Dominic Cummings has vowed fundamental change to the civil service after coronavirus exposed flaws in the government machine.
The PM’s most senior aide is said to have told colleagues the Cabinet Office must be stripped of powers, swiping: ‘A hard rain is coming.’
Mr Cummings has been a longstanding critic of the way the civil service works, calling for more modern organisation and data-driven policies.
In blogs before he was drafted in by Mr Johnson, he urged the introduction of ‘red teams’ explicitly tasked with finding reasons why the government should not be following policies.
He has been an advocate of ‘Super-Forecasters’, individuals who have no specific expertise but are able to predict events because of their mental process.
Mr Cummings has been particularly scathing about the way the Ministry of Defence runs its procurement.
Dominic Cummings (pictured in Downing Street today) is said to have told colleagues the Cabinet Office must be stripped of powers, swiping: ‘A hard rain is coming.’
There have been complaints from some Tory MPs that No10 is too inward looking and has been blundering over coronavirus because there is an ‘iron curtain’ around the PM.
But according to the grass roots ConservativeHome website, in a Zoom call with other special advisers recently Mr Cummings flatly dismissed the idea that he wanted to take all power into No10 as a ‘media invention’.
He reportedly told Spads that ‘anybody who has read what I’ve said about management over the years will know it’s ludicrous to suggest the solution to Whitehall’s problems is a bigger centre and more centralisation’.
‘it’s already far too big, incoherent and adds to the problems with departments.’ he added.
Mr Cummings apparently called for a ‘smaller and more elite’ central operation, and made clear that big changes were coming for No10 and the Cabinet Office.
He insisted the coronavirus response had underlined problems in the structures and many officials now accepted the need for radical change, before concluding with the message: ‘A hard rain is coming.’
Tensions have been running high between civil servants, ministers and aides during the crisis that has engulfed the country.
There were claims of a pointy exchange between the PM and Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill at a meeting.
During a discussion about the government’s exit plan Mr Johnson is said to have asked: ‘Who is in charge of implementing this delivery plan?’
One of the sources said that silence followed before the PM looked at Sir Mark and said: ‘Is it you?’
Sir Mark then reportedly replied: ‘No, I think it’s you, prime minister.’
There was also speculation old scored were being settled when Sir Simon McDonald announced he was stepping down as the top mandarin at the Foreign Office last week.
And Home Secretary Priti Patel is facing an employment tribunal action from Sir Philip Rutnam after he quit as permanent secretary following a long-running spat.
Mr Cummings has written prolific blogs on government over years that give a glimpse into his thinking.
In June last year, shortly before joining Mr Johnson at No10, he penned a 10,000-word post calling for an end to the ‘Kafka-esque’ influence of civil servants on politicians.
He proposed creating independent ‘Red Teams’ to challenge official advice to ministers – who would be rewarded for overturning the orthodoxy.
Mr Cummings has previously slammed support for ministers as ‘extremely bureaucratic and slow’ and said the civil service had presided over ‘expensive debacle after expensive debacle’.
He dismissed Westminster as ‘the blind leading the blind’, saying that for top mandarins ‘management, like science, is regarded contemptuously as something for the lower orders to think about, not the ”strategists” at the top’.
Mr Cummings has been upsetting the Westminster establishment for years.
He memorably nicknamed the educational establishment ‘the blob’ when he was adviser to Mr Gove at the Department for Education.
In blogs before he was drafted in by Boris Johnson (pictured today), Mr Cummings urged the introduction of ‘red teams’ explicitly tasked with finding reasons why the government should not be following policies
In 2014, David Cameron reportedly branded him a ‘career psychopath’, and Mr Cummings resigned from government and accused him of ‘bumbling from one shambles to another without the slightest sense of purpose’.
Mr Cummings described Lib Dem former deputy PM Nick Clegg as ‘a revolting character’, which triggered Mr Clegg to dismiss him as a ‘loopy ideologue’.
Angry Tory MPs urged Mr Johnson last week to tear down the ‘iron curtain’ around Downing Street and listen to them instead of Mr Cummings.
They voiced frustration at the lack of consultation with the wider party, as Mr Johnson relies on a small circle of trusted advisers including Mr Cummings.
‘Boris needs to get the message his liaison with parliamentary colleagues needs to get better and better quickly,’ one MP told the Telegraph. ‘There seems to be an iron curtain around Downing Street.’
The PM was urged to improve communications with Tory MPs in order to avoid U-turns, such as those over free school meals and the migrant surcharge on foreign NHS staff.
They told him to listen to feedback from experienced MPs rather than relying on a small circle of advisers such as Dominic Cummings.
And they said they felt angry that in some cases they had been out defending the original position, only for it to be changed within hours.
‘There was a very clear message that people want no more U-turns,’ an MP said.
‘It feels like we’re lurching from one mini-crisis to the next.
‘The big issue is the lack of communication between No 10 and the backbenches.
‘We are seeing these problems like free school meals starting to build up momentum in our inboxes and No 10 appears to be blissfully unaware of them until it’s too late.
‘In the meantime, we’re being asked to go out and defend things we can see they are going to cave in on.’