Science minister Michelle Donelan was excited about the opportunity to join in the culture wars. She accused two academics on X of sharing extremist views and supporting Hama’s based on not doing any fact checking and misunderstanding. She was sued for libel. Apparently she is still an excellent minister.
Donelan misunderstood comments by Prof Kate Sang (Heriot Watt University) and Dr Kamna Patel (University College London) on X. She accused Sang and Patel of sharing extremist content online. Donelan further accused them of breaching the Nolan principles, that codify how public officials should behave.
Both had recently been appointed to an advisory group on equality, diversity and inclusion at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which manages government research funding. It is possible that Donelan imagined she was scoring a point for team anti-woke at the same time.
Donelan declared her “disgust and outrage” at the appointments and called on UKRI to remove both women from the group. Following an investigation the UKRI found no grounds for action. Following action for libel Donelan has since conceded that she misunderstood the X comments, deleted her comments and paid damages. Except she has not paid damages. The UK tax payers have paid the damages via the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
A Downing Street source stated that Rishi Sunak had “full confidence” in “excellent minister” Ms Donelan.
Sang had shared an article relating to government plans to ‘clamp down’ on pro-Palestine marches and called the plans “disturbing” in the context of anti- democratic positioning. Dr Patel had retweeted a post relating to Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide and apartheid”. That is not a contentious or radical position.