Are Boris and Carrie ready to leave No 10?
Left in limbo by the parties scandal and amid constant attacks, Boris Johnson appears determined to cling to power. But as damaging new claims emerge about Carrie, his magic may already be spent.
For a man battling to save his premiership, Boris Johnson was upbeat towards the end of last week. “He keeps yelling ‘Onward!’ at people,” said a No 10 official. The question this weekend among staff and ministers is: to what? “It is unclear if we are heading to the sunlit uplands or the valley of death,” one aide said.
Many MPs and even close aides are still contemplating the end of Johnson’s time in charge after a bruising week in which he lost five senior aides and the number of MPs calling for him to resign kept rising.
Nonetheless, allies say he is determined to cling on. “He’s making very clear that they’ll have to send a Panzer division to get him out of there,” one senior adviser said.
On Friday Johnson went into action, summoning a new “brains trust” of advisers to thrash out changes to his team. The group, led by Isaac Levido, the mastermind of Johnson’s 2019 landslide election win, met in the office of Dan Rosenfield, the outgoing chief of staff, to draw up the blueprint for a new No 10 in secrecy.
Johnson was joined by telephone from Australia by Sir Lynton Crosby, his longstanding strategist and a mentor to Levido; Nigel Adams, who has been co-ordinating “Operation Save Big Dog” in the Commons; the close aide Ben Gascoigne; Ross Kempsell, from Tory campaign headquarters; and Will Lewis, once Johnson’s editor at The Daily Telegraph. “Will has been providing advice but will not be taking a formal role,” a source said.
Candidates for the posts of chief of staff and communications director were smuggled into the building. After a one-on-one interview with the prime minister in his office, Guto Harri, who was Johnson’s chief aide at City Hall in his first term as London mayor, agreed to return as his spin doctor after a decade apart, following the resignation last week of Jack Doyle.
The prime minister has appointed Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, as political chief of staff, with a remit to set up a prime minister’s department in No 10 and the Cabinet Office next door. He is expected to get a couple more ministers to beef up his team while he focuses on his role as an “enforcer” of Johnson’s agenda across Whitehall.
The appointment of David Canzini, another protege of Crosby, as a political aide in charge of liaising with MPs is expected in the next day or two. He is popular with Brexiteers, having helped to run the “chuck Chequers” campaign to derail Theresa May’s deal with Brussels in 2018.
Canzini has begun to contact MPs. In a message to one rebel last week, he asked: “What would it take to get you to rescind your letter?” The MP suggested that a knighthood might do the trick.
A small reshuffle is likely to follow, in which Mark Spencer could be replaced as chief whip. Adams or Chris Pincher, who led the operation to keep MPs onside, are tipped – but one source even suggested that Johnson thinks Priti Patel’s “no nonsense” approach might be better suited to that job than home secretary.
The plans are a desperate throw of the dice by Johnson to change the narrative of his premiership, which is paralysed by a crisis where he, his ministers, aides and MPs are subject to a water torture of seemingly almost daily disasters and gaffes.
In another show of intent, Levido chaired the first meeting to prepare for the next election, due in 2024, on Thursday in the boardroom of Conservative campaign headquarters. They discussed electoral strategy, a marginal seats program, their war book of opposition research on Labour and how the campaign would track the delivery of Johnson’s promises. Levido said: “If we get things right in this building, we can hold the seats we gained in 2019.”
Even as the meeting was going on, the chances of Johnson surviving to fight that election appeared to be dwindling. That Thursday the prime minister was in his official car on the way to an event in Blackpool when he took a call from Munira Mirza, the head of the No 10 policy unit, who has been a close ally since Johnson was mayor. She implored him to make a public apology for a statement he had made in the Commons on Monday, accusing Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, of having presided over the decision not to charge the paedophile Jimmy Savile with sex offences.
Mirza was appalled, as were most of the cabinet, since Starmer played no role in that decision, although he was director of public prosecutions at the time. The idea had originally been whispered to Johnson on the front bench by Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Commons.
The comments had already undermined Johnson’s pledge, made in the debate, to change direction. The debate was called to discuss the findings of the civil servant Sue Gray’s report into the Downing Street parties. The inquiry revealed that police were investigating 12 gatherings for alleged Covid rule- breaking and criticised a “failure of leadership” in Downing Street. Gray has more than 300 photographs, including one of Johnson clutching a beer.
When he got to the Blackpool event the prime minister changed his line, admitting that Starmer was not responsible for the Savile case. He did not apologise. More calls with Mirza followed but by mid-afternoon she had decided to resign. In an excoriating letter she wrote: “This was not the normal cut-and-thrust of politics; it was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse. You tried to clarify your position today but, despite my urging, you did not apologise for the misleading impression you gave.”
Colleagues compared her departure to the last raven leaving the Tower of London. A minister who has known the prime minister for years said: “If he’s lost her, he really is screwed. There really isn’t anyone left.” He paused and added: “It’s a bit like losing Carrie.”
Mirza may be little known outside Westminster but Johnson once called her one of the five most important women in his life. She was followed out of the door on Friday morning by Elena Narozanski, who was in charge of the equalities brief in the policy unit. She is a former England boxer who gave up the sport over trans rights and the fear that she would face an opponent who had been born a man.
Both Mirza and Narozanski had clashed with Carrie Johnson over trans issues, although reports that Mirza and the prime minister’s wife had a stand-up row about her departure are untrue, since the aide was not in the building at the time.
More amicable were the departures of Doyle and Rosenfield, who both spoke to Johnson by phone after Mirza’s decision had been announced.
Rosenfield, far from universally popular in No 10, was praised by colleagues for the “calm, professional way” he helped with the search for his successor. He may get another government role but fancies a return to the private sector. “When we had a big investment conference with all the blue-chip companies, Dan was pressing lots of flesh,” one ministerial aide said. “He called it ‘my milk round’.”
A bigger worry for Johnson are claims from credible sources that Mirza is not the only woman in his life with concerns. Three sources say that Carrie Johnson has grown weary of the pressure on her, their children and her husband, and has voiced the view that it might be preferable if he were to throw in the towel.
One who knows the couple and the prime minister’s inner circle well said: “She was saying she had had enough a couple of weeks ago. She was telling friends the pressure on her was too much and she’d be happier if he left.” A friend of Carrie added: “She just wants to focus on her children.”
It is not claimed that she is telling her husband to resign; indeed, some of them think that is unlikely. But the pressure will only intensify this weekend with the publication of extracts from a biography bankrolled by the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft. The book is expected to make claims about the extent of Carrie’s influence over No 10 policy and repeats allegations that she fiddled her expenses when she was communications director of the Conservative Party, which she denies.
The book was due to be published later this year but has been brought forward to maximise impact. Allies blame Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former aide who left Downing Street in 2020 after losing a power struggle with Carrie, and other former No 10 officials for planting stories about her in the book.
Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, said: “This book is based on a tissue of lies provided by vengeful and mendacious men who were once employees in No 10 and is an insight into their warped minds. If it ever sees the light of day, it should be filed under fiction. Carrie had a baby only weeks ago, and the obsessive way in which she is hounded is bordering on sinister.”
However, Downing Street insiders fear that Cummings will use his blog this week to launch a new attack designed to tip more MPs into demanding a vote of confidence on Johnson’s leadership.
Cummings is believed to be in touch with a network of officials in the government who believe the only way to save it is to remove Johnson from office. He has established WhatsApp groups across Whitehall with officials in No 10 and the Cabinet Office for people to send him information about unethical or incompetent behaviour by the prime minister.
Civil servants and special advisers are feeding Cummings details of how No 10 convinced Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministerial interests, not to find the prime minister in breach of the ministerial code for the way Tory donors initially covered the cost of the Johnsons’ renovations of their Downing Street flat.
CCHQ officials in the treasurer’s department, who also want the Johnsons out, are understood to be leaking intelligence after becoming appalled by the couple’s use of party money.
Tory MPs blame Carrie for the flat redecoration saga and wanted the prime minister to move her friend Henry Newman from Downing Street. He will now leave No 10 and is likely to become an adviser to his old boss Michael Gove.
A close ally of the prime minister’s wife admitted she had been under huge stress but said that the attacks on her had brought her and Johnson closer together.
All the while, potential leadership rivals are on manoeuvres. Daggers are drawn between 10 and 11 Downing Street after Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, twice failed to back him over Savile.
Sunak’s team were angered that no one in No 10 told them Mirza had resigned when the news broke at 3.30pm on Thursday, 90 minutes before the chancellor was due to give a press conference. Sunak said of the Savile comments: “Honestly, I wouldn’t have said it.”
The chancellor’s team then failed to give No 10 a preview of an article he had written for The Sun in which he compounded the criticism and appeared to say he would do things differently if he were leader. Members of Johnson’s communications team were at Chez Antoinette, a Westminster restaurant, when the article appeared online.
Johnson tried to rebuild bridges, consulting Sunak at noon on Friday about his planned shake-up. But the chancellor’s activities have irritated his colleagues and cabinet rivals. One senior cabinet minister said: “Rishi has been far too blatant. He’s a bit like a five-year-old boy who tells the girl he likes to ‘please, please’ not kiss him. He appears to be trying to hasten the PM’s departure before things get properly shit with the economy.”
His growing profile appears to have its downsides. Last month Sunak took his family to the London Dungeon museum. The group, all wearing masks, were led by a jester, who told them they had travelled back in time. He turned to Sunak and said: “You! What’s your name?” The chancellor politely replied: “It’s Rishi.” The jester said: “Is there a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament!?” Sunak said: “I hope not …” Fellow guests giggled awkwardly before the jester interjected: “Everyone shout at Rishi: ‘Liar!’”
But Sunak has a lot of support. Mirza’s husband, Dougie Smith, retains his No 10 pass, although allies of Johnson fear he has already “turned”. Smith is said to have told friends several months ago that they would need to “get ready for Rishi”. They pointed out that Smith had been friends “for years” with Nick Gibb, the former schools minister, who suggested on Friday night that Johnson had lied about the No 10 parties and should quit.
Sunak remains in a strong position. A new Focal Data poll today, commissioned by Hanover Communications, shows he has the best chance of reaching voters in the red wall seats that flipped to the Tories in 2019 and outstrips his closest rivals in the party’s southeastern heartlands.
Combining first and second preferences for the next prime minister puts Sunak (35 per cent) ahead of Starmer (33 per cent) and Johnson (30 per cent). In the red wall Sunak is on 35 per cent compared with Starmer on 32 per cent, and Johnson on 29 per cent. Taking both first and second preferences into account in the Tory heartlands Sunak leads (50 per cent) compared with both Johnson (38 per cent) and Starmer (17 per cent). The poll echoes a Survation survey for the Labour Party, shared with MPs last week, which found that only by keeping Johnson in place could Starmer win the election. If the Tories swapped Johnson for Sunak or Liz Truss, Starmer would lose.
Downing Street believes Johnson is in “the danger zone” and could well face a vote of confidence in the next fortnight. Some 54 MPs need to write to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, to trigger a vote.
Johnson’s shadow whipping operation believes that at least 35 letters have been sent in by MPs, though they think it is likely to be about 45, nine short of the target. Some MPs believe it could exceed 50.
Ministers will stand by Johnson for now but are clear he would have to step down if he receives a fixed penalty notice for attending a lockdown party. “He would have to resign,” said a still loyal cabinet minister. “You can’t have the prime minister convicted of breaking his own laws.”
If his big reset does not work, Johnson is understood to have been exploring opportunities in the United States, which would allow him to make dollars 250,000 per speech when he leaves office. His father, Stanley, was recently overheard in the Beefsteak Club, a gentlemen’s dining club in central London, bemoaning at some length his son’s money worries.
The desire to escape what has been a punishing three-month psychodrama is also shared by loyal Downing Street staff, whose morale is at rock bottom. One No 10 official said: “People are saying to each other: ‘Why can’t he just go?’ I’m at the point where I just wish it was over, so I can get on with the rest of my life.”
The Suday Times
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