Gavin Williamson was criticised on Monday morning by his cabinet colleague Grant Shapps after his abusive messages to a former chief whip were leaked.
Williamson, a current cabinet office minister, hit out at Liz Truss’s chief whip Wendy Horton complaining that he had not been invited to the Queen’s funeral back in September.
In the messages published by The Sunday Times, the member of the Privy Council said Horton said it looked “very shit” that he hadn’t made the cut.
“It’s very clear how you are going to treat a number of us which is very stupid and you are showing fuck all interest in pulling things together,” Williamson texted.
Speaking to Sky News on Monday, business secretary Shapps said he understood the messages were “sent in a moment of frustration” but said it was still “not the right thing to do”.
“Generally, it is much better to write things that you will not live to regret later, particularly with colleagues.
“Writing things which are polite, even if you have a point of view to express, is not unreasonable.
“I don’t think he was right to send them. The prime minister said the same, and I know the party is going through a process of looking at them at the moment.”
Host Kay Burley asked how the business secretary felt about working with someone who felt “it was appropriate to talk to women like that”.
Shapps just said he would not send such texts, adding: “Never send messages you’ll regret in the cold light of day. It was wrong that he sent them.”
Despite the furore around the texts, prime minister Rishi Sunak is standing by Williamson, who was sacked from both Boris Johnson and Theresa May’s cabinets.
Then Tory chair Jake Berry told Sunak before he became PM that Morton had submitted a formal complaint to the Conservatives about Williamson’s behaviour.
Current party chair told Sky News on Sunday that the cabinet minister “regrets” sending those texts, but that Sunak “continues to have confidence in Gavin Williamson as a minister”.