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One account had them exchange jokes and reminisce about better times, another described a furious confrontation. What happened this week between Boris Johnson and his senior advisers Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain when they left Downing Street has been the subject of intense speculation.
What really happened? The Guardian has attempted to unravel the competing versions apparently reported by warring factions in Westminster.
The furious row v the affable farewell talk
On Friday, Johnson held a 45-minute meeting with Cummings and Cain in which, the Financial Times reported, he confronted the couple with text messages sent to his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, showing they had reported against him. “In tense exchanges,” the newspaper reported, “Johnson accused his advisers of reporting against him and his partner Carrie Symonds and criticized them for destabilizing the government amid tense Brexit negotiations.” He added: “Mr. Johnson … told them to go out and never come back.”
The Sunday Times described a very different atmosphere. “Both of them [Cummings and Cain] told friends that the reunion was “warm and full of laughs” as the trio recounted their battles together. “When you separate from a girlfriend, it is better to move quickly,” said a friend. “He also quoted a top 10 source as saying that the prime minister said the briefings had to end.
The report added: “Having ousted his key aides … Johnson generally tried to downplay the confrontation and told officials, ‘I told you we should rally the gang’ to fight in the next election.”
Johnson is said to have visited Cain in his office, signed a pair of boxing gloves “Get Brexit Done” and delivered a farewell speech. “He’s the only one on my staff who always answers phone calls … day or night,” Johnson said, adding, “Sometimes I wait for days for Dom to return them to me.”
What is clear is that, despite Cummings’ claim that he always planned to leave at the end of the year (about which, later), the dramatic and public nature of his and Cain’s departure was not what they or the prime minister had foreseen. . All parties may have been friendly on Friday, but the anger, shock and pain on both sides are hard to deny.
Symonds calls Johnson 20 times per hour and has has been dubbed ‘Princess Nut Nut’ v she gives much needed advice like ‘one of the few around the prime minister who understands the conservative party’
A Cain and Cummings ally said that Johnson’s fiancée calls his private office “more than 20 times a day demanding that he leave meetings to call her.” This was dismissed as false by Symonds’ allies and public officials, the latter described as “impartial” by the Sunday Times.
The Mail on Sunday reported on a nickname for Symonds seemingly circulating among Cummings loyalists: Princess Nut Nuts or Princess Nut Nut (there is division over this too), sometimes expressed in emojis. The Daily Telegraph, citing sources, reported that the prime minister was particularly irritated by the nickname.
A source told The Guardian that neither Cummings nor Cain themselves used this expression, although someone perceived as in their camp did.
The Sunday Times, which also highlighted a former cabinet minister’s concern over Symonds’s influence on non-ministerial appointments, quoted a friend of Symonds as responding: “Carrie was deliberately drawn into that at a key moment to harm her and undermine the case that She was doing. They want her to look like Lady Macbeth. She is one of the few people around the prime minister who understands the Conservative Party. “
There were also claims that misogyny was behind the attacks. Notably, Symonds ‘position on Cain, which led to Cummings’ departure, was shared by Allegra Stratton, the new 10th press secretary, and Munira Mirza, director of the policy unit. Johnson has previously been accused of presiding over a “dwarf” government.
The prime minister is ‘undecided’ and Cummings is ‘trying to blame everyone else but himself for her passing’
Cummings left No. 10 with a broadside on his boss, the Daily Telegraph reported, telling allies that Johnson was “indecisive” and that he and Cain had to rely on Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove to make sure. give them instructions. This accusation was supported by a source who spoke to The Guardian.
However, the Telegraph took the counterclaim from “sources loyal to the prime minister” that the complaints of hesitation were simply “the occasions when the prime minister would not do what [Cummings] he wants me to ”and accusing Cummings of“ trying to blame everyone but himself ”for her disappearance.
The newspaper quoted a source as saying: “The truth is that Dom will not pay attention to something for months, then he will become interested and wait for it to happen in two or three days. This is not how the government works. When he says that Boris is undecided, what he really means is that Boris won’t do what he wants. That is not the same. “
Those whose memories go back four years will recall Johnson admitting that he wrote two articles on Brexit, one for and one against staying in the EU, though he described the former as “semi-parodic.” So indecision isn’t new to him, it seems.
Cummings always intended to leave before the end of the year, as he got kicked.
While it has been widely reported that the prime minister ordered Cummings to leave Downing Street on Friday, Johnson’s top adviser tried to concoct a different version of events the day before.
in a series of tweets, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg reported Thursday night that Cummings was out. She wrote: “Senior # 10’s source says Dominic Cummings is out for Christmas – after hours of speculation HE tells me ‘rumors are made up of me threatening to resign, rumors are made up that I ask others to resign ‘… “
She added: “He said ‘tonight’s rumors that the Brexit negotiations are somehow involved are made up and comical to anyone who knows what’s going on in issue 10’ but when asked about the rumors that would resign at Christmas, Cummings said … ‘My position has not changed since my January blog’, when he planned to become ‘redundant’ by the end of 2020, he left. “
In fact, his lengthy January blog, in which he infamously said Downing Street wanted to hire “weirdos and misfits,” wasn’t quite as explicit about when he would go. Cummings wrote at the time: “We want to improve performance and make myself much less important, and a year from now largely redundant.”
On Friday, two sources told The Guardian that Johnson had ordered Cummings and Cain to leave Downing Street with immediate effect rather than stay until Christmas. That account is maintained.
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