Chairman ‘jumped before he was pushed’
OLIVER Dowden dramatically quit as Tory chairman yesterday saying he was ‘taking responsibility’ for the party’s drubbing in two by-elections.
In a letter to Boris Johnson, Mr Dowden said Conservative supporters were ‘distressed and disappointed’. But he pointedly failed to pledge his personal loyalty to the Prime Minister, saying merely that he would remain ‘loyal to the Conservative Party’.
The early-morning resignation – the first of a Cabinet minister since the Partygate affair – took Mr Johnson, who is at a Commonwealth summit in Rwanda, by surprise.
But one Cabinet source said it appeared Mr Dowden may have jumped before he was pushed, as it was likely he would have been blamed for the two defeats.
‘Oliver Dowden has been smart to go now to avoid being pushed in a summer reshuffle,’ the source said. ‘He’s done it early enough so it doesn’t look so directly connected.’
Mr Dowden, a former senior aide to David Cameron when he was prime minister, was only appointed
‘Not right to remain in office’
as Tory chairman in a reshuffle last September. He was previously culture secretary.
In his letter, sent at around 5.30am, he said: ‘Yesterday’s parliamentary by-elections are the latest in a run of very poor results for our party.
‘Our supporters are distressed... and I share their feelings.
‘Somebody must take responsibility and I have concluded that, in these circumstances, it would not be right for me to remain in office.’
He added: ‘I will, as always, remain loyal to the Conservative Party.’
A Conservative source said Mr Johnson was ‘surprised’ by Mr Dowden’s decision to go.
The source said he had ‘volunteered’ to do media interviews on behalf of the Government in response to the by-election results yesterday morning – and the Prime Minister did not understand why he had changed his mind, given that the losses were expected.
Mr Dowden rang him yesterday morning to explain his decision.
In his reply to Mr Dowden’s letter, Mr Johnson wrote that he understood his ‘ disappointment’ at the by-election defeats, but added that the Government had been ‘elected with a historic mandate just over two years ago’.