Inside Politics: No 10 points finger at ‘bitter’ Dominic Cummings over leaks

Boris Johnson is said to believe his former right-hand man is behind the James Dyson text exchange leak, writes Adam Forrest

Dominic Cummings leaves his home in north London last November shortly before he quit his post as Boris Johnson’s top aide (Victoria Jones/PA Wire)

Forgive as the Lord forgave you. The Archbishop of Canterbury wants us to show more “forgiveness” to our politicians, amid the ongoing scandal over assorted forms of sleaze. “If you’re going to raise standards, you need to have … compassion and understanding,” said Justin Welby. Boris Johnson won’t easily forgive whoever shared his James Dyson texts. The PM believes his Brexit brother-in-arms Dominic Cummings is behind the leaks – a truly biblical betrayal. Johnson won’t easily forgive David Cameron either, the old school chum who started all this mess. Dogged Dave is back in the headlines, after the Bank of England released details of his incredibly persistent lobbying efforts.

Inside the bubble

Political editor Andrew Woodcock on what to look out for today:

Boris Johnson will come under pressure to explain whether he had advanced warning about the European Super League, after The Independent revealed that he spoke to Manchester United’s Ed Woodward last week. Meanwhile, on the local election campaign trail, Labour will push their promise to create low-carbon jobs, while the Lib Dems announce a plan for a clean air fund.

Daily briefing

REVENGE OF THE NERD: It seems galaxy-brained futurist Dominic Cummings is not above a spot of good old-fashioned vengeance. Boris Johnson believes it was Cummings who leaked his damaging text exchange with James Dyson, according to reports this morning. One No 10 source told The Times that Cummings was “engaged in systematic leaking” and “bitter about what’s happened since he left”. Downing Street has started an internal inquiry. It will not consider a separate leak of text messages from Mohammed bin Salman asking Johnson to intervene in the proposed Newcastle United takeover (though suspicion will surely fall on Cummings there too). We have new details of that busy boy David Cameron. He repeatedly lobbied the Bank of England, pleading for its help in getting the government to give Greensill Capital access to a Covid support scheme. The Bank released emails and letters from the former PM. The Treasury’s most senior civil servant, Sir Tom Scholar, told the Treasury committee he had personally spoken with Cameron by phone, saying it was “quite natural” for him to do so. Quite.

UNITED WE STAND: Could Boris Johnson have had advanced notice of the launch of the controversial European Super League? The Independent has revealed that the PM spoke to Man United chief exec Ed Woodward when he visited No 10 last week. Labour are demanding the release of minutes of Woodward’s meeting with Johnson’s chief of staff Dan Rosenfield. Both sides insist the meeting focused on the return of fans to stadiums. Meanwhile, nation’s top civil servant Simon Case has reportedly stepped in to try and sweep the mess over the refurbishment of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat. The cabinet secretary will have to pour through leaked emails suggesting Lord Brownlow gave £58,000 to a ‘Downing Street Trust’, when no donation of that amount was declared to the Electoral Commission. “I’m astonished that Simon has got involved in this himself,” one government official told The Times. “It has so much potential to go wrong … It’s so odd.”

BUNNY SPOILER: Boris Johnson made a rather rambling, shambling appearance at leaders’ climate summit convened by Joe Biden. The PM said tackling climate change need not be a “politically-correct green act of bunny hugging – this is about jobs and growth”. It seems Johnson will use the same argument to persuade countries like China and India to cut emissions at the Cop26 in Glasgow (if these countries manage to understand his attempts at raffish, P.G. Wodehouse-style humour). Labour’s business secretary Ed Miliband said the Covid recovery must not be driven by further fossil fuel expansion. Writing for The Independent, as we launch our Stop Fuelling the Climate Crisis campaign, Miliband warned: “We need to reckon with the source of our emissions: fossil fuel supply.” The Lib Dems, meanwhile, are putting clean air at the centre of their local election campaign. Sir Ed Davey will unveil his plan to pump £5.5bn into walking and cycling routes and £2bn to convert bus fleets to hydrogen fuel today – calling air pollution the “invisible enemy”.

CHEQUES AND BALANCES: The Covid situation in India continues to be a major worry. An additional 55 cases of the so-called “double mutated” variant first detected there have been found in the UK. It comes as new travel rules come into force this morning, forcing British and Irish nationals arriving from India into quarantine in approved hotels. Elsewhere, foreign secretary Dominic Raab is under growing pressure to explain where exactly the pain from international aid cuts will fall. Labour’s Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee, claimed people “are going hungry” in Syria because the government is not providing funds to a leading charity. Champion said one organisation struggled to get payments “because ministers haven’t signed off” on cheques. Raab dismissed the claim in the Commons, telling the MP: “I don’t accept that. I don’t accept your headline view that we are not maintaining our proud legacy … because we haven’t signed cheques.”

TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS: Labour would lose a snap general election held tomorrow, one of Keir Starmer’s closest allies has admitted. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves insisted the gap with the Tories had “narrowed considerably” and a general election was still a long way off. It comes as a new poll from YouGov showed the opposition party on 29 per cent, down on the 32 per cent it won at the last election. “Look, at the moment, if there was a general election tomorrow, Labour wouldn’t get a majority,” she told an ITV podcast. “We are turning around this tanker and we’re moving in the right direction.” Labour’s shadow justice secretary David Lammy welcomed the findings of the inquiry which found black and Asian service personnel were not properly commemorated. Lammy – who helped make in the inquiry happen with his Channel 4 documentary – said he hoped resources would be made available to honour the dead in the “appropriate way”. Boris Johnson apologised on behalf of the government, saying he was “deeply troubled” by the inquiry’s findings.

SO TIRED OF WAITING FOR YOU: Looks like the nail-biting Scottish parliament election will keep exhausted political types up for days. The outcome of the Holyrood vote won’t be known for up to two days afterwards, election chiefs have confirmed. Only a third of the results will be declared the next day because of extra Covid precautions. Scottish Tory boss Douglas Ross said the election is on a “knife edge” after separate polls showed the SNP either narrowly winning or narrowly losing a majority. He asked pro-UK voters to “unite behind us” to stop another referendum. Strangely, the SNP is using exactly the same rhetoric to get its voters out. Keith Brown, deputy leader, said: “These polls show this election, the most important in Scotland’s history, on a knife-edge.” We might as well end this morning’s round-up with some literal p*** taking. Footage has emerged showing Brian Rose, an independent London mayoral candidate, drinking his own urine. The crank said it tasted “a little salty” but “really not bad at all”. So there you go. Now you know.

On the record

“Politicians are human beings. If we want perfect politicians, we won’t have anyone sitting in the House of Commons. We’ll never have another prime minister.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury wants more kindness towards elected officials.

From the Twitterati

“I’m not a bunny hugger!’ Boris Johnson says. And the man can’t even tell the truth about that.”

Otto English shares photo of Boris hugging a bunny…

“This is what happens when an incompetent, lazy, arrogant a*** makes it up as he goes along.”

…and Anna Soubry was not impressed by the PM rambling statement to the climate summit.

Essential reading

Ed Miliband, The Independent: We must keep fossil fuels in the ground

Cathy Newman, The Independent: People power is back, and politicians are listening

Simon Jenkins, The Guardian: No 10 could thwart the SNP by offering Scotland access to EU single market

Ella Nilsen, Vox: How climate change became the centrepiece of Joe Biden’s agenda

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