Conflict rages in U.K. PM's office

Power play distracts from COVID battle

LONDON • Dominic Cummings is at “the beginning of the end” of his time in Downing Street after he and a close ally lost a bitter power struggle, sources said Thursday evening.

The Prime Minister's chief adviser is understood to be contemplating quitting in the new year after Boris Johnson effectively called his bluff over the resignation of Lee Cain as director of communications.

Cummings allegedly threatened to walk out immediately if Cain was allowed to go and claimed up to half a dozen staff would follow him, but he failed to carry out his threat and was last night in a significantly weaker position.

Johnson's supporters urged him to “take back control” of No. 10 and install trusted party members in key roles instead of the former Vote Leave cabal headed by Cummings.

In an apparent attempt to further undermine Team Cummings, a senior Tory MP linked Cain's resignation to the leaking of details of a second lockdown last month. Cain denies being behind the leak and No. 10 sources said he had been cleared by a Cabinet Office investigation.

Oliver Lewis, Johnson's Brexit policy adviser, an ally of Cummings, was said to be “close to the brink” and colleagues fear he will resign as soon as Brexit trade talks are concluded.

Cummings is also due to be a respondent at a potentially damaging tribunal next month by Sonia Khan, a former Treasury special adviser, who is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal after she was sacked by Cummings last year.

Colleagues have speculated that Cummings will wait until the Brexit transition period is over and the government has turned the corner on coronavirus before leaving in the new year.

One Whitehall source said: “Dom has emerged from this a diminished force.

“The balance of power has shifted because we now know Dom is in No. 10 because he wants to be and not because he is indispensable.”

After Cummings' threat to resign, Johnson ordered Ben Gascoigne, his political secretary, to phone Cummings' closest allies to find out if they were set to follow him.

Cummings is understood to have lost his power play when it became apparent none of them was about to quit, and returned to work Wednesday.

The toxic briefing battle continued, with allies of Carrie Symonds, the prime minister's fiancée, and those loyal to Cummings continuing to sling mud at each other.

Tory MPs are furious that an internal power struggle has spilled into the open at a time when the public expects the government to be devoting its energies to fighting coronavirus and getting a Brexit trade deal done.