As word spread in Downing Street of a coordinated plan to accuse Dominic Cummings of a string of damaging leaks, the reaction of insiders was bafflement, quickly followed by dread. A decision had been made to “poke the bear”, and it was hard to see what a good outcome would look like. While Labour had been battling to make Tory sleaze a theme of the local election campaign, helped by leaks exposing lobbying and cronyism, it was not clear its tactics were having a major effect. “It’s crazy,” said one insider of the plan to target Cummings. Another Tory strategist was more blunt: “It is beyond moronic.” According to some, concern about the plan to accuse Cummings was great enough that Boris Johnson was warned against it. No 10 aides had been relatively relieved at Cummings’s recent appearance at a select committee. For a figure as incendiary as the former Vote Leave mastermind, his assertion that the Department of Health was “a smoking ruin” at the start of the pandemic was regarded as a flesh wound. He was due to give further evidence to MPs next month, however. Why antagonise a man who thrives on demolishing adversaries? Yet so angered had Johnson and his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, become about a string of damaging leaks they blamed on Cummings that the prime minister’s mind was made up. A steady trickle of stories about David Cameron’s lobbying, Johnson’s texts with the Saudi crown prince and the costs of the refurbishment of his Downing St flat were followed by the exposure of his texts with businessman James Dyson relating to tax. That had been the last straw. Previous attempts to build bridges with Cummings had failed. In a sign of Johnson’s dark mood, it has even been suggested he personally picked up the phone to newspaper executives to target Cummings last Thursday.
When stories of No 10 sources accusing Cummings of being a “systemic leaker” hit newspaper front pages, MPs and advisers winced. As one senior MP noted: “They’ve obviously not watched The Terminator.” Those with concerns didn’t have to wait for a select committee appearance for Cummings to wreak revenge. True to form, it was served up in a 1,000-word blog that raised serious questions for the prime minister, his partner, the most senior civil servant in the land, No 10’s communications director and one of the PM’s senior advisers. It now threatens to turn a row over lobbying and preferential access into a far more sweeping saga about Johnson’s conduct in office. Cummings’s accusation that new No 10 communications chief Jack Doyle was the person behind the front-page briefings was the least of Downing Street’s problems. On Monday cabinet secretary Simon Case is expected to be quizzed about the blog’s explosive assertion that the PM considered stopping the “chatty rat” inquiry, aimed at finding who leaked details of the second lockdown in England, because a friend of Symonds was implicated. No 10 sources deny that the adviser in question, Henry Newman, was the leaker. The Cummings allegation that Johnson attempted to evade Whitehall rules by secretly asking a Tory donor to fund the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat is likely to lead to questions for the standards commissioner. The funding is already being examined by the Electoral Commission, as loans and donations have to be declared in good time. Some Tories are worried there are complicated tax implications. Downing Street has said that the PM has now personally paid for the refurbishments, but the details remain unclear. “They are desperately trying to retrofit the gift,” said one source. Cummings, of course, is an unreliable witness. His credibility has been undermined by his claim to have driven to Barnard Castle during lockdown to test his eyesight (it was his wife’s birthday on the day in question). He has also been accused of retrospectively changing a blog to back up a claim that he had been warning about coronavirus for some time. Yet his period as Johnson’s most senior adviser will give him a huge amount of ammunition and evidence to question the prime minister’s actions during the Covid crisis – and he has promised to give extensive answers to MPs at his long-awaited committee hearing next month. In truth, there had been growing fallout in No 10 even before the Cummings broadside. Allegra Stratton, the journalist brought in to front new on-camera briefings, was suddenly moved to a new job when the briefings were scrapped. She will now be the spokesperson for the Cop26 climate talks.
Lord Udny-Lister, the PM’s trusted adviser since his London mayoral days, had been becoming more detached for some time. It was revealed on Friday that he was leaving his post as Johnson’s special envoy to the Gulf, following pressure over outside business interests. The cool head of James Slack, the former communications director, is no longer in the room – he was recently appointed deputy editor of the Sun. It had led to concerns over a lack of grip. That was exposed when several people opposed the nuclear Cummings intervention – but no one stopped it from happening. “I have no idea who is really in charge of what any more,” said one government adviser. “It is bloody chaos.” Meanwhile, Michael Gove - Cummings’s close friend – has been effectively demoted from responsibility for Brexit and some in Whitehall are wary that they may be preparing ways to exact revenge together. Senior Tories believe that the whole row, going back to the first stories about Cameron’s involvement with scandal-hit financier Lex Greensill, is a mess of the party’s own creation. Former advisers to Francis Maude have been blamed for those initial leaks, though the accusation has been denied. Several Tories said they believed the cries of “Tory sleaze” from Labour had been falling flat, but now have purchase. “I have had one email about the whole Downing Street and Cameron sleaze thing until now,” said one former minister. “I had 500 about Cummings and his trip to Barnard Castle. But I have been out campaigning this morning and there is now chuntering. Our candidates are beginning to say that they are hearing negative things on the doorsteps.” Trailing in the polls, Labour will accept the Cummings gift with open arms. Keir Starmer’s team was campaigning in Hartlepool on Friday when the fiasco unfolded. One constituent approached them with the greeting: “Have you seen that fucker Cummings is back?” Last week a party focus group with Brexit party voters also gave them hope the “sleaze” theme was actually cutting through.
One participant said: “Tory corruption is cutting through and very damaging as it goes to the heart of their brand problem: as people hear more about it they become more anti-Tory.” Labour figures also push back at the suggestion that they have latched on to the Tory sleaze theme at the last minute before local elections. They insist it is an attack they have developed since last spring. “We’ve been on this for months,” said a source. “We knew it wasn’t going to change things overnight, but the daily stories of sleaze, cronyism and corruption have begun to cut through and they are damaging the Tories’ brand.” Tory frustration is all the greater because Johnson and his party – after a terrible nine months of the pandemic – were riding high thanks to the success of the vaccination programme. In today’s Opinium poll for the Observer, the Tories are 11 points ahead of Labour on 44% to Labour’s 33%. Those figures should herald a crisis for Starmer, not the prime minister. As it is, Labour now has wind in its sails. One senior shadow cabinet figure said last night: “What this all does is gives us energy, it gives the activists more confidence to go out and stick it to the Tories on sleaze. We could shift the figures off the back of this.” Opinium found some 37% of people now think Johnson is corrupt, compared with 16% who say the same of Starmer. Another Labour MP said: “When there are stories about the prime minister spending money in a dodgy way on his own Downing Street flat, people get that, they can identify with it.” Labour is considering this weekend how to maintain pressure on the government and how it could seek permission of the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for an urgent question that would see a minister summoned to Commons to answer questions on the mounting number of sleaze allegations, before parliament is prorogued on Thursday. “Until recently it was the government making all the running on things like the vaccine,” said a Labour frontbencher. “Now it is them who are having to react. Things have turned around.” In the wake of the week’s extraordinary events, it is the predictability of the Cummings backlash that is still puzzling Tory MPs. “I really do not know why anyone is remotely surprised,” said one. “Don’t mess with psychos.” Another senior Tory agreed: “‘Only needle dead enemies’ is a good motto.”