Loss of right-hand man piles pressure on PM
DAMIAN Green was to all intents and purposes Theresa May’s right-hand man – and not just in a metaphorical sense.
With the title of First Secretary of State and a position as a trusted ally of Mrs May, Mr Green stood by his leader as the deal with the DUP was signed and sat next to her at numerous Prime Minister’s Questions.
But their long friendship did not stop her from asking him to resign from her Cabinet after an inquiry found he had breached the ministerial code.
In the ritual exchange of letters, she expressed her “enduring gratitude for the contribution you have made over many years” – but she still asked him to resign – effectively sacking him.
Welshman Mr Green, born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan had admitted making “misleading” statements about allegations pornography was found on his Commons computer in 2008.
He denied downloading or viewing pornography, but independent adviser on ministers’ interests, Sir Alex Allan, found he had breached the ministerial code.
Mr Green served under Mrs May at the Home Office for four years as immigration minister and policing minister until his surprise sacking by David Cameron in 2014.
Mrs May handed him the role of work and pensions secretary in July 2016 in which he was responsible for the administration of the state pension and working age benefits system.
Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he was the president of the prestigious Oxford Union, and it was here that he first met Mrs May through his then girlfriend Alicia Collinson.
After going down to inevitable defeat at the hands of Ken Livingstone in the safe Labour seat of Brent East in the 1992 general election, he entered Parliament as MP for Ashford in Kent in 1997 – the same time as Mrs May – and has represented the seat ever since.
He joined the Tory frontbench soon after his arrival at Westminster, acting as spokesman for education and employment, then the environment, between 1998 and 2001, before being promoted to the shadow cabinet by Iain Duncan Smith as shadow education secretary.
He was moved out of the shadow cabinet when it was reduced in size as Michael Howard took the Tory helm, but served as shadow transport secretary until 2004 when he stepped down from the frontbench, saying he wanted to argue the case for “compassionate Conservatism”.
On the backbenches, he sat on the influential Home Affairs and Treasury committees before being recruited as a member of Mr Cameron’s first frontbench team in December 2005.
Mr Green was arrested in November 2008 and was held for nine hours as part of a Scotland Yard inquiry into Home Office leaks dubbed Operation Miser.
The arrest of Mr Green, who was shadow immigration minister at the time, was described as disproportionate and flawed by two damning inquiries in 2009 and no charges were brought against him.
As the sleaze scandal circled around Westminster, a Whitehall inquiry was launched into the alleged behaviour of Mr Green in 2015.
The Cabinet Office inquiry was triggered after Kate Maltby, who is three decades younger than Mr Green, told The Times that Mr Green “fleetingly” touched her knee during a meeting in a Waterloo pub in 2015, and a year later sent her a “suggestive” text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in the newspaper.
Mr Green said any allegation that he made sexual advances to Ms Maltby was “untrue (and) deeply hurtful”.
Married to Alicia, with two daughters, Mr Green was educated at Reading School in Berkshire and took a first-class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford.
After university, he worked as a financial journalist, with jobs at the BBC Financial Unit, Channel 4 News and The Times, becoming presenter and city editor of Channel 4’s Business Daily programme between 1987 and 1992, when he left to fight the election.