The frontrunner to take over the civil service was branded a ‘shameless’ self-promoter by her staff, it has emerged.
Fresh details of the complaints previously levelled at Dame Antonia Romeo reveal that junior colleagues accused her of caring more about her personal profile than her work when she was HM Consul General to New York a decade ago.
Staff even claimed she demanded they cover the bathroom of her official residence with framed articles about her from Vogue magazine and the New Yorker.
The intention was that ‘regardless of how you use the bathroom, you have to stare at a photo of her in a magazine spread staring back at you’, according to emails reported by the BBC on Tuesday.
One message claimed: ‘Antonia’s obsession with promoting her personal brand over the work and priorities of HMG [HM Government] has created an untenably tense and bullying atmosphere for all staff.’
Another former colleague wrote: ‘I’m extremely alarmed that Antonia, who holds one of the highest diplomatic positions here in the United States, seems to be focusing an undue amount on building her personal Twitter brand.’
As The Mail on Sunday first revealed, Dame Antonia was accused of bullying staff who criticised her lavish spending. It was claimed that she demanded a $100,000 repainting of her official residence as well as costly flights back to the UK.
It was reported on Tuesday that the initial investigation in early 2017 found she had a ‘serious case to answer’ after former ambassador Sir Tim Hitchens was flown to the US to carry out a week-long probe during which he spoke to many of her colleagues.
Dame Antonia Romeo threw glitzy parties for the likes of Anna Wintour in New York
Dame Antonia is now one of three acting Cabinet Secretaries and is tipped to get the job permanently after Sir Chris Wormald was forced out
His report was then submitted to Lord McDonald of Salford, the then Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office who last week dramatically spoke out against the prospect of Dame Antonia becoming Cabinet Secretary.
But despite the findings of the initial investigation, the Cabinet Office then told her ‘there is no case to answer’ and Dame Antonia was just given advice about her management and leadership style.
A source told The Times: ‘The Foreign Office did a full investigation and found a serious case to answer which the Cabinet Office then ignored. So how did they reach that conclusion when they did not do their own investigation?’
But as the negative briefing against Dame Antonia increased, one Labour grandee said she was being unfairly traduced because Sir Keir Starmer’s Government had made mistakes in other recent appointments.
Baroness Harman linked the attacks to Sir Keir’s disastrous decision to appoint Lord Mandelson US Ambassador despite knowing about his friendship with notorious paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and his recent handing of a peerage to his former spin chief Lord Doyle despite reports he had campaigned for a convicted sex offender.
She wrote on social media: ‘Seems like the major errors in the appointment of two men (Mandelson/Doyle) are the pretext to unleash the trashing of a woman (Antonia Romeo).
‘Failing to conduct due diligence on men doesn’t justify hounding a woman. Mysogeny [sic] having a field day right here! It needs to stop!’
The Government has also consistently defended Dame Antonia.
The Cabinet Office said: ‘One formal complaint was raised nine years ago — which was thoroughly investigated and the allegations were dismissed on the basis there was no case to answer. While serving as consul-general in New York, Antonia Romeo was on secondment from the Cabinet Office, therefore decisions about the relevant complaint were made by the Cabinet Office. This is standard practice.’
On Monday Sir Keir’s spokesman told reporters she was an ‘outstanding leader with a 25-year record of excellent public service, including having been appointed to three permanent secretary roles’.