‘It is beyond moronic’: fury at how PM set the
stage for Cummings’s revenge
Boris Johnson’s decision to accuse his former advisor
of leaking stories was regarded with horror by insiders – and has had
predictable results
Johnson and fiancee Carrie Symonds are said to be been
so riled by the stream of leaks that they decided to ignore advice not to
accuse Cummings.
Michael
Savage and Toby Helm
Sun 25 Apr
2021 11.00 BST
As word
spread in Downing Street of a coordinated plan to accuse Dominic Cummings of a
string of damaging leaks, the reaction of insiders was bafflement, quickly
followed by dread. A decision had been made to “poke the bear”, and it was hard
to see what a good outcome would look like. While Labour had been battling to
make Tory sleaze a theme of the local election campaign, helped by leaks
exposing lobbying and cronyism, it was not clear its tactics were having a
major effect. “It’s crazy,” said one insider of the plan to target Cummings.
Another Tory strategist was more blunt: “It is beyond moronic.”
According
to some, concern about the plan to accuse Cummings was great enough that Boris
Johnson was warned against it. No 10 aides had been relatively relieved at
Cummings’s recent appearance at a select committee. For a figure as incendiary
as the former Vote Leave mastermind, his assertion that the Department of
Health was “a smoking ruin” at the start of the pandemic was regarded as a
flesh wound. He was due to give further evidence to MPs next month, however.
Why antagonise a man who thrives on demolishing adversaries?
Yet so
angered had Johnson and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, become about a string of
damaging leaks they blamed on Cummings that the prime minister’s mind was made
up. A steady trickle of stories about David Cameron’s lobbying, Johnson’s texts
with the Saudi crown prince and the costs of the refurbishment of his Downing
St flat were followed by the exposure of his texts with businessman James Dyson
relating to tax. That had been the last straw. Previous attempts to build
bridges with Cummings had failed. In a sign of Johnson’s dark mood, it has even
been suggested he personally picked up the phone to newspaper executives to
target Cummings last Thursday.
Cummings could make matters worse at his forthcoming
select committee appearance about the government’s handling of Covid.
When
stories of No 10 sources accusing Cummings of being a “systemic leaker” hit
newspaper front pages, MPs and advisers winced. As one senior MP noted:
“They’ve obviously not watched The Terminator.” Those with concerns didn’t have
to wait for a select committee appearance for Cummings to wreak revenge.
True to
form, it was served up in a 1,000-word blog that raised serious questions for
the prime minister, his partner, the most senior civil servant in the land, No
10’s communications director and one of the PM’s senior advisers. It now
threatens to turn a row over lobbying and preferential access into a far more
sweeping saga about Johnson’s conduct in office.
Cummings’s
accusation that new No 10 communications chief Jack Doyle was the person behind
the front-page briefings was the least of Downing Street’s problems. On Monday
cabinet secretary Simon Case is expected to be quizzed about the blog’s
explosive assertion that the PM considered stopping the “chatty rat” inquiry,
aimed at finding who leaked details of the second lockdown in England, because
a friend of Symonds was implicated. No 10 sources deny that the adviser in
question, Henry Newman, was the leaker.
The
Cummings allegation that Johnson attempted to evade Whitehall rules by secretly
asking a Tory donor to fund the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat is
likely to lead to questions for the standards commissioner. The funding is
already being examined by the Electoral Commission, as loans and donations have
to be declared in good time. Some Tories are worried there are complicated tax
implications. Downing Street has said that the PM has now personally paid for
the refurbishments, but the details remain unclear. “They are desperately
trying to retrofit the gift,” said one source.
Cummings,
of course, is an unreliable witness. His credibility has been undermined by his
claim to have driven to Barnard Castle during lockdown to test his eyesight (it
was his wife’s birthday on the day in question). He has also been accused of
retrospectively changing a blog to back up a claim that he had been warning
about coronavirus for some time. Yet his period as Johnson’s most senior
adviser will give him a huge amount of ammunition and evidence to question the
prime minister’s actions during the Covid crisis – and he has promised to give
extensive answers to MPs at his long-awaited committee hearing next month.
In truth,
there had been growing fallout in No 10 even before the Cummings broadside.
Allegra Stratton, the journalist brought in to front new on-camera briefings,
was suddenly moved to a new job when the briefings were scrapped. She will now
be the spokesperson for the Cop26 climate talks.
Lord
Udny-Lister, the PM’s trusted adviser since his London mayoral days, had been
becoming more detached for some time. It was revealed on Friday that he was
leaving his post as Johnson’s special envoy to the Gulf, following pressure
over outside business interests.
The cool
head of James Slack, the former communications director, is no longer in the
room – he was recently appointed deputy editor of the Sun. It had led to
concerns over a lack of grip. That was exposed when several people opposed the
nuclear Cummings intervention – but no one stopped it from happening.
“I have no
idea who is really in charge of what any more,” said one government adviser.
“It is bloody chaos.” Meanwhile, Michael Gove - Cummings’s close friend – has
been effectively demoted from responsibility for Brexit and some in Whitehall
are wary that they may be preparing ways to exact revenge together.
Senior
Tories believe that the whole row, going back to the first stories about Cameron’s
involvement with scandal-hit financier Lex Greensill, is a mess of the party’s
own creation. Former advisers to Francis Maude have been blamed for those
initial leaks, though the accusation has been denied. Several Tories said they
believed the cries of “Tory sleaze” from Labour had been falling flat, but now
have purchase.
“I have had
one email about the whole Downing Street and Cameron sleaze thing until now,”
said one former minister. “I had 500 about Cummings and his trip to Barnard
Castle. But I have been out campaigning this morning and there is now
chuntering. Our candidates are beginning to say that they are hearing negative
things on the doorsteps.”
Trailing in
the polls, Labour will accept the Cummings gift with open arms. Keir Starmer’s
team was campaigning in Hartlepool on Friday when the fiasco unfolded. One
constituent approached them with the greeting: “Have you seen that fucker
Cummings is back?” Last week a party focus group with Brexit party voters also
gave them hope the “sleaze” theme was actually cutting through.
Daily stories of sleaze, cronyism and corruption have
begun to cut through and they are damaging the Tories’ brand
Labour
source
One
participant said: “Tory corruption is cutting through and very damaging as it
goes to the heart of their brand problem: as people hear more about it they
become more anti-Tory.”
Labour
figures also push back at the suggestion that they have latched on to the Tory
sleaze theme at the last minute before local elections. They insist it is an
attack they have developed since last spring.
“We’ve been
on this for months,” said a source. “We knew it wasn’t going to change things
overnight, but the daily stories of sleaze, cronyism and corruption have begun
to cut through and they are damaging the Tories’ brand.”
Tory
frustration is all the greater because Johnson and his party – after a terrible
nine months of the pandemic – were riding high thanks to the success of the
vaccination programme. In today’s Opinium poll for the Observer, the Tories are
11 points ahead of Labour on 44% to Labour’s 33%. Those figures should herald a
crisis for Starmer, not the prime minister. As it is, Labour now has wind in
its sails. One senior shadow cabinet figure said last night: “What this all
does is gives us energy, it gives the activists more confidence to go out and
stick it to the Tories on sleaze. We could shift the figures off the back of
this.” Opinium found some 37% of people now think Johnson is corrupt, compared
with 16% who say the same of Starmer. Another Labour MP said: “When there are
stories about the prime minister spending money in a dodgy way on his own
Downing Street flat, people get that, they can identify with it.”
Labour is
considering this weekend how to maintain pressure on the government and how it
could seek permission of the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for an urgent question
that would see a minister summoned to Commons to answer questions on the
mounting number of sleaze allegations, before parliament is prorogued on
Thursday.
“Until
recently it was the government making all the running on things like the
vaccine,” said a Labour frontbencher. “Now it is them who are having to react.
Things have turned around.”
In the wake
of the week’s extraordinary events, it is the predictability of the Cummings
backlash that is still puzzling Tory MPs. “I really do not know why anyone is
remotely surprised,” said one. “Don’t mess with psychos.” Another senior Tory
agreed: “Only needle dead enemies, is a good motto.”
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