Gillian Keegan defies the press critics

To Smith Square: scene of Tory triumphs of the recent past. And tonight it was the turn of Gillian Keegan to produce her own bravura display. Amid speculation that the under-fire Education Secretary might not show, Keegan – the much-touted speaker at tonight’s Women2Win event for Tories in Communications – arrived at the inHouse offices to deliver a defiant retort to her critics in the Fourth Estate. ‘One of the very first people who helped me in the media was inHouse Communications’ said Keegan, before pausing and adding: ‘I think I might need another session’ and after laughter: ‘I don’t want to learn how to stop swearing but maybe the mic thing…’

With regards to the ongoing debate about RAAC, Keegan joked to the assembled spinners, hacks and comms professionals that: ‘I haven’t read the press. I think it must be awful because I’ve had people get in touch with me from Australia, Dubai, Panama, Belgium, Germany – Spain a lot.’