Revenge of the Remainiac mandarin accused of leaks
Ex-diplomat was on No10’s ‘list of shame’
THe former civil servant whose letter triggered last night’s crisis was far from popular in Downing Street even before he accused No 10 of not telling the truth over the Chris Pincher scandal.
Career diplomat Simon McDonald did not see eye to eye with boris Johnson, and was reportedly on a
No 10 ‘s*** list’ because of his anti-brexit views.
Prior to becoming a peer, lord McDonald had been the top Foreign Office mandarin between 2015 and 2020, including the period when Mr Johnson was foreign secretary. The pair repeatedly clashed, insiders claim, and the now-Prime Minister thought the ‘Remainiac’ mandarin was trying to ‘undermine him by leaking stories about him being lazy’.
lord McDonald left the civil service in August 2020, after being named as one of three permanent secretaries reportedly in line to be sacked. In an interview with the UK in a Changing europe think-tank last year, he said he was ‘soaked’ by the ‘hard rain’ that Dominic Cummings forecast was coming for Whitehall.
‘Apparently, we were all for the high jump. Immediately after that, Dom Raab said, “This is rubbish. Don’t worry about it”, so I didn’t worry,’ he said
but when his contract was up for renewal in August 2020, the Foreign Office was being merged with the Department for International Development.
He left after Mr Johnson told him: ‘I’m sure that you could lead DfID but you will always look to them like Foreign Office. I need a new person from the start.’
lord McDonald, made a crossbench peer on quitting the Civil Service, is said never to have hidden his opposition to leaving the eU. last year he said he was upset and amazed that the Government planned to break international agreements over brexit. Mr Johnson and his ministers have repeatedly accused the Civil Service ‘blob’ of trying to frustrate brexit.
This week Attorney General Suella braverman said government efforts to ‘peel back’ eU laws were being held up by officials suffering from an ‘inability to conceive of the possibility of life outside the eU’.
While at the Foreign Office, lord McDonald denied he had been demoralised by brexit.
He was accused of heaping pressure on Mr Johnson during the Tory leadership contest over the handling of highly sensitive cables – criticising the Trump administration – sent to london by lord Darroch, UK ambassador to Washington, who subsequently resigned. lord McDonald was previously the british ambassador to Germany and to Israel.
‘We were all for the high jump’