PM urged to ditch his chief of staff to head off rebellious MPs
A SENIOR former aide to Boris Johnson has urged the Prime Minister to replace his chief of staff as part of a reset of his premiership being demanded by Conservative MPs.
Nikki da Costa, a highly regarded former director of legislative affairs under Mr Johnson and Theresa May, told The Sunday Telegraph that the “whole system” in No 10 “doesn’t work”, with “no weight given to advance sight” and an absence of work on “what ifs”.
She blamed Downing Street’s poor relations with MPs in part on Dan Rosenfield, a former Treasury official who replaced Dominic Cummings in Downing Street in late 2020, lacking “political sensibility” and “cutting out” Mr Johnson’s party and parliamentary teams from meetings. “He doesn’t like challenge,” Ms da Costa said.
Her intervention came as senior Tories lined up to call for an overhaul of No 10 in the wake of a series of scandals and mishaps, culminating in the loss of the formerly safe Tory seat of North Shropshire in a by-election last week.
Last night, linking the result to how Downing Street was being run, another senior figure in the party said: “There is a big expectation that something significant has to change.
“This is demonstrably costing us electorally, which has not really been the case before.”
Meanwhile, Danny Kruger, a ministerial aide at Michael Gove’s Levelling Up department, and Miriam Cates, another member of the 2019 intake of MPs, write in today’s Telegraph that the Conservatives “need a new way forward”.
They warn that the party must “remember what makes us Conservatives”, including “sound money and low taxes”. On Friday night, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, warned that ensuring that Downing Street became “structured and disciplined” would be “the key litmus test” for disaffected MPs.
Last night a second backbencher said that they had passed a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of MPs, after Sir Roger Gale, a veteran backbencher, said that he had submitted a letter earlier this year.
“We have to be ruthless. The alternative is a Labour government,” the MP said. Caroline Nokes, a minister under Mrs May, was said to have told colleagues that Mr Johnson should go. She declined to comment this weekend.
Ms da Costa, who left Downing Street in August, said of No 10: “The whole system doesn’t work. It is cultural. Dan doesn’t believe in fostering a team – instead everyone is kept in their lane – and he doesn’t like challenge.
“There is no weight being given to advance sight and instinct. Preparation for the ‘what ifs’ doesn’t happen. There is no contingency planning.
“After Dom Cummings left there was no one doing advance planning on what is coming in six months, nine months, on Covid and how we make the decisions now on areas like procurement.
“No 10 has been operating on a 24/7
basis and looking ahead a few months at best.” Mr Rosenfield is a former principal private secretary to Alistair Darling and George Osborne who went on to become a senior investment banker. He was appointed as No 10 chief of staff in November and in July it was reported that Ms da Costa had challenged him during a staff meeting over the way he was running No 10.
Mr Rosenfield is said to have told staff to ignore a “grim” document circulating at No 10 in the early summer that warned of the potential threat from Covid in the autumn and set out steps to prepare for a new wave. Ms da Costa went on to reveal its existence to Mr Johnson in a meeting with aides.
Ms da Costa said that aides such as Ben Warner, a data scientist who has also left No 10, “who would raise things and say ‘this is coming’ got frozen out and either left or stopped trying”.
She added: “The entire party and parliamentary operation was cut out of fortnightly advance look meetings. Ben Gascoigne [Mr Johnson’s former political secretary, who recently returned [to No 10], wasn’t invited to them when he was in No 10 last time around and nor was I. We were the two people involved with the parliamentary party. The meetings happened and then we found out.
“Ultimately, a former chancellor’s principal private secretary – a civil service role – was brought into a political role, and yes, he performs the role of a PPS, but he has taken the space of a political figure and team leader.
“What is therefore missing entirely is the political sensibility. That needs to change, and that is why the chief of staff needs to be changed.”
Ms da Costa declined to suggest potential candidates to replace Mr Rosenfield but said she did not consider herself “right for the role”.
She said that a new chief of staff should do more to “amplify” advice and ideas put forward by Munira Mirza, the head of Mr Johnson’s policy unit, and Jack Doyle, his director of communications.
A No 10 source said: “Dan is a respected and well liked colleague who has the support of staff across the building.”