Today Dominic Cummings suggested today that Boris Johnson might be removed from office because of the scandal at No 10 Christmas Party. He also declared that’regime changes are coming’. The Tories blamed the rebel advisor and his support for the leaked bombshell video.
The Prime Minister’s former chief adviser spoke out as Downing Street insiders panicked that Mr Johnson will soon face the same public fury as his trip to Barnard Castle at the height of the first lockdown.
Today, Mr Cummings sent this tweet:[The]Fish turns to mush once it reaches the head. #Regimechange’.
Team Johnson will be desperately hunting for the mole who was behind the leak of a bombshell video showing aides including Allegra Stratton joking about their ‘illegal’ Christmas party in a rehearsal question and answer session in the £2.6million No9 briefing room.
MailOnline has been informed by one Tory MP today that it was possible that Mr Cummings or his pals were involved in the leakage of video footage that caused Downing Street chaos. ‘It has to be someone senior. It is hard to imagine who kept them alive for this length of time. It does feel like a Cummings operation,’ they said.
Cummings resigned from Downing Street November 2020, a month prior to the party’s alleged existence. He had lost an internal power struggle with Carrie Johnson and her allies including Miss St. Stratton. He worked from his home through Christmas.
After leaving No. 10, he used Twitter to claim that Boris Johnson was a liar and not fit for high office.
A probe could be opened into the possibility that a recorded of a press conference may have been made public. According to Government security personnel, it has been proven that all Whitehall employees can be traced back to the origin of any video leaks.
Dominic Cummings was reported to have left Downing Street one month prior to the Christmas party, but he continued working from his home until December last year. There was speculation that he had been involved in the leaked information.
While Mr Cummings didn’t comment on allegations that he was involved in the leak, he did tweet his opinion that this scandal might accelerate the departure of Boris Johnson as PM.
Downing Street’s web of connections has suffered from the factional fighting that erupted during the coronavirus crisis, leading to Team Cummings being expelled and taken out of No 10.
Allegra, the spouse of James Forsyth (Chancellor Rishi-Sunak’s best man), was shown as an ally for Symonds in a period when factionalism among the warring camps resulted in Cummings’ departure with Lee Cain, the communications director.
She had recently been given the job of the Prime Minister’s TV spokesman, was practising with other senior aides ahead of the launch of what, at the time, No 10 hoped would be regular televised briefings.
But last night’s video leak of the 40-second-long damning exchange now threatens to have serious political consequences for the Government. During the practice run, filmed on December 22 last year just as sweeping Covid restrictions were being re-imposed, Miss Stratton was pressed by a fellow aide, Ed Oldfield, about ‘reports’ that there was a Christmas party in Downing Street the previous Friday.
Asked if she recognised the reports, Miss Stratton smiled and laughed, at first saying that she ‘went home’ before apparently agonising over what the correct answer should be.
The video showed Mr Oldfield then pressing her for a response, asking whether the Prime Minister would ‘condone having a Christmas party?’
Laughing again, she then asked aides ‘what’s the answer?’ before staff in the press room appear to suggest ideas, with one proposing that ‘it wasn’t a party’ but rather ‘cheese and wine’.
‘Is cheese and wine alright? It was a business meeting,’ Miss Stratton replies, to more laughter in the room, before deciding that the ‘fictional party was a business meeting’. But she then admits: ‘It was not socially distanced.’
Cummings said that Johnson also downplayed its severity in the initial stages of the pandemic, viewing it more as a scare story.
Tory MP, John Boris said that Boris should speak out now and simply be straight forward and explain what had happened. Not answering won’t work. Maybe they are planning to fire some people.’
Backbencher said that any future investigations would uncover more details. ‘If you have done something wrong, go to parliament and explain it. This will give you a better chance to be allowed to continue.
‘The cover-up is the thing that gets you. It is essential to tell the truth. They won’t be the only people to have an illegal party at that time, but you don’t have an illegal party in No10 do you?’
The bombshell video shows a No. 10 aide asking a question about “a Downing Street Christmas Party on Friday night”. Allegra Stratton laughs and replies: “I went home.” Downing Stree
Cummings’ Brexit Boys vs the “Carrie Symonds” crew: Who are the winners?
Cummings seen outside Downing Street wearing one of his outfits which has made him an unremarkable style icon
TEAM CAIN
Dominic Cummings
Age: 48
Official title: Chief Adviser for the Prime Minister
Boris Johnson’s eccentric Svengali was a national sensation for locking down Barnard Castle in order to “test his eyesight” before returning to London.
Former Vote Leave director Lee Cain, his ex-campaign staffer, backed him to become the PM’s Chief of Staff. This prompted a bitter row with Johnson’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds who said it was a mistake.
Cummings is well-known for his humorous demeanour, preference for hoodies over suits and for wearing’slob style’ jackets. He eventually lost the tug-of war, prompting Cain to resign and speculation about whether he would be following in his footsteps.
Symonds has a history of arguing with him. There were reports in January that Symonds opposed his aggressive political approach and tendency to “pick unnecessary fights” which may have been detrimental to the PM’s reputation.
He was born in County Durham. Mary Wakefield is Mr Cummings’ wife. Mary Wakefield works as a journalist for the Spectator magazine. This Tory bible, which Boris Johnson edited once, has been a leading publication of Cummings.
Cleo Watson, Cummings’ ally seen outside of No10
Cleo Watson
Age: 31
Official title: Head of the Prime Minister’s Priorities and Campaigns
Cleo Watson and Dominic Cummings have become an iconic Downing Street scene. They trundle towards No 10 to snap pictures of the elegant Cleo as they walk together, looking like, according to one person, ‘a gazelle with her pit pony.
Watson is Cummings’ special adviser and the pair share a close relationship, with one Whitehall source describing her as ‘the Cummings whisperer’ because she is one of very few people who can calm him down when he flies into a rage.
Watson is the fifth of five sisters who have achieved great success. Her story might be a Jane Austen book. In fact, Watson is only the second member of her family to be closely associated with a Tory leader. Annabel (41), her sister, is Theresa May’s Chief of Staff.
Watson worked with Vote Leave during the 2016 EU referendum, before landing a top job in the policy unit in No 10 during May’s premiership.
Oliver Lewis is another Vote Left member, and he works at No10
Oliver Lewis (nickname “Sonic”)
AgeThe late 20s
Official title: Brexit policy adviser
Oliver Lewis, an ex-vote leave staffer, is now a Brexit policy advisor. Cummings is well known for calling him ‘Sonic.’
Oxford-educated Lewis is closely working with Michael Gove to prepare No Deal. He was inspired to create a huge spreadsheet by Cummings to model different scenarios using NASA techniques.
He worked alongside David Frost as chief Brexit negotiator. Sources from the EU accused him earlier in this year of trying repeatedly to end negotiations.
CARRIE’S CREEW
Carrie Symonds, seen in Whitehall at the Remembrance Day Service on Sunday, has become a formidable force in Downing Street
Carrie Johnson
Age: 32
Official titleNA
Symonds, Boris Johnson’s spouse and former head of media for the Conservative Party, has been a major force in Number10.
Cummings is well-known to be in a relationship conflict with her. She blocked Lee Cain’s bid to become the PM’s chief staff officer.
Symonds won the brutal battle, with Cain declaring his resignation and Cummings reportedly considering his options.
Symonds was born in West London and went to Godolphin and Latymer School for girls and University of Warwick.
After working for the Tory party since 2009, her affair, now 56 years old, made headlines.
Passionate conservationist, she made a significant impact on government policies after the badger cull in Derbyshire was stopped. It saved thousands of animals.
Allegra Straton could soon become Boris Johnson’s face at the new US TV Press Briefings
Allegra Stratton
Age: 39
Official titleThe No10 Press Secretary
Allegra Stratton was a former journalist who stood to be the face of Downing Street’s first televised US press briefings. This power struggle led to the ensuing chaos.
She insisted that she would only answer to Cain after her appointment. Boris gave the position of chief of staff to the ex-journalist of the Daily Mirror, fearing that he would be left behind.
Stratton, along with her allies, intervened to stop this from happening.
Stratton was a well-respected journalist who worked for ITV and Guardian. He helped Chancellor Rishi Panak create his public image, before he was hired by No10.
Stratton is a fully paid-up member of the metropolitan elite who was educated at Latymer Upper School in London (fees, £21,000 a year) and studied anthropology and archaeology at Cambridge. James Forsyth is her political editor at the Spectator.
Munira mirza is the exceptionally bright head of No10’s Policy Unit
Munira Mirza
Age: 42
Official title: Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit
Munira Mirza, the brilliant and highly respected head of Downing Street’s policy unit is a great example.
She is a longtime Boris aide, dating back to when he was London mayor. Although she likes the quiet life, it’s also reported that her opposition to Cain made clear.
Oldham’s academic, who was born in Oldham is well-known around No10. She is known for her big brain and light-hearted attitude. According to one source, Boris is a good listener to her.
Mirza and her family arrived in Britain from Pakistan. Her father worked as an engineer, while Mirza’s mother was a teacher of Urdu.
She attended Breeze High School and Oldham Sixth Form College, where she was the only pupil to gain a place at Oxford, where she studied English Literature.
Mirza, a former member of Revolutionary Communist Party was now a member in Johnson’s circle and was named by PM one of five women who have shaped Johnson’s life.
Cummings is accused of misogyny against Carrie. She was a former Tory communications chief. He was accused of calling her ‘Princess Nut Nut,’ which upset Johnson’s then-fiancee.
The PM’s ex-top adviser attacked Johnson repeatedly in a marathon testimony session that lasted over two hours.
A series of shocking claims threatens to undermine Mr Johnson’s primacy during the joint session of science and health select committees.
Westminster was stunned when Mr Cummings said that he thought Mr Johnson wasn’t ‘fit for the job of PM’.
Vote Leave maverick John Johnson said Mr Johnson was in Number 10 because he painted a portrait of an obsessive, vain figure obsessed with the media.
M. Cummings stated to MPs that Johnson changed his mind ‘everytime the Telegraph published an editorial.
Johnson said Mr Johnson is “about a thousand-times too obsessed with media” and claimed it was not surprising that pandemic communications have sometimes resembled an ‘infected zone’. The PM changes his mind ten times daily.
Downing Street consistently denies that there were any violations of rules since the news about the No 10 Christmas party surfaced just a week before.
The Daily Mirror reported on December 1 that there were two ‘boozy’ parties hosted in No 10 at the end of last year, while London was under stringent coronavirus rules.
The latter party, on December 18, was described as an unofficial Christmas bash, where staff were said to have ‘knocked back glasses of wine during a Christmas quiz and a Secret Santa’.
London was then under Tier Three bans that prohibited indoor social mixing. Johnson has not been confirmed to have attended December party. However, Johnson may have spoken at an packed meeting for senior aides on November 27th.
The day after the reports surfaced last week, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman insisted that ‘at all stages the rules have been followed’ and denied a Christmas party had been thrown. But he did not deny a ‘gathering’ had taken place, when asked by journalists.
At the briefing last Wednesday, Mr Johnson’s current press secretary said she did not ‘recognise’ the account of the party, and added: ‘Covid rules have been followed at all times.’
Mr Johnson has also denied that any rules were broken, and yesterday – before the video of Miss Stratton surfaced – said he was ‘satisfied myself that the guidelines were followed at all times’. The fact that aides joked about what Miss Stratton described as a ‘fictional’ party just days after the event was said to have taken place will cast doubt on Downing Street’s repeated denials.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer last night accused the Government of lying and laughing ‘about those lies’, and urged Mr Johnson to ‘come clean’ and apologise. ‘It cannot be one rule for the Conservatives and another for everyone else,’ he said.
Ex-ITV journalist Miss Stratton was hired last year to host the briefings that Mr Johnson hoped would give the public more ‘direct engagement’ with the Government – but he ditched the idea before she made her first appearance.
The former Guardian and BBC journalist became the Prime Minister’s press secretary in October last year, when the government was planning to hold daily White House-style televised press conferences.
But the plans were dropped six months later and she was given a consolation role as the PM’s spokesman at the COP environmental summit.
She was ridiculed after a number of gaffes, such as urging people join the Green Party and reminding people to wash plates before placing them in the dishwasher.
She was even forced to admit she drove a diesel car because the infrastructure was not in place to switch to an electric vehicle – even though her role was to promote the government’s green agenda.
In the summer, she admitted she drove a ‘third-hand’ diesel Volkswagen Golf because she needed to visit elderly relatives ‘200, 250 miles away’, and that having to stop the vehicle to charge it would slow the journey down, particularly with two young children who might otherwise remain asleep for the duration of the ride.
‘I don’t fancy it just yet,’ said Miss Stratton, who lives in north London, because of the length of time it took to make trips to visit her father in south Scotland, her mother in Gloucestershire, her grandmother in North Wales, and her in-laws in the Lake District.
‘They’re all journeys that I think would be at least one quite long stop to charge,’ she said, adding that an electric car would become a more viable option for her if ‘the stop times for recharging improve so much that it’s half an hour’.
Another interview she gave suggested to people that they join the Green Party in order to save the planet.
She told the Independent: ‘When people say to me, “what can they do?”, they can do many things, they can join Greenpeace, they can join the Green party, they can join the Tory party.
‘So there’s lots of ways they can get involved in politics, but for those people who wouldn’t, how do you start to change your life in manageable, achievable, feasible, small ways?’
In an article for the Telegraph, she said the British public can help tackle the climate crisis through ‘micro-steps’ such as not rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, or by putting bread in the freezer to help it last longer.
Also, she recommended that shower gel be purchased in bars, packed in cardboard. Consumers could also consider walking instead of driving to get the products.
She wrote: ‘Did you know, according to COP26 principal partner Reckitt, who make Finish, you don’t really need to rinse your dishes before they go into the dishwasher?
‘Does your brand of plastic bottle shower gel come as a bar in cardboard packaging? It most likely does. It might be freezing half a loaf of bread when you get it home, to get out later in the week, rather than throwing half of it away when it goes mouldy.’
Green campaigners mocked the interview and claimed that it shifted the blame for climate change onto individuals.
Miss Stratton worked as political correspondent for the Guardian until 2012, when she became political editor of BBC2’s Newsnight programme.
She was Rishi Sunak’s director of strategic communications from April to October 2020, when she was chosen as the PM’s press secretary fronting press conferences.
The appointment of her caused major problems in Downing Street, which led to the resignation of Lee Cain as communications director.
But within months, the government decided not to press ahead with the televised briefings, even though it had spent £2.6million on a studio.
Miss Stratton’s role was then redundant, and she was given the COP job. Despite this, at last month’s COP summit, she was side-lined.
Boris Johnson’s dog Dilyn was the unwitting victim of an increasingly bitter feud between rival factions in his Downing Street ‘court’ – a canine caught in the crossfire between the allies of ousted adviser Dominic Cummings and the Prime Minister’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds, it emerged last month.
Mr Cummings was accused of being behind allegations that the dog cocked its leg over a No 10 aide’s handbag, and chewed on antique furniture and books at the Prime Minister’s countryside retreat – inspiring Mr Johnson to call for someone to ‘please shoot that f****** dog’.
The Mail on Saturday reported that Cummings holds a grudge against Dilyn after the dog once humped his leg during an No 10 away-day at Chequers. He was allegedly using Dilyn as a proxy to wage war on the PM’s fiancée.
Ms Symonds was said to be a major player in November’s ousting Mr Cummings. Lee Cain, director of communications, is also a fellow Vote Leave member.
Dilyn, who was allegedly caught in all this drama, was said to be the one stuck. The dog’s behavior has been the subject of increasingly bad stories as the feuding escalated. There were reports that Johnson received a bill of four figures for repair work at Chequers.
Insiders said that Dilyn dragged under the PM’s feet while holding a book in her mouth. The PM shouted, ‘For God’s sake, I’m going to get another £1,000 repair bill! Someone please shoot that f****** dog!’ Carrie didn’t hear it. “I doubt he meant that literally,” they added.
It followed another story about ‘Dilyn’s Watergate’, which saw him cock a leg over the handbag of aide Katy Lam – who then left No 10.
The report said that Miss Lam was making Ms Symonds’very mad’ about her reaction to it. According to one Tory source, Mr Cummings is the reason for the animosity. It was traced back to an off-day at the Buckinghamshire home of Prime Minister David Cameron.
One of the witnesses said that Cummings was having a chat with his friends, when Dilyn ran up and mounted him. This made him extremely furious. He was screaming as he attempted to take the dog away.