‘People don’t give a monkey’s’: Boris Johnson dismisses leak blame claims

Boris Johnson last night said the British public ‘did not give a monkeys’ about the Downing Street leak blame claims that have rocked Whitehall, as he denied attempting to block an official inquiry into the issue in order to protect his fiancee’s friend.

What began as a bitter political battle yesterday turned into a full-on war in Whitehall when former top aide Dominic Cummings launched an astonishing attack on his former boss in an explosive 1,100-word blog.

The Vote Leave mastermind savaged the ‘incompetent’ Conservative leader, who he said had fallen ‘far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves’.  

The jaw-dropping attack came as a furious Mr Cummings denied allegations he was the so-called ‘chatty rat’ behind leaks on the second lockdown last November or being behind leaks of the PM’s messages with entrepreneur James Dyson to the media this week. 

But as the row threatened to engulf Downing Street, Mr Johnson last night attempted to brush off its importance to the British public – instead promising to focus on the Government’s Covid response.

Asked whether he thought Mr Cummings had leaked details of his contacts with the entrepreneur Sir James Dyson, he told LBC: ‘I don’t think people give a monkey’s about this issue.

‘What they care about is what were we doing to protect the health of the British public and that’s what I care about.’

It came as, in a devastating statement, Mr Cummings effectively declared war on No 10 and turned a flamethrower on Mr Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds.

Amid a series of explosive claims, Mr Cummings accused the PM of trying to stop a serious leak inquiry in order to protect one of Miss Symonds’ closest friends. 

He warned the Prime Minister that his alleged plan to get donors to fund a lavish refurbishment of the couple’s flat was ‘unethical, foolish, possibly illegal’.

He said he told his then-boss that the idea ‘almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations’.

Mr Cummings denied being responsible for a series of damaging leaks about Mr Johnson’s administration, and also suggested there should be an ‘urgent Parliamentary inquiry’ into its conduct.

Last night, No 10 issued a robust denial of the claims, with a spokesman insisting that the Government and ministers had ‘acted in accordance with the appropriate codes of conduct and electoral law’.

Mr Cummings’ broadside came after Mr Johnson personally authorised a No 10 spin operation which blamed his former chief adviser for a string of damaging leaks in recent weeks.

Mr Johnson and Miss Symonds have been incensed by revelations – many disclosed by the Daily Mail – about the PM’s private dealings with Sir James Dyson and Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman, and the couple’s six-figure redecoration of their No 11 flat.

To add to the pain, Mr Johnson was yesterday shamed into paying up to £60,000 from his own pocket to fund the flat renovation.

The move followed revelations in the Mail that the shortfall had been picked up by the Conservative Party, prompting calls for an investigation by the Electoral Commission.

Newspapers were briefed yesterday that the PM believed Mr Cummings was ‘engaged in systematic leaking’ and had become ‘bitter about what’s happened since he left’.

Mr Cummings quit No 10 last year after he and former communications director Lee Cain lost a power struggle with Miss Symonds.

The briefing horrified many Tory MPs, who feared Mr Cummings would retaliate. One MP warned the row could quickly become a ‘fight to the death’. 

An ally of Mr Cummings warned that the Prime Minister would ‘live to regret’ his attack on the mastermind of the Vote Leave campaign.

And last night Mr Cummings hit back with an incendiary statement that threatens to destabilise the Government in the run-up to a critical round of elections next month.

He opened up by accusing Downing Street’s new director of communications, Jack Doyle, of making ‘a number of false accusations to the media’ against him ‘at the PM’s request’.

The Mail understands that the attack on Mr Cummings was personally ordered by Mr Johnson.

One Westminster source claimed Mr Johnson had been ‘put up to it’ by Miss Symonds, who was said to be incandescent about briefings claiming she had tried to damage the careers of young Tory women. 

‘This is Carrie flexing her muscles,’ the source said.

Mr Cummings flatly denied being the source of several leaks. He said he was not ‘directly or indirectly’ behind the leak of personal text messages in which the PM told Sir James Dyson he would ‘fix’ a tax issue threatening to hinder his firm’s participation in a race to develop a new ventilator design at the height of the pandemic last year.

And he said he was willing to share the contents of his mobile phone with a Cabinet Office leak inquiry.

Mr Cummings also denied being the source of the notorious ‘chatty rat’ leak last year, in which the PM’s intention to order a second lockdown was leaked to the Mail before it had even been finalised.

He said Cabinet Secretary Simon Case had told the PM he was satisfied Mr Cummings was not the source of the leak.

And he claimed Mr Case told Mr Johnson that ‘all the evidence definitely leads to Henry Newman and others in that office’.

Mr Newman is a senior No 10 adviser and a close friend of Miss Symonds and Michael Gove.

A senior Government source last night said the claims made against Mr Newman were ‘entirely false’, adding: ‘He wouldn’t be working in Downing Street if he was suspected of leaking information.’ 

Last night it was claimed that some Downing Street officials had insisted that the inquiry into the lockdown leak had concluded that Mr Cummings was the leaker. 

It was even claimed that MI5 had been brought in to investigate. Asked on LBC radio last night if he had tried to stop the leak inquiry after being warned it could implicate Mr Newman, Mr Johnson replied: ‘No, of course not.’

Downing Street sources yesterday suggested Mr Cummings was also the source of damaging leaks about the couple’s lavish flat renovation. 

But Mr Cummings said the PM had ‘stopped talking to me about this matter’ while still in Government because of his opposition to the idea of trying to fund it via a charitable trust. He said he was happy to co-operate with any Electoral Commission inquiry.

However, in comments likely to be seized on by No 10, he said he would not answer ‘every allegation’ made by Downing Street about his conduct.

In a devastating conclusion, Mr Cummings wrote: ‘It is sad to see the PM and his office fall so far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves.’

Ministers are now braced for more devastating allegations when Mr Cummings appears before a parliamentary inquiry into Covid on May 26. Last night he said he would answer questions ‘for as long as MPs want’.

The PM yesterday declined to point the finger at Mr Cummings, saying people ‘aren’t so much interested in who is leaking what to whom as the substance of the issue’.

Former foreign secretary William Hague said Mr Cummings’ allegations could be ‘very damaging’ to Mr Johnson.

He said the former adviser was ‘trying to do as much damage to the PM as possible’.

Downing Street declined to comment on the bombshell statement last night. Mr Doyle and Mr Newman were contacted for comment but did not respond. 

Dominic Cummings’ bombshell assault (and why it’s so devastating): Former No 10 aide denies leaking the PM’s Sir James Dyson texts and washes his hands of the Downing Street flat farce

1: Dyson denial

Dominic Cummings opens his statement with a flat denial of No 10’s claim that he leaked text messages from Boris Johnson to Sir James Dyson, in which the PM promised to ‘fix’ a tax problem amid the race to develop ventilators for Covid patients.

Mr Cummings says he does not have copies of the relevant exchanges on his phone and is happy to co-operate with a leak inquiry.

He points the finger at the Treasury, saying officials have told him Rishi Sunak’s department was sent screenshots of the PM’s texts to Sir James.

2: Fiancee farce

Mr Cummings claims the PM discussed halting the hunt for the so-called ‘chatty rat’ – who leaked news of a second lockdown – after evidence pointed to a friend of his fiancee.

Mr Cummings stresses that he was cleared of any involvement in the leak by the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case. ‘All the evidence’, he says, led to another No 10 aide: Henry Newman, a close friend of Miss Symonds and Michael Gove. However, Mr Cummings claims the PM warned that sacking Mr Newman would ’cause me very serious problems with Carrie’, and even considered halting the inquiry. The claim was denied last night by No 10.

3: Flat-out wrong

Washing his hands of any involvement with lavish renovations in Downing Street, Mr Cummings again pleads not guilty to leaking.

Playing down suggestions he was the source of damaging stories about the flat’s decor, he says the PM had ‘stopped speaking to me about this matter’ last year because of his opposition to getting donors to pay for it.

His offer to assist with a possible Electoral Commission inquiry into the affair will set alarm bells ringing for No 10, which has made frantic efforts to play down the issue for weeks.

 4: I’ll co-operate (a bit)

Here, Mr Cummings says he will co-operate with efforts to get to the bottom of some – but not necessarily all – leaks.

While his statement is shot through with a sense of wounded innocence, his refusal to answer ‘every allegation’ is likely to be seized upon by critics as an admission of some level of wrongdoing.

5: Broadside for Boris

This devastating personal attack on the PM demonstrates just how far relations have deteriorated between the two men.

Having masterminded the 2016 campaign to lead Britain out of the EU, they then delivered the biggest Tory majority since the days of Margaret Thatcher in 2019’s general election.

Many are likely to wonder whether Mr Cummings is in any position to act as an arbiter of integrity following his infamous trip to Durham during last year’s lockdown.

6: This is just the start

Mr Cummings calls for an ‘urgent Parliamentary inquiry’ into the conduct of the Government during the pandemic – including the accusations levelled at him this week.

In an ominous development for the PM, he threatens to set the ball rolling when he appears before MPs next month to discuss the handling of the Covid crisis, which he has previously said went ‘catastrophically wrong’.             

 

ANDREW PIERCE: Is this battle between Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings mutually assured destruction?

When the defenestrated Dominic Cummings left No 10 in November, he was ready for his close-up.

Scruffy as ever, a lanyard dangling around his neck, eyes downcast and clutching a large cardboard box, he exited through the famous front door bathed in the glare of photographers’ flashes.

The carefully contrived scene, in time for the evening news bulletins, prompted a raft of jokes in Downing Street about what was in the box. Suggestions ranged from stale sandwiches or his collection of nerdy tomes on technology to dirty laundry.

But one senior figure watching the unfolding drama on TV in Boris Johnson‘s study was not so sure. ‘I hope that box isn’t filled with stuff that could come back to haunt us,’ he observed.

He was only half joking. The Prime Minister, by all accounts, laughed off the suggestion that Cummings, once his trusted and all-powerful chief adviser, might take a noisy revenge for his sacking. Well, perhaps he’s not laughing quite so hard now.

The psychodrama that has erupted around Cummings about who leaked what texts and when is potentially hugely damaging for the Prime Minister.

Last year Mr Johnson risked his reputation and that of his Government by backing Cummings despite public outrage at a breach of lockdown rules on the aide’s infamous 260-mile dash from London to the North East.

Seven months later, however, the Prime Minister sacked him, worried that his Government was no longer working with the thuggish Cummings at its head, and persuaded by a coterie of senior female advisers – including his partner Carrie – that change was needed.

Now, with Cummings identified on the front pages of three national newspapers – each spoon-fed the story by No 10 – as the source of damaging leaks in recent months, Mr Johnson has whacked him. Or, as a senior Tory said last night, he has ‘declared all-out war’ on Cummings.

Other more cynical observers point to the No 10 claims being a classic ‘dead cat’ strategy in which spin doctors introduce a dramatic new fact to divert attention away from an embarrassing issue or two.

This week the headlines have been dominated by escalating claims of Tory sleaze after the release of text messages between Mr Johnson and the businessman Sir James Dyson.

Then, on Thursday night, the Treasury released dozens of pages of correspondence from 2020 between David Cameron and the disgraced financier Lex Greensill and the Treasury, further fuelling that scandal.

But, after No 10’s intervention to link Cummings to so-called ‘revenge leaks’, attention has been diverted to the bogey man figure of the former aide. ‘There is a sense of exasperation in No 10,’ says a source. ‘The Government has been doing well in the polls and that has happened post-Cummings. I don’t think Cummings could bear it, so he launched his wrecking ball.’

Either way, it is a high-risk PR strategy, with some Westminster watchers describing it as akin to kicking a hornets’ nest, with everyone about to get stung.

Last night Cummings issued a bombshell statement rebutting a ‘number of false accusations’ made by No 10 to the media. He castigated Mr Johnson and his office for incompetence and a lack of integrity, while claiming that an alleged plan to have donors secretly pay for the renovation of the Downing Street flat was ‘possibly illegal’.

There is no doubt that when Cummings was in No 10 he would have been copied into many texts and messages sent by Mr Johnson and senior ministers. Did he keep them as an insurance strategy or indeed for revenge? He says not. However, many senior Tory MPs are blaming the Prime Minister for what one said was a ‘catastrophic failure of duty of care’.

‘Cummings was at the heart of every major Government decision since Boris became PM,’ the MP said. ‘He saw confidential papers, was the keeper of secrets, and saw Boris’s close-up relations with Carrie. It’s astonishing Boris never tried harder to keep Cummings on side. He’s now paying the price.’

Just how important Cummings was in the court of Mr Johnson cannot be underestimated. When Boris opted to back Leave in the 2016 referendum, he was introduced by Michael Gove to Cummings, then campaign manager for Vote Leave.

It was an inspired pairing – the flamboyant MP who as London mayor had been the most popular politician in Britain and the data-driven strategist with a flair for eye-catching slogans. It was Cummings who coined ‘Take back control’.

When Mr Johnson became foreign secretary in Theresa May’s government, she stopped him from hiring Cummings. But as soon as Boris became party leader, Cummings was appointed his top adviser, sparking unease among senior Tories. He was seen as a loose cannon, famously described as a ‘career psychopath’ by Mr Cameron.

Yet Cummings soon proved his worth, coming up with a new slogan (‘Get Brexit Done’), successfully arguing for a December 2019 general election, and correctly identifying that Labour’s ‘red wall’ was vulnerable. He targeted it and demolished it.

Secure inside No 10, he and other Vote Leave staffers such as his loyal lieutenant Lee Cain, then head of communications, were on a mission. They took the view that they were Whitehall outsiders battling an entrenched elite.

Cummings would brook no disloyalty to Boris and, somewhat ironically now, dealt with suspected ‘leakers’ ruthlessly.

Then, at the height of the pandemic last spring, he broke lockdown rules with that trip to Durham. Mr Johnson stood by his unrepentant aide through the furore that followed, but by doing so, he was burning through his political capital – something he belatedly recognised.

When Cummings did finally leave, he rejected all interview requests and apart from giving evidence to a committee of MPs last month, has stayed largely silent. But there is no doubt he is an angry man.

Was he biding his time? Is Downing Street wise to have tried to flush him out? Or is this move, as some Westminster insiders suggest, an act of ‘mutually assured destruction’.