Emily Maitlis documentary interviews man who claims Cummings assaulted him

A BBC documentary about Dominic Cummings is set to stoke the growing tensions with the Government by interviewing a businessman who claims he was assaulted by Boris Johnson’s all-powerful adviser.

The film, which will be fronted by Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, will track Mr Cummings’ eccentric, self-mythologising trajectory into the heart of Mr Johnson’s Downing Street – via a public school in the North East of England, a mysterious sojourn in Russia and an instrumental role in the pro-Brexit movement.

The documentary is being produced at a time when relations between No10 and the BBC are under unprecedented strain, with Ministers boycotting its flagship programmes such as Radio 4’s Today Programme and Mr Cummings threatening to rip up the licence fee.

As an indication of how provocative the film could be, the producers are understood to be planning to interview Colin Perry, who says that two decades ago Mr Cummings grabbed him by the lapels and pinned him to a wall.

The alleged clash reportedly came after Mr Cummings, who at the time was campaigning against Britain joining the euro, had been involved in an explosive radio debate with Mr Perry, a representative of the traditionally pro-EU Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

After Mr Perry said he thought Mr Cummings wanted the UK to leave the EU entirely, he claims Mr Cummings described it as a ‘lie’, pursued him to some stairs and pushed him from behind.

He says of Mr Cummings, who, like him, was 27 at the time: ‘He then seized me by the collar and tie, slammed me against the wall and raised his fist as if to hit my face.’ Mr Perry added: ‘I thought that would be the last that we would hear of him.’

Mr Cummings has said that the two men merely ‘stumbled into each other’.

It comes as Government sources say Mr Cummings, who has always regarded the CBI as the centrepiece of the ‘proRemain establishment’, has discussed stripping it of its

Royal Charter.

The film will cover Mr Cummings’ childhood in Durham, where his parents were an oil rig project manager and a special educational needs teacher, his studies at Oxford and his post-university time in Russia where he helped set up an airline which flew only once.

He returned to the UK to work for Business for Sterling, the campaign against joining the euro, and as a special adviser to Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove. Mr Cummings stayed with Mr Gove after he became Education Secretary, terrorising Whitehall and David Cameron’s Downing Street with a myriad of guerrilla tactics.

In 2011, he married senior Spectator journalist Mary Wakefield, the daughter of a baronet, before masterminding the Vote Leave campaign. Last night, a CBI spokesman said:

‘The CBI continues to work closely across Government departments through a series of strong and open relationships.’

A BBC spokesman said no date had been set for the documentary’s broadcast.

A new row between Boris Johnson’s Government and the BBC was looming last night over claims the Tories will demand a ‘massive pruning back’ of its radio and TV channels as well as scrapping the licence fee.

According to The Sunday Times, the plan would include: replacing the licence fee with a subscription-based system; reducing the number of its TV channels; forcing it to sell the majority of its 50-plus radio stations and scaling back the BBC website.

But Downing Street sources last night insisted no decision had been taken and denied there was an agreed blueprint for the BBC.