Boris Johnson is said to be facing calls from Tory MPs to shake up his team as a recent spate of political misjudgements, U-turns and sleaze allegations have been eating away at the Conservative Party's reputation, according to The Guardian. Furthermore, the Treasury was reportedly similarly concerned about Downing Street’s backtracking on social care rules and railways for the north.
A Tory source was cited as deploring Johnson’s “irredeemably flawed” judgement, adding: “If we hadn’t just had a reshuffle, the case for changes would already be growing quite strong”. Some Tory MPs are said to have suggested that Johnson recruit a political “heavy-hitter” in an attempt to stem the flow of “errors” by No. 10.
“He’s absolutely got to do something. All of us have weaknesses; it’s incumbent on us to put the right people in place to correct for those weaknesses,” a former cabinet minister was cited as saying.
Some MP faulted the Prime Minister’s aides, arguing that there was “no one in there who is his age or older than him”. Still other dubious Tories are quoted as saying that persuading Johnson to heed more advice and feedback would need “more big beasts than the cast of a Ben-Hur movie”.
The remarks were made amid speculations that Johnson’s chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, who was closely involved in many recent decisions, could depart.
“It’s easy to blame the team – the fact is [Johnson] just isn’t up to it. His whole personality would have to change. He would need to trust someone and let them have real power to fix the operation – and him. He doesn’t trust anyone,” a senior Tory argued.
Some sources claimed that Whitehall and the Treasury were mooting delegating more of a strategic oversight role to Ben Gascoigne, Johnson’s former political secretary. Gascoigne had been recently brought back in the capacity of deputy chief of staff.
Former Conservative leader William Hague, in a column for The Times on Monday, led a chorus of voices demanding the Prime Minister pay more attention to the views of senior ministers, adding that there was “still time for the Tories to get a grip”. The name of Australian political strategist Sir Lynton Crosby had also purportedly come up in discussions of late as a way to sharpen Johnson’s top team.
Hunt For 'Chatty Pig'
This comes amid a Whitehall search for the “senior Downing Street source” who fuelled concern about the No. 10 operation on Monday night by assessing the Prime Minister's Confederation of British Industry (CBI) speech as “shambolic”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) annual conference, at the Port of Tyne, in South Shields, England, Monday Nov. 22, 2021.
© AP Photo / Owen Humphreys
The same source had claimed there was “a lot of concern inside the building about the PM”. Johnson’s rambling speech at the conference in Port of Tyne, northern England, on Monday, indeed, did little to assuage concerns.
Boris Johnson had lost his place for more than 20 seconds as he rummaged through his notes, muttering "forgive me" before launching into a bizarre homily about Peppa Pig World, a park based on the children’s TV show.
“It's just not working. Cabinet needs to wake up and demand serious changes otherwise it'll keep getting worse. If they don't insist, he just won't do anything about it,” the source cited by the BBC had claimed.
While igniting a briefing war, with several government insiders blaming the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, the incendiary comment also triggered a Whitehall hunt for the “chatty pig”. The phrase used by sources is a nod to the “chatty rat” scandal, when plans for a second national COVID-19 lockdown were leaked last year. Sunak's allies are reported to have dismissed all allegations in this case as false.
U-Turns and Botched Announcements
Boris Johnson’s government has been mired in problems of late, starting with an ill-fated attempt to prevent ex-Tory MP Owen Paterson from being punished for breaching lobbying rules. The PM admitted last week that he had “crashed the car into a ditch” by first opting to support Paterson and then U-turning.
A series of leaks ahead of the announcement of the government's long-awaited Integrated Rail Plan (IRP), originally scheduled for earlier in the autumn but delayed, has also triggered backlash. The scaled back investment scrapped the eastern leg of the high-speed HS2 line to Leeds, scaled back the east-west Northern Powerhouse Rail, failing to commit to reopening of the disused Leamside line, seen by local officials as pivotal to expanding capacity.
“In the end what happened was that we blew a £96bn announcement that really should have been a lot more positive,” a Treasury source was cited by The Guardian as saying.
Details pertaining to Johnson’s health and social care bill amendments had similarly been delayed until last week. On Monday, the PM narrowly succeeded in getting MPs to back his social care cap for England, despite Tory rebellion, with the Commons endorsing plans to exclude means-tested council support payments from a new £86,000 lifetime limit on costs. The opposition parties had argued that poorer people would lose out from the change.
A Downing Street spokesperson on Tuesday responded to the recent reports, saying that the prime minister was “well” and “”very much focused on delivering for the public.”
As to the CBI speech, the spokesman added he had “briefly lost his place in the speech.” “He’s given hundreds of speeches. I don’t think it’s unusual for people, on rare occasions, to lose their place in space.”
Regarding the BBC report that an unnamed “senior Downing St source” said there was “a lot of concern inside the building about the PM”, the No 10 spokesperson responded with: “I’ve seen a number of anonymous source quotes, and I’m not, as you know, going to respond to anonymous sources.”