary said he stood by his view there had been a ‘ridiculous outcry’ against Mr Young who would ‘bring independence, rigour and caustic wit’ to the post and was ‘the ideal man for the job’.
It is understood Jo Johnson is also continuing to back Mr Young. However, it is less certain if other senior Tory figures will continue to rally round. Environment Secretary Mr Gove hailed Mr Young last week for ‘working night and day to provide great state schools for children of every background’. But asked yesterday if Mr Gove still endorsed Mr Young, a source close to him declined to comment.
Mr Young has tried to stop further revelations by deleting almost 50,000 tweets from his account.
The row over Mr Young comes two weeks after Mrs May was forced to sack her Deputy Prime Minister, Damian Green, for allegedly lying about pornography on his Commons computer.