Machiavellian manoeuvres behind plot to topple Boris... and how they all lead to Rishi
FOR some Westminster watchers it was a masterclass in ruthless tactical politics. For the less cynical, just an unfortunate coincidence. But intentional or not, the pincer movement executed on the Prime Minister by the woman who had been his closest ally and his Chancellor rishi Sunak was a body blow.
At 3.26pm on Thursday, Boris Johnson’s policy chief Munira Mirza quit in fury after the PM refused to apologise for his Jimmy Savile jibe at the Labour leader earlier in the week. An incendiary resignation letter followed.
The shock exit of Miss Mirza, head of the No10 policy unit and a highly respected figure who had worked with Boris for 14 years, was a seismic enough event in itself. However, another earthquake was to follow.
Just 90 minutes later at a press conference in Downing Street, Sunak deviated from his script on the Government’s efforts to tackle the cost of living crisis and sought to distance himself from the PM’s Savile comments too.
‘Being honest, I wouldn’t have said it,’ the Chancellor told journalists, becoming the first Cabinet minister to be openly critical of Boris Johnson over the Savile row.
Boris’s aides watched the performance in stunned silence. The PM, who was on a tour of the North West of England, had had to be alerted first about Miss Mirza – and now his Chancellor appeared to have spectacularly gone off message.
I am told that Sunak, a consummate media performer, had expected the question and carefully rehearsed the answer with his team of advisers before the televised press conference.
That the Chancellor was now on open manoeuvres was confirmed for some observers when he refused to rule out running for the leadership three times.
Asked later by the BBC about backbench MPs wanting him to take over from Boris, he replied: ‘Well, that’s very kind for them to suggest that, but what I think people want from me is to focus on my job.’
He insisted that the ‘Prime Minister has my full support’ but his words rang hollow for many.
There are widespread suspicions that Miss Mirza had timed her resignation to give the Chancellor the chance to further twist the knife.
one senior Tory source said: ‘Who leaves a boss they have worked with for 14 years over one throwaway remark in the Commons? Boris clarified the remarks but still she resigned – and with a brutal resignation letter.
‘Munira was the key figure in the Government over the legislation to protect freedom of speech on university campuses. So why would she resign over what Boris said about Savile? She believes in freedom of expression. Something else is going on. Has she thrown her lot in with the Chancellor? It certainly feels like it.’
The Sunak-on-manoeuvres conspiracy theorists point to the fact that Miss Mirza’s resignation was revealed by James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator.
Forsyth is close to Miss Mirza and to the Chancellor, who was best man at Forsyth’s wedding in 2011 to Allegra Stratton.
Indeed, Miss Stratton, the former Downing Street press secretary who resigned from Government last year after the leak of video footage of her laughing about a lockdown party, used to work for rishi Sunak.
She was widely credited with creating his successful media profile which led to her being poached – much to the Chancellor’s fury – by Boris.
Meanwhile, Miss Mirza is married to Dougie Smith, who it is claimed persuaded Sunak – a former Goldman Sachs banker – to enter politics in the first place. ‘rishi owes Dougie Smith,’ says one leading Tory aide. ‘It’s why he’s known as the “Chancellor maker” by some in the Treasury.’
Smith is a key Boris adviser, who is based in Tory party headquarters but has been a regular visitor to Downing Street where he is renowned as a backroom fixer.
A colourful figure prior to his rise in Tory political circles, he cofounded Fever Parties, running swingers events for couples in upmarket parts of London.
And all the while, watching from the wings and, according to some, involved in the plotting rather than being a loose cannon, is Dominic Cummings.
Cummings, who was ousted as chief adviser from Downing Street in 2020 after losing a power struggle with Boris’s wife Carrie, wants to see Sunak replace Boris. Cummings is especially close to Liam BoothSmith, the Chancellor’s leather jacket-sporting chief of staff.
The links between such key players and the Chancellor are certainly fuelling the rumours that Boris may soon be facing a challenge.
Yesterday, the Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who is also close to Sunak, became the second Cabinet minister to indirectly criticise the PM over the Savile row, telling Sky News that Sir Keir Starmer ‘deserves absolute respect’ for the job he did as director of public prosecutions.
As for No10, although dealings with No11 are superficially cordial, the relations between the PM’s and the Chancellor’s teams are said to have ‘soured’ in recent weeks in the fallout over Partygate.
THERE has been palpable disappointment in the Chancellor’s limp support for Boris. No touring of TV studios to back the PM – and ‘he’s been MIA [missing in action] on too many occasions in the Chamber’, according to one senior source.
one of the most skilled exponents of social media, Sunak’s Twitter feed is short of specific endorsements of Boris in recent days.
To Tory MPs, already nervous about the prospect of a long and divisive leadership contest, the Chancellor’s actions this week amount to a statement of intent. Yes, he has wooed many of them with a charm offensive in recent weeks, but he has also irritated others in the party.
He was even slapped down by his own deputy, Simon Clarke, who told Channel 4 this week that the Savile comment ‘was a perfectly reasonable remark for the PM to have made’.
Not that the criticism will bother rishi Sunak too much. By all accounts he’s pleased with the way the week has gone.
After that press conference that so incensed Team Boris, he was spotted leaving Downing Street laughing and joking. ‘It looked like a case of “job done”,’ according to one bitter observer.
oh, to be a fly on the wall at the regular cosy kitchen suppers a deux that Boris and rishi are partial to. And no, I am told, there are no plans to cancel... yet.