Boris Johnson has called in the A-team to try to save his skin but a harsh partygate report could prove too much
–
It was Tuesday when Boris Johnson and his closest aides realised they had a serious problem. After a quiet weekend, 20 rebels from the 2019 intake of MPs had met and agreed to submit letters of no confidence in his leadership.
Dan Rosenfield, the No 10 chief of staff, called a meeting of parliamentary private secretaries (PPSs), many of whom were elected in Johnson’s landslide two years ago.
What happened next left Rosenfield astonished and the prime minister on notice that even those on the government payroll might not stick with him if the rebels succeed in forcing a confidence vote this week.
One after another the PPSs — the lowest rung of government office — expressed their displeasure at the chaotic mess that is Johnson’s operation and at least three called for senior resignations.
Paul Holmes, an aide to Priti Patel, the home secretary. said the operation was “a failure” and that “heads must roll”. Mark Fletcher, who works with Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, agreed. Then Jane Hunt spoke up. The mild-mannered aide to Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, told him: “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
In the meeting, Rosenfield claimed the prime minister would ride out the scandal surrounding lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when Sue Gray, the Whitehall watchdog, completes her investigation. He said the report would come back by that Friday. He promised to lead a clean-up of No 10 and install a new team. “He thought he was talking to his ground troops,” said one ministerial aide. “He was quite patronising.”
By close of play on Tuesday, confidence in No 10 that Gray would report that week had evaporated and, as word spread of the breadth and depth of her inquiries, concern grew that the document would be highly damaging.
With support disappearing, Johnson decided to deploy ground troops of his own. The prime minister called several of the ministers and MPs who helped get him elected leader in 2019. The message was clear: he did not trust the apparatus in Downing Street to save his job. “Let’s get the old gang back together,” he told aides.
Those called included the former whips Nigel Adams, Chris Pincher and Chris Heaton-Harris, plus Conor Burns, his own former PPS. They set up a shadow operation lobbying MPs — a tacit admission that Johnson had lost faith in his chief whip, Mark Spencer. They even commandeered Spencer’s constituency office in the Commons. “Boris sent up the bat signal. Avengers assemble!” said one MP, mixing superhero metaphors.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, was asked to dust off the spreadsheet he used to count supporters and opponents three years ago, complete with a record of their views, which Johnson loyalists had spoken to them and what their concerns were.
“The whole operation is geared to telling Boris who to call and what to say,” said an insider. The prime minister is hitting the phones at Chequers to try to shore up support.
Those close to him say Johnson is in an emotional torment, his mood fluctuating wildly. His temper veers between complacent confidence and a determination to fight, and a fatalistic fear that his brand of political magic has been broken, according to those who have spoken to him in the past week. “It reminds me of when he came back after he had coronavirus,” one Downing Street official said. “A lot of his trains of thought didn’t make a lot of sense. He’s quite up and down. He doesn’t trust any of his team.”
In calls with cabinet ministers last week, Johnson continued to express anger that he had been let down by his No 10 team. He was cocky when he addressed a meeting of Tory peers on Wednesday evening. “He turned up and was quite dismissive about the inquiry, talking about when all this stuff has blown over,” said one of those present. “He seemed to think the report would be fine.”
On Tuesday he was hangdog when he expressed regret in a television interview about the No 10 party that raged on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
In the interview he claimed no one told him that the key party he attended, on May 20, 2020, was against the rules. Watching, David Davis, a fellow Brexiteer, resolved to speak out.
Having asked Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, for “a free hit” at the end of prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Davis got to his feet and intoned the words with which Oliver Cromwell dismissed the Long Parliament and Leo Amery helped destroy Neville Chamberlain in 1940: “You have sat here too long for all the good that you have done. In the name of God, go.”
Johnson’s allies were withering, comparing Davis’s quest for the limelight with that of Michael Heseltine: “Margaret Thatcher used to say, ‘The trouble with Michael is he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.’ That’s DD.”
In the tea room afterwards, Leo Docherty, a defence minister, called Davis “a traitor”. When he was tipped off, Davis texted Docherty inviting him to “duel with pistols”.
In fact, Davis’s intervention helped to unify Conservatives. It came after Christian Wakeford, the Tory MP for Bury South, defected to Labour just before prime minister’s questions. The anger of his colleagues caused a closing of the ranks.
Wakeford had been in talks with Labour for months but only agreed to jump in a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday. Labour officials dubbed it Operation Domino, and suggested other red wallers could cross the floor.
Wakeford was not present at two meetings of the 2019 intake, the seeds of the rebellion. On Monday, a dozen MPs disillusioned with Johnson met in the office of Chris Loder, the MP for West Dorset, for what one described as “group therapy more than strategy”.
They were already under surveillance. A staffer from the office of Rebecca Harris, a whip, was lingering in the corridor as they went in. “We probably should have pulled it,” an MP said. “But we’re new to this.”
The following day around 20 gathered in the office of Alicia Kearns to decide what to do. There was talk of a joint letter or statement calling for Johnson to quit. Some were unwilling to show their hand, so they had a secret ballot to show how many had already submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, demanding a no confidence vote. A vote would be triggered by 54 letters.
Ten letters had already gone in and ten more were soon to follow. The whips and the shadow whips responded with a combination of carrots and sticks, with accusations that these verged towards bribery and blackmail.
Declan Lyons and Ben Gascoigne, two of Johnson’s political aides, contacted rebels whom they thought could be brought back on the reservation. Kearns was told by an intermediary that there was a road to a government job if she ceased her activities.
No doubt some clueless immature redditor will think they will be the first fool to point out Betteridge’s law of headlines.
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Boris Johnson has called in the A-team to try to save his skin but a harsh partygate report could prove too much
–
It was Tuesday when Boris Johnson and his closest aides realised they had a serious problem. After a quiet weekend, 20 rebels from the 2019 intake of MPs had met and agreed to submit letters of no confidence in his leadership.
Dan Rosenfield, the No 10 chief of staff, called a meeting of parliamentary private secretaries (PPSs), many of whom were elected in Johnson’s landslide two years ago.
What happened next left Rosenfield astonished and the prime minister on notice that even those on the government payroll might not stick with him if the rebels succeed in forcing a confidence vote this week.
One after another the PPSs — the lowest rung of government office — expressed their displeasure at the chaotic mess that is Johnson’s operation and at least three called for senior resignations.
Paul Holmes, an aide to Priti Patel, the home secretary. said the operation was “a failure” and that “heads must roll”. Mark Fletcher, who works with Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, agreed. Then Jane Hunt spoke up. The mild-mannered aide to Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, told him: “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
In the meeting, Rosenfield claimed the prime minister would ride out the scandal surrounding lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when Sue Gray, the Whitehall watchdog, completes her investigation. He said the report would come back by that Friday. He promised to lead a clean-up of No 10 and install a new team. “He thought he was talking to his ground troops,” said one ministerial aide. “He was quite patronising.”
By close of play on Tuesday, confidence in No 10 that Gray would report that week had evaporated and, as word spread of the breadth and depth of her inquiries, concern grew that the document would be highly damaging.
With support disappearing, Johnson decided to deploy ground troops of his own. The prime minister called several of the ministers and MPs who helped get him elected leader in 2019. The message was clear: he did not trust the apparatus in Downing Street to save his job. “Let’s get the old gang back together,” he told aides.
Those called included the former whips Nigel Adams, Chris Pincher and Chris Heaton-Harris, plus Conor Burns, his own former PPS. They set up a shadow operation lobbying MPs — a tacit admission that Johnson had lost faith in his chief whip, Mark Spencer. They even commandeered Spencer’s constituency office in the Commons. “Boris sent up the bat signal. Avengers assemble!” said one MP, mixing superhero metaphors.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, was asked to dust off the spreadsheet he used to count supporters and opponents three years ago, complete with a record of their views, which Johnson loyalists had spoken to them and what their concerns were.
“The whole operation is geared to telling Boris who to call and what to say,” said an insider. The prime minister is hitting the phones at Chequers to try to shore up support.
Those close to him say Johnson is in an emotional torment, his mood fluctuating wildly. His temper veers between complacent confidence and a determination to fight, and a fatalistic fear that his brand of political magic has been broken, according to those who have spoken to him in the past week. “It reminds me of when he came back after he had coronavirus,” one Downing Street official said. “A lot of his trains of thought didn’t make a lot of sense. He’s quite up and down. He doesn’t trust any of his team.”
In calls with cabinet ministers last week, Johnson continued to express anger that he had been let down by his No 10 team. He was cocky when he addressed a meeting of Tory peers on Wednesday evening. “He turned up and was quite dismissive about the inquiry, talking about when all this stuff has blown over,” said one of those present. “He seemed to think the report would be fine.”
On Tuesday he was hangdog when he expressed regret in a television interview about the No 10 party that raged on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
In the interview he claimed no one told him that the key party he attended, on May 20, 2020, was against the rules. Watching, David Davis, a fellow Brexiteer, resolved to speak out.
Having asked Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, for “a free hit” at the end of prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Davis got to his feet and intoned the words with which Oliver Cromwell dismissed the Long Parliament and Leo Amery helped destroy Neville Chamberlain in 1940: “You have sat here too long for all the good that you have done. In the name of God, go.”
Johnson’s allies were withering, comparing Davis’s quest for the limelight with that of Michael Heseltine: “Margaret Thatcher used to say, ‘The trouble with Michael is he wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.’ That’s DD.”
In the tea room afterwards, Leo Docherty, a defence minister, called Davis “a traitor”. When he was tipped off, Davis texted Docherty inviting him to “duel with pistols”.
In fact, Davis’s intervention helped to unify Conservatives. It came after Christian Wakeford, the Tory MP for Bury South, defected to Labour just before prime minister’s questions. The anger of his colleagues caused a closing of the ranks.
Wakeford had been in talks with Labour for months but only agreed to jump in a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday. Labour officials dubbed it Operation Domino, and suggested other red wallers could cross the floor.
Wakeford was not present at two meetings of the 2019 intake, the seeds of the rebellion. On Monday, a dozen MPs disillusioned with Johnson met in the office of Chris Loder, the MP for West Dorset, for what one described as “group therapy more than strategy”.
They were already under surveillance. A staffer from the office of Rebecca Harris, a whip, was lingering in the corridor as they went in. “We probably should have pulled it,” an MP said. “But we’re new to this.”
The following day around 20 gathered in the office of Alicia Kearns to decide what to do. There was talk of a joint letter or statement calling for Johnson to quit. Some were unwilling to show their hand, so they had a secret ballot to show how many had already submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, demanding a no confidence vote. A vote would be triggered by 54 letters.
Ten letters had already gone in and ten more were soon to follow. The whips and the shadow whips responded with a combination of carrots and sticks, with accusations that these verged towards bribery and blackmail.
Declan Lyons and Ben Gascoigne, two of Johnson’s political aides, contacted rebels whom they thought could be brought back on the reservation. Kearns was told by an intermediary that there was a road to a government job if she ceased her activities.
No doubt some clueless immature redditor will think they will be the first fool to point out Betteridge’s law of headlines.
Try not make it you.