National Post (National Edition)
THE POWER GAMES AT NO. 10
TOP AIDES OF PM BORIS JOHNSON OUSTED AFTER TUMULTUOUS PERIOD OF LEAKS AND INFIGHTING
IT WAS CHAOS ... THE TV NETWORKS WERE TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT WAS GOING ON ... THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MILITARY OPERATION INSIDE DOWNING STREET BUT IT WAS MORE LIKE BALDRICK AND BLACKADDER. — SENIOR NO. 10 DOWNING STREET SOURCE
Ever since Boris Johnson entered Downing Street 18 months ago, Dominic Cummings had exerted a near stranglehold on the Prime Minister's Office, and some would say his brain.
Many Tory MPs had even questioned whether Johnson felt able to govern without him, such was his apparent dependence on the man many referred to as the “de facto prime minister.”
But over the past two weeks, the bond between the pair, and Cummings's protégé Lee Cain, had irretrievably broken down in a toxic brew of factionalism, suspicion and distrust more suited to the court of a Plantagenet king.
The final act of this most intriguing of political dramas came just after 4:40 p.m. Friday as Cummings walked through the black door of No. 10 carrying his belongings in a box. He had intended to stay until the end of the year, but his relationship with the prime minister came to an abrupt end as he and Cain were ordered into Johnson's office and told to go immediately.
Sources said Johnson had been told the two men were briefing against Johnson and Carrie Symonds, his fiancée, and that he could no longer tolerate their presence.
Cummings's “perp walk” down Downing Street after clearing his desk represented a brutal end to his career and created an image that will come to symbolize the end of more than simply a professional relationship.
Less than 24 hours earlier, at around 6 p.m. on Thursday, Cummings had handed in his resignation, telling the prime minister that he would stay until the end of the year.
Cain said he would stay until Christmas, which would have given them some influence over the endgame of Brexit, which is what brought them together and swept them into No. 10.
Having played — and lost — a winner-takes-all battle with powerful women including Symonds and Allegra Stratton, the No. 10 press secretary, Cummings and Cain were denied even that final privilege.
Friends of the three men had long believed that the former Vote Leave triumvirate of Cummings, Cain and Johnson would come to an end when “they all end up in a room pointing the finger at each other.” Toward the end of last month, that prophecy gradually came to pass.
Johnson began to suspect his lieutenants of disloyalty, while Cain and Cummings had allegedly grown frustrated with the PM's “dithering.”
Cracks first started to appear when Johnson hired Stratton, a former BBC Newsnight journalist, as his new press secretary — the woman who will become the face of No. 10 when daily televised press briefings begin in January.
Ironically, it had been Cain's idea to begin White House-style on-camera briefings, a decision that ultimately proved pivotal in his downfall.
Stratton had made it clear from the outset that if she was going to do the job she had to have unfettered access to the prime minister, effectively cutting Cain out of the equation.
Cain, who sensed that he was about to be “squeezed out” as the prime minister also looked for a new chief of staff to run his team, made it clear that the new arrangement would not work if Stratton got the role, but Johnson overruled him and hired her anyway.
As Cain mulled his next move, Johnson was shaken by arguably the most damaging leak of his premiership.
Late on the evening of Friday, Oct. 30, two newspapers reported that Johnson was about to impose a second national lockdown.
The idea had been discussed that day between Michael Gove, the cabinet office minister, Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and the prime minister, and only a handful of senior aides knew of the plan.
Johnson had asked for more data on the spread of coronavirus, but before he could make a final decision the news had been leaked.
“He was absolutely furious,” one Downing Street source said. “Someone very close to him was trying to bounce him into making a decision and all hell broke loose.”
The prime minister decided that he had no choice but to call a press conference the next day, a Saturday, rather than having the weekend to finalize the plan for a Monday announcement in Parliament.
“It was chaos,” a senior source said. “The TV networks were trying to find out what was going on, whether they had to change their schedules to carry a live press conference.
“There should have been a military operation inside Downing Street but it was more like Baldrick and Blackadder.”
The prime minister ordered an immediate leak inquiry, which involved officials turning up at the homes of ministers and demanding to see their phones.
Last week, Simon Case, the cabinet secretary and the man heading the inquiry, reportedly told Johnson the focus had switched to No. 10 staff, including advisers.
Cummings had been accused in the past of leaking things to “start a conversation” about decisions that had not yet been made.
Once source said: “Lee and Dom were tired of the PM dithering and people suspected they were trying to bounce him into things.”
Cain was cleared of involvement in the leak, Downing Street sources said, but the fact that such accusations were being levelled at the two men closest to the prime minister was a measure of the paranoia that gripped No. 10.
Then last week, the tension between Cain and Stratton finally came to a head.
Cain, who had told friends for months that he was contemplating leaving his role because it was denying him the chance to spend time with his young son, presented the prime minister with an ultimatum by offering his resignation.
With the reverberations of the leak still dominating No. 10, Cain and Cummings had decided to act.
“If you know Dom and Lee, they never let a good crisis go to waste,” said one ally. “They saw an opportunity to cement their power base and took a gamble.
“The trigger was Allegra,” said a Downing Street insider. “Lee sees her as divisive and the wrong person to put in a senior role if you want a harmonious team that gels together.”
He also believed that a new chief of staff risked the hold on power that he and Cummings had enjoyed unchallenged until now.
Backed into a corner, the prime minister offered Cain the chief of staff role on Monday. According to Cain, he asked for time to think about it, but by the next evening the job offer had been leaked to a newspaper, prompting yet more fury from the prime minister.
Once again, Cummings and Cain were accused by some of leaking the story.
By now Stratton, together with Symonds, had made it clear to Johnson that they were “uncomfortable” with Cain's promotion, questioning his record as communications chief and his at times abrasive manner.
Stratton made it clear to the prime minister that if only four people had direct access to him — Cain, Cummings, Case and Lord Udny-Lister — it would make her position “untenable” as she could not rely on firsthand knowledge of meetings when answering questions from journalists.
Stratton also wanted a “full reset” of the relationship with the media and the public, which implicitly meant Cain had to go.
“The past year has been a communications disaster,” said one ally of the women.
“Where are the PR wins? Just look at the mess over the Marcus Rashford school dinners campaign. It has just been incompetent.” Inevitably, both sides accused the other of leaking the story of Cain's promotion.
Team Carrie suggested he and Cummings were using the familiar tactic of trying to force the prime minister's hand via leaks, while Team Cummings accused the women of leaking it to cause uproar among Cain's detractors and force Johnson to withdraw the offer.
Whether Johnson had taken the offer off the table by the time it was leaked is disputed, but by Wednesday Cain had made up his mind to go, having taken a lunchtime walk in St. James's Park to clear his thoughts.
Cummings, seeing that he was about to lose his “wing man,” decided to go for broke. He told the prime minister on Wednesday morning that if Cain went, he would go, too, and suggested up to halfa-dozen Vote Leave alumni would go with him.
Cummings had already phoned colleagues loyal to him and “prepped them to go,” one insider said.
But Johnson ordered a counter-operation, telling Ben Gascoigne, his political secretary, to phone Vote Leave allies of Cummings, including Oliver Lewis, the Brexit policy adviser, to ask them if they were prepared to quit. Their answers emboldened the prime minister, who accepted Cain's resignation when it came at around 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
A riled Cummings phoned Johnson from home to protest, but it was too late. Cain's departure was announced publicly, and it became clear that Cummings had overplayed his hand.
“Ultimately, the PM had a choice,” said one Whitehall source. “If Lee stayed, it seemed inevitable that Allegra would have quit, and the PM would have had not only Carrie to answer to, but all the women in No. 10 who were in their corner. It would have looked terrible if he allowed that to happen.”
Late on Thursday night, Cummings broke his silence, telling the BBC he intended to abide by his prediction in a January blog post that he would be “largely redundant” by the end of 2020.
Over the past year it seemed inevitable that he would stay on longer than that, after coronavirus got in the way of his timeline of proposed achievements. Those doubts were finally proved unfounded when Cummings resigned on Thursday evening.
Johnson, who had gone in person to Cummings's house last year to beg him to join him in No. 10, who had refused to fire him over his lockdown trip to Barnard Castle, had finally lost patience with a man he was no longer sure he could trust.
The departures of Cain and Cummings have been celebrated by some, and mourned by others. Some staff fiercely loyal to the two men left Downing Street in tears.
But ministers report a sense of relief in the cabinet and the government that a week in which No. 10 was tearing itself apart in public has come to an end.
Others, who have long felt that Cain and Cummings had far too much control over Johnson, believe a bold new era is about to start.
As one jubilant cabinet minister said: “The poison has left the body.”
Although the pair will no longer be in the building, a spokesman said they would continue working for the prime minister until mid-December, which colleagues took to mean a period of working from home or gardening leave had been agreed.
NOT ONLY CARRIE TO ANSWER TO, BUT ALL THE WOMEN IN NO. 10 WHO WERE IN THEIR CORNER.