The inquiry found he was "intimidating" and "aggressive" towards officials, which in anyone's book equals "bullying", so I don't know how Raab or anyone else can claim otherwise.
Presumably those claiming otherwise actually read the report?
He was found to have been aggressive in one instance:
In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way
which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently
aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved
an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He
introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was
experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual,
which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that
this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have
been aware.
The context? The individual affected was a senior negotiator who had ****** up the Gibraltar part of the Brexit negotiations by deliberately exceeding his brief and agreeing something with the Spanish that was unacceptable to the government. Raab had him replaced. Not demoted. Just moved to a different team.
IMO that official was lucky to not be fired. If I did that as an employee of a private company I would certainly not expect to get off scot-free.
As for intimidating:
The DPM’s conduct cannot be characterised as offensive, malicious or
insulting. It was experienced as intimidating, in the sense of excessively
demanding. I could not make a finding as to whether it was in fact
intimidating in this sense. There was no evidence to suggest any abuse
or misuse of power.
On a number of occasions at meetings with policy officials, the DPM
acted in a manner which was intimidating, in the sense of going further
than was necessary or appropriate in delivering critical feedback, and
also insulting, in the sense of making unconstructive critical comments
about the quality of work done (whether or not as a matter of substance
any criticism was justified). By way of example, he complained about
the absence of what he referred to as ‘basic information’ or ‘the basics’,
about ‘obstructiveness’ on the part of officials whom he perceived to be
resistant to his policies, and described some work as ‘utterly useless’
and ‘woeful’.
So he was intimidating by... moving a negotiator who exceeded his brief and almost caused a no-deal Brexit, by being demanding about the quality of work, and by referring to poor quality output as "woeful".
Not quite Gordon Brown screaming and swearing, throwing pens and chairs and kicking a printer off a desk, is it?
