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      in UK Politics

      Will Dominic Cummings seek revenge?

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      Reports suggest it is in his mind. Asked about future plans, the prime minister’s former chief adviser makes a mime of pulling the safety pin out of a grenade and lobbing it with intent at some unspecified but easily identified object. He seems to be the sort of personality who likes to have the last word, and does not let go easily.  When, for example, in 2014 he was special adviser to Michael Gove at education, the prime minister David Cameron fired Cummings, so troublesome was he. Yet he still turned up at the department and made no secret of his contempt for Cameron and most of his party (Cummings has never been a Tory member). Cummings detailed and lengthy blogs, and the equally meticulous briefings he sometimes offers journalists also point to his taste for explication and analysis, often through the prism of military or managerial strategy.  More

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      in UK Politics

      How should Labour respond to Dominic Cummings’s departure?

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      So far Keir Starmer has allowed the Conservative government to tear itself apart without providing any commentary from the opposition. On Wednesday, the incendiary report that Boris Johnson was “poised” to make Lee Cain, Dominic Cummings’s lieutenant, Downing Street chief of staff provoked Tory civil war, with Tory MPs and Carrie Symonds, the prime minister’s fiancee, piling in to stop the appointment. Starmer ignored it at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), raising worthy subjects such as armed forces charities and wasteful spending on PR consultants. Instead of being confirmed as chief of staff, however, Cain that evening announced his resignation. This time the Labour Party did say something, putting out a three-sentence statement: “On the day the UK became the first country in Europe to report 50,000 coronavirus deaths and the public endure another lockdown, Boris Johnson’s government is fighting like rats in a sack over who gets what job. It is precisely this lack of focus and rank incompetence that has held Britain back. The public deserve better than this incompetent and divided Conservative government.”  More

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      in World Politics

      Could Trump push the red button before he leaves office?

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      Donald Trump’s decision to fire Defence Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday removed one of the final barriers between the president and his ability to launch the US arsenal of nuclear missiles on his own authority without consultation and perhaps even without warning. The US president is required to consult with his defence secretary before making a decision to fire nuclear weapons. But if the defence secretary objects he can be over-ruled. The president retains ultimate and sole control because he can sack the defence secretary in the event of disagreement.The only other person who could prevent the president from ordering a nuclear attack would be Vice President Mike Pence, through the indirect means of declaring Trump to be insane and removing him from office. Section four of the 25th amendment to the US constitution would allow Pence to do this, but he would require the unanimous support of the cabinet. Nobody thinks that Pence would defy Trump in this way. And the Trump cabinet has an overwhelming majority of his supporters, apparently selected more for their personal loyalty to him than their expertise or backbone.The departure of Esper, originally brought into the cabinet as yet another loyalist – he had previously worked as a lobbyist for arms manufacturers – and the relative lack of standing of his replacement, Christopher C Miller, means that the last hurdle between Trump and the doomsday command has been removed. More

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      in UK Politics

      Inside Politics: Boris Johnson’s comms chief quits in major No 10 bust-up

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      Hugh Grant has revealed his own experience with coronavirus left him longing for close human contact to reignite his sense of smell. “You want to sniff strangers’ armpits,” the actor said. Boris Johnson is hoping the vaccine will bring us back within armpit-sniffing range of each other in 2021, but is asking for patience until then. Right now the PM has to get rid of a major stink at No 10. The bitter stench comes from Johnson’s director of communications Lee Cain, who has sensationally quit over his failure to land a promotion.Inside the bubbleOur political editor Andrew Woodcock on what to look out for today: More

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      in UK Politics

      Why did Lee Cain’s possible promotion to No 10 chief of staff cause mayhem in Westminster?

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      Talk about a bomb in the bubble. The prime minister was “poised” to promote Lee Cain, his director of communications, to chief of staff, it was reported yesterday morning. This detonated a small explosion in the cloistered world of political advisers and journalists in and around Downing Street, and last night Cain announced he was resigning. To understand its significance, we need to rehearse the history of the prime minister’s office. The term “chief of staff” was first used in Margaret Thatcher’s time by David Wolfson, the business person, but it was more of a grand title than an executive office. Tony Blair was the first to appoint a chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, as a political appointee to run No 10 in conjunction with the civil service. He served for the full 10 years. David Cameron had a similar administrative linchpin in the form of Ed Llewellyn for all his six years.  More

    • 188 Shares109 Views

      in UK Politics

      The Glamour Boys: How a group of queer MPs fought the good fight against Hitler

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      Hitler’s march through Europe appears unstoppable. Having invaded Czechoslovakia and annexed Austria, the Third Reich is placing British “appeasement” under chronic and humiliating duress. Prime minister Neville Chamberlain, the policy’s architect who is convinced of the public’s appetite for peace, is worried. His agreements with Hitler aren’t working.And while he commands a strong current of support among Tory MPs – and an overwhelming coalition majority against Labour – a secret group of MPs is sowing discord behind the scenes. Calling for war and sounding repeated alarms about Hitler’s ambitions and abuses, the group is proving a nuisance. Chamberlain’s not sure what they’re planning but his master of dark arts, Sir Joseph Ball, is keeping tabs.They call them the glamour boys – so-named because around one-quarter of their membership is homosexual, bisexual, or somewhere in between. Chamberlain and Ball are careful not to make public accusations without substance but “glamour” – with the phrase helpfully repeated in Westminster circles and by favoured journalistic connections – carries much of the curse. Glamour means effeminacy, vanity, anything to sustain Britain’s homophobic stains at the time. And despite Chamberlain’s escalating sabotage campaign, the glamour boys are only growing in influence. It’s just a matter of time before the guns start firing. More

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      in UK Politics

      What do his predecessors think of Dominic Cummings’s attempt to reshape the prime minister’s office?

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      A galaxy of stars of what Professor Peter Hennessy, the historian, calls the “special adviserdom” will be assembled by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of MPs tomorrow, to give their views on “the role and status of the prime minister’s office”. Appearing before the committee, presumably via Zoom, will be: Fiona Hill, joint chief of staff to Theresa May for her first year as prime minister; Polly Mackenzie, director of policy in Nick Clegg’s office when he was deputy prime minister; Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to Tony Blair; Professor Sir Geoff Mulgan, head of the No 10 policy unit and then the strategy unit under Blair; and John Redwood, the Conservative MP who was head of Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit.
      They were all special advisers – political appointees rather than civil servants – who worked at the heart of government. That is the high-powered seminar convened by William Wragg, the independent-minded 32-year-old Conservative MP who chairs the committee, to pass judgement on the latest attempt to re-order what is known as “the centre” of government.  More

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      in UK Politics

      Boris Johnson took some stick for sticking to code of silence on US election

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      For days after polls closed in the US presidential election, one issue dominated conversations around the globe. Who’s going to win? What will Trump do? What does it mean for the world?Only one voice was absent from the debate – that of Boris Johnson and the British government.The Johnson administration’s vow of silence extended to the ridiculous extreme that Downing Street refused even to say whether, in principle, the prime minister felt that in democratic elections generally all votes should be counted. More