PM wanted ‘Dave and George’ not a ‘Tony and Gordon’ situation
The battle for power between the Downing St neighbours would have only one winner, leaving Mr Javid as one of the shortest-serving chancellors in history
DOMINIC CUMMINGS’ fingerprints may be all over Sajid Javid’s resignation, but the former chancellor ultimately found himself on the receiving end of the Prime Minister’s iron fist.
While easy to blame the biggest scalp of yesterday’s reshuffle on an increasingly toxic “battle of the briefings” between Number 10 and 11, in fact the departure of one of the shortest-serving chancellors in history speaks more of Boris Johnson’s ambitions than petty rivalries.
Having once privately described the Treasury as the “heart of Remain”, blaming it for spewing out Project Fear “mumbo jumbo” over Brexit, Mr Johnson was determined for the Downing Street neighbours to be more “Camsistence eron and Osborne” and less “Blair and Brown”. Hence the suggestion – rejected by Mr Javid – that a joint political team should run a merged Number 10/ Treasury operation, working “without a cigarette paper between the two”.
As one Downing Street source told The Daily Telegraph: “The PM says the model for success is watertight cooperation between Number 10 and 11, like Dave and George, not a Tony and Gor- don situation. That has long been the belief. It’s all about delivery, the best way to deliver on the promises we made to this country.”
Blaming “poor advice” on Mr Javid’s decision to step down, the insider accused the former chancellor’s special advisers (Spads) of briefing against Number 10, saying: “The Prime Minister has been somewhat infuriated by some of the briefings that have come from the chancellor’s political advisory team in recent weeks.
“There was the briefing against the Cabinet Secretary in recent weeks that was politically unwise, the HS2 briefing – no one is saying that they were sanctioned or linked to Sajid, but his political team were somewhat naive and he may have received some poor counsel.
“They thought they were making things better with their briefings but they were making things worse. They didn’t always do Saj a good service. He was let down by some of his team.
“Those recent poor briefings only served to convince the PM that working together was the best way to operate. We hoped Saj would agree with that.”
Although Downing Street said the door would be “left open” for a return by the first British Asian to hold one of the great offices of state, Mr Javid’s in
that “no self-respecting minister would accept those conditions” suggests he will remain on the backbenchers for the foreseeable future.
Quite what his successor and former protégé, Rishi Sunak, will make of the thinly veiled swipe remains to be seen. The 39-year-old rising star has the more pressing worry of having to finish the Budget in the next three weeks.
The former chancellor’s 204-day tenure started and ended with a row about Spads. The Rochdale-born son of Pakistani immigrants had already riled Team Johnson by putting the Prime Minister on the spot during last June’s Tory leadership campaign. By asking rivals whether they would back an investigation into Islamophobia in the Tory party during a TV debate, Mr Javid opened the door for scrutiny of Mr Johnson’s “letterbox” comments regarding women wearing the burka.
Yet after he was eliminated in the fourth round, the 50-year-old father of four, was keen to nail his colours to Mr Johnson’s mast, clearly sensing that the former London mayor would beat Jeremy Hunt to Downing Street and want to reward loyalty with big cabinet jobs.
No sooner had Mr Javid been installed as Philip Hammond’s successor than his Spad, Sonia Khan, was fired by Mr Cummings – Mr Johnson’s newly appointed chief strategist – over her contact with those close to the former chancellor – an outspoken Remainer.
After confiscating the Treasury media adviser’s mobile phone, she was escorted from Downing Street by armed police – leaving her boss furious that Number 10 had undermined him. There was further anger when Downing Street sought to take control of last September’s Spending Review, pointedly underlining that the Prime Minister was also “First Lord of the Treasury”.
‘The Spads thought they were making things better but they were making things worse. They didn’t do Saj a good service’
Mr Javid’s first speech in post was cancelled shortly afterwards – a precursor to briefings he was a “Chino” (chancellor in name only). When his first Budget, scheduled for November, was also axed with the news that Mr Johnson was calling a general election on December 12, it seemed the Chancellor was in office but not in power.
Yet there was one significant concession to the Treasury when it came to the Conservative Party manifesto.
Despite Mr Cummings’ desire for it to be packed full of crowd-pleasing big spending pledges and tax cuts, Mr Johnson was persuaded by Mr Javid (and campaign director Isaac Levido) that it should be much more fiscally disciplined to set the Tories apart from profligate Labour.
But the call for the day-to-day budget to be balanced by 2022-23 has been resented ever since for imposing serious spending constraints on the Government and on Mr Johnson’s ambitious infrastructure plans to revive the newly won Red Wall constituencies of the Midlands and the North.
As one insider put it: “With a global recession looming, Saj felt there should be belt-tightening. But that’s not necessarily the way Number 10 sees it.”
Which perhaps explains why Mr Javid was virtually invisible during the general election campaign, with Downing Street instead using Mr Sunak to sell the Government’s economic plans in the media – even electing him to stand in for Mr Johnson during a TV debate.
On the eve of the election, a clearly frustrated Mr Javid was later reported to have texted colleagues calling for Mr Cummings to be sacked if Mr Johnson didn’t romp home resoundingly. His return to power with a stonking 80-seat majority only seemed to fuel the bitter divisions between Number 10 and 11.
The election of “Boris” over and above the Tory party could not have given the Prime Minister and his closest aides – including Mr Cummings – a bigger mandate to turn the screw on the Treasury.
A week after the election, Mr Javid’s preferred candidate to become Bank of England Governor, Dame Minouche Shafik, was overruled by Downing Street who instead orchestrated the installation of Andrew Bailey.
Although the Mr Javid publicly backed the appointment, privately he was said to be fuming and keen to reassert his authority, apparently sensitive to accusations that he was the “token”’ Muslim in the cabinet.
In January, he flew to Davos despite Mr Johnson banning ministers from the World Economic Forum jamboree. A government source said: “Our focus is on delivering for the people, not champagne with billionaires.”
But Treasury sources hit back, describing the veto as “ridiculous”. Despite Mr Javid and Mr Johnson meeting every week to map out the details for the Budget – still pencilled in for March 11 – reports emerged that Mr Cummings, rather than Treasury aides, was in charge of the long-term economic plan.
A Downing Street spokesman insisted the Prime Minister and Chancellor were “working harmoniously on the Government’s plans to level up the economy,” but privately Mr Johnson was expressing concerns about the pervasive influence of a Treasury he once dubbed the “deep state”.
Briefings that the economy might end the year on a “cliff edge” didn’t help to quell suspicions that the largely Remainiac Civil Service at Number 11 were trying to thwart his vision for post-brexit global Britain. Amid talk of a £12 billion deficit by 2022-23, Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings were accused of “zero experience of being in a situation where they have to think about the public finances and the economy”.
Fiscally cautious Mr Javid was in turn blamed for “always saying no”.
Seemingly keen to realign himself with Mr Johnson’s infrastructure plans, the ex-chancellor announced his support for HS2 at the end of last month – ahead of a meeting with Mr Johnson and Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, in a direct challenge to Mr Cummings who had described the £88 billion rail project as a “disaster zone”.
Rather than viewing the move as an olive branch, Downing Street sources questioned the timing, suggesting that the Chancellor had tried to upstage the Prime Minister over an announcement that was never the Treasury’s to make.
As relations between Number 10 and No 11 were likened to the Israel-palestine crisis, Treasury sources risked the ire of Tory voters by briefing that the Budget would include plans for a mansion tax and pensions raid on highearners. Conservative MPS complained that Mr Javid had appeared to have scored a spectacular own goal in seeking to alienate the rich at the very moment Britain is trying to attract more investment.
One senior Tory suggested that Mr Javid regarded himself as “bombproof ” in the reshuffle. Last night the same MP commented: “He was bombproof until he stepped out of the bunker.”
Tensions escalated the day after the mansion tax plans were laid out, when a report suggesting that Mr Johnson’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, was at loggerheads with Mr Cummings. Number 10 suspected the story had again been briefed by Treasury sources.
Now hunkered down in his Fulham home – a Five Guys burger delivery at the door yesterday – Mr Javid appears to have blown his hopes of becoming Britain’s first Asian Prime Minister.