Tory MPs want to see the grip Dominic Cummings has on No 10 weaken – and the PM needs to keep them onside

On the day that the number of coronavirus deaths in the UK passed the 50,000 mark, Downing Street was embroiled in an internal power struggle, as faction fighting that has raged beneath the surface for months broke out into the open.

As a result, the government has managed to eclipse some rare positive headlines about the vaccine breakthrough. The official line from the spin doctors at the heart of this dispute is that who’s up or down, in or out at No 10 is an obsession for Westminster journalists like me. 

The reality is very different: this matters because it is about who influences Boris Johnson, his style of governing and ultimately how the country is run.

The battle is between the tight circle surrounding the prime minister of people from the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, led by his most influential adviser Dominic Cummings, and a less organised band who believe it is time to soften Cummings’s aggressive, confrontational approach towards parliament, the civil service, the media and… well, everyone under the sun. 

The soft cop brigade includes Allegra Stratton, the recently appointed press secretary who will front daily televised Downing Street press conferences from January. It also includes Carrie Symonds, Johnson’s fiancée, who is well connected politically as a former Conservative Party director of communications.  She apparently believes Johnson should widen his inner circle and listen to other voices, which I think is right. 

The Vote Leave cabal, whose influence extends from No 10 to several special advisers in government departments, is brilliant at campaigns – as witnessed in the EU referendum and last December’s general election. But its sole modus operandi has been much less effective in government; seeking enemies and picking fights is ill-suited to the country’s biggest crisis since the Second World War. There is a definite “men versus women” theme in the different approaches of the two camps. (Surprise, surprise, it's the men who favour aggression.)

Stratton’s appointment was the catalyst of the latest outbreak of civil war. She isn’t on speaking terms with Lee Cain, the Downing Street director of communications, a Vote Leave gang member seen as Cummings’s alter ego, who opposed her appointment. Cain kept the Downing Street show on the road when both Johnson and Cummings caught the virus. 

Johnson, who hates personal conflicts and sacking people, tried to keep both Cain and Stratton on board by promoting Cain to the vacant post of chief of staff. But this provoked a backlash from advisers and Tory MPs, who feared it would strengthen Cummings’s already tight grip on the inner circle. Egged on by Symonds, Johnson withdrew his offer to Cain, who resigned last night.

His departure was followed by media briefings suggesting that Cummings and other senior advisers might walk out in protest. That was extraordinary, since it appeared that the Cummings camp’s loyalty was to itself rather than to the prime minister. The threats to quit appear to have receded for now, though this drama might not have reached its final act.

Johnson needs to balance his team by recruiting an experienced chief of staff in the mould of Jonathan Powell who did the job for Tony Blair – someone who isn’t an ideologue, is above the faction-fighting and can bring people together. Johnson’s chief would need to reach out to Tory MPs who are rapidly losing confidence in him, something he must take seriously as they have the power to boot him out. 

Many Tories, though appalled by the latest rats-in-a-sack show, hope Cain’s departure will weaken Cummings’s influence. They dislike Cummings because they feel he treats them with disdain.

Cummings has his strengths; Johnson does not want to lose the adviser who persuaded him to go for last year’s election, delivering the Tories’ biggest majority since 1987. Cummings’s fresh thinking would be best deployed on his pet projects, such as reforming Whitehall and a new research funding agency modelled on America’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Arpa, which became Darpa when defence was added to the name. Critics say he gets sucked into too much day-to-day firefighting, though that is perhaps inevitable in a pandemic.

A new chief of staff could take over Cummings’s firefighting duties. But some people approached for the job appear to have turned it down because he would still be on the scene, and so inevitably calling the shots.

Today, it is unclear whether the civil war is over or there is just a temporary ceasefire. Cain’s departure gives Johnson an opportunity to reset his government. He knows it needs to happen. 

The government’s communications during the coronavirus, and the endless stream of U-turns, have looked shambolic and incompetent. The infighting and navel-gazing comes at a terrible time for Johnson; the public will surely see ministers’ claim that coronavirus is the government’s “sole focus” for the joke that it is.