After almost losing control of his parliamentary party over the Partygate scandal, Boris Johnson created a Westminster operation designed to perform serious damage limitation, which leapt into action when it was revealed he broke lockdown law. This is how it works: The uber-loyal cabinet ministers Every cabinet needs a media attack job and that role has fallen to the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, who did the broadcast round the morning after the prime minister’s fine was revealed. Shapps has been prepared to let his differences with the PM be known in the past – including over onshore wind and Covid-19 lockdowns – but he remains the cabinet’s best media performer when Johnson is in a tight spot.
Johnson has other key loyalists who will go out to bat without any undue pressure, including the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, whom MPs have described as being “aggressively partisan” on internal WhatsApp groups, as well as Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose dismissal of Partygate as a non-issue has sometimes perhaps gone further even than No 10’s own spinners. The promotion-wannabes Johnson has plenty of disillusioned ex-ministers who are among his staunchest critics, both publicly and privately, but there are a key group of those either hoping to advance from junior roles or hoping to be brought back from the wilderness who have been demonstrably loyal at the most awkward of opportunities. Among the most prominent is ex-health secretary Matt Hancock, forced to resign himself for an embarrassing lockdown breach, but who has remained steadfastly loyal from the backbenches including defending the prime minister’s breaches that were arguably more serious than the kiss that cost him his own career. Robert Jenrick, the reshuffled ex-communities secretary, has also been out defending Johnson on the airwaves. The new-look whips Having cleared out the whips’ office in a bid to restore discipline, the new chief, Chris Heaton-Harris, and his deputy, Chris Pincher, have been said by some to have taken on a “good cop, bad cop” approach to stop MPs rebelling in votes and voicing their discontent with the government publicly in the media. The pair organised a team dinner last month for all Conservative MPs to get together and restore some of the bonds of camaraderie that had become severely frayed during Johnson’s lowest point in mid-January. While both have avoided making any public appearances, they play an important backroom role: reassuring MPs who are sceptical of key government decisions, and if needed, dangling the prospect of promotion to encourage them to stay supportive.
If Johnson’s long-term survival is to be guaranteed, he will need to rely on the support of the whips’ office to flag early concerns when they believe there is widespread unhappiness within the party on a particular issue, for instance to avoid a repeat of the Owen Paterson affair. The backbench enforcers Working more quietly round the edges of the backbenches, Johnson can count on a number of key allies to be his eyes and ears in places that the whips’ office do not naturally extend. Among them are his parliamentary private secretaries – the former minister James Duddridge, who was one of the first Tory MPs to submit a no-confidence letter in Theresa May, and two of the 2019 intake, Joy Morrissey and Lia Nici. Johnson’s longtime friend Conor Burns, a Northern Ireland minister, and Nigel Adams, who is a minister without portfolio but attends cabinet, are also still working to secure his safety – having both been heavily involved in the “shadow whipping operation” to get MPs to withdraw no-confidence letters at the height of the Partygate scandal. The faithful ‘red wallers’ Many new Tory MPs – particularly from “red wall” seats that had only previously voted Labour – feel they owe Johnson a great personal debt for helping secure their election to parliament. As such, they are effusive in their praise of him and keen to dismiss many of the criticisms levelled at the prime minister as minor issues of no great concern to the general public – including the police fines for Downing Street parties. Among Johnson’s most fervent red wall supporters are Mark Jenkinson, the Workington MP who dismissed criticism of Johnson attending a birthday party as “the left” wanting to “bring down a democratically elected government over a birthday cake widely reported at the time”. Another red waller, former teacher Brendan Clarke-Smith, accused Labour of “incredible hypocrisy” because of past occasions when the opposition party’s MPs were fined for speeding or using a phone while driving. And Katherine Fletcher recently attempted to come to Johnson’s defence in the Commons recently, saying constituents had told her: “He’s a wally but 100,000 Russians have just turned up. What the bloody hell are we doing talking about cake?”