How difficult will it be for Boris Johnson to hire new Downing Street staff?

One place where jobs are being created at a record rate is 10 Downing Street, though obviously not in the manner the prime minister would wish.

Boris Johnson filled the position of head of policy rather hurriedly – to try and fill the yawning gap left by Munira Mirza – reaching for his parliamentary private secretary and MP, Andrew Griffith. But the PM still has some crucial appointments to make, including chief of staff, head of communications, principal probate secretary and, very possibly, a new cabinet secretary, should revelations in the full Sue Gray report or police proceedings call the position of Simon Case into question.

The fact that Case is still in post suggest either that there isn’t that much drama hung about him personally (despite having had to recuse himself from the initial inquiry in favour of Gray); or that he is such a senior civil servant – the most senior in fact – that summary dismissal or transfer would be a shattering blow to the prestige of the service, and very possibly unlawful.

Who will be taking these plum jobs? The good news for the PM is that those that are usually filled by non-partisan career civil servants, and could be easy to recruit for. One of the many communications professionals around Whitehall could be made head of communications to replace Jack Doyle. Indeed, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Gordon Brown all had perfectly good press secretaries or head of communications from within the civil service. The present prime minister, like any other, doesn’t necessarily have to employee an attack dog trying to emulate Alastair Campbell. Indeed, when David Cameron tried to do so with Andy Coulson it did not end well.

The post of principal private secretary to the PM – a very powerful role traditionally seen as a step towards the very highest rungs of the civil service – will be fiercely contested, even in the current toxic atmosphere. Very often the permanent staff are just that and tend to be carried over to the new regime quite harmoniously. Over a longer run of one-party rule the senior civil service positions in many departments tend to be filled up with more amenable personalities – “one of us” in the phrase of Thatcher. New Labour in 1997, following 18 years of Tory rule, were a little wary of some senior advisers and permanent secretary-grade individuals.

The political staffers, so-called spads – or special advisers – might be trickier to find. They are obviously personally and politically closer to their boss, and tend to follow them around departments (though some stay on). The problem would be getting people of prime quality into jobs in Downing Street that are high-profile and carry considerable risk to reparation at the best of times, as well as attracting the unwelcome attentions of the press.

At the moment, the prime minister may as well advertise them as a short-term contract such is the draining of confidence in his chances of surviving more than matter of weeks. Such policy-oriented jobs are necessarily challenging and require high levels of trust with the prime minister of the day, but, apart from that, they have the added complication that there is very little money around for ambitious infrastructure projects, for example, and the Treasury is as powerful as ever (even after Dominic Cummings attempt to subordinate it to No 10). At that level, a prime minister will want their own special advisers around, probably carrying them over from their previous job, as Theresa May did with the so-called “terrible twins”, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, her trusted aides at the Home Office.

A gambler might take a punt on Johnson’s chances of survival and winning a second term in 2023 or 2024, which would see you through to almost 2030. A gambler, indeed, might get on rather well with Johnson.