Gavin Williamson’s handling of this year’s A-level exams has put the education secretary and the government under enormous media pressure, from all sides of the political spectrum. Daily Mail Under the headline “The man who won’t take the blame”, the Daily Mail once again dedicates its print front page to criticism of Williamson and calls for him to resign. The newspaper’s leader column says Williamson’s “negligent failure to do even the most basic homework will have hugely damaging consequences”, and that in the private sector “anyone overseeing such comprehensive failure would be fired”. It continues: “Mr Williamson was the defence secretary who chilled Vladimir Putin’s bones (or, rather, became a laughing stock) by telling Russia after the Salisbury poisonings to ‘go away and shut up’. Perhaps it’s time this clueless minister heeded his own advice.” But while in the past a Conservative minister would have found it hard to survive repeated attacks on the front page of the Daily Mail, the prime minister has already shown he is willing to ignore the newspaper after it spent part of the summer calling for his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, to be sacked after a possible breach of lockdown rules. MailOnline, the newspaper’s sister website and the UK’s biggest commercial news website, is also calling for the prime minister “to come out of his tent and take charge of education shambles as he defies calls to sack Gavin Williamson over exams fiasco that has left the government a laughing stock”. Daily Telegraph Boris Johnson’s former employer is critical of the mess, with the columnist Philip Johnston suggesting “the A-level fiasco could be a turning point that destroys the Tories’ political fortunes”. “The worst charge that can be levelled at a ruling party is one of incompetence. Voters will forgive many things, but not that,” he writes. The sketch writer Michael Deacon put it more brutally, suggesting the education secretary was going out of his way to baffle those listening to his interviews: “Mr Williamson may sound like an imbecile. But perhaps that’s a sign of his genius.” The Times The newspaper’s leader columns are markedly less critical of Williamson than many other outlets. Although they mock the notion that the education secretary is not responsible for Ofqual – and point out that the “idea that Mr Williamson was left in the dark” about the exam algorithm “is absurd” – the paper places much of the blame on the British state and the civil service. Rather than aiming fire at Williamson, it suggests this shows the civil service changes desired by Cummings are needed: “Many of the state’s weaknesses can be traced to its pervasive culture of secrecy, which leads to groupthink and undermines accountability.” Metro Although many of the free newspaper’s commuter audience are still working from home, the outlet retains an enormous circulation. Its front-page headline “Omnishambles Britain: you’re Gavin a laugh” will be seen by many of those who are out and about on public transport. Daily Star While not known for its coverage of Westminster, the tabloid has recently discovered its political firepower, repeatedly squirreling a picture of the prime minister’s chief aide on its front page. On Wednesday the newspaper went even further than usual, telling readers: “Brits were left scratching their heads last night after their crisis-hit PM turned into the invisible man and disappeared.”