London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Boris Johnson’s aides plotted to oust him as PM, Dominic Cummings claims

Boris Johnson’s aides plotted to oust him as PM, Dominic Cummings claims

BBC interview reveals people decided Johnson was unfit to be PM within weeks of 2019 election victory
Boris Johnson’s closest aides decided he was unfit to be prime minister within weeks of his 2019 election victory and began plotting to oust him, Dominic Cummings has claimed.

In his first TV interview since quitting as one of the most senior advisers in No 10, Cummings levelled repeated criticism of his former boss, saying aides feared Johnson had no plan to run the country and was only obsessed with “stupid” infrastructure projects.

He accused the prime minister’s wife, Carrie, of trying to “appoint complete clowns to certain key jobs”, claiming she wanted to be “pulling the strings” at the heart of government instead of the old Vote Leave team, and suggested a new political party be set up to “kill” off the Conservatives.

Cummings has launched severe attacks on the government in the months since he stepped down, frequently accusing Johnson of revelling in chaos, having little grasp of the Covid pandemic and ignoring calls to implement a second lockdown across England last autumn that led to many unnecessary deaths.

His blogs, leaked WhatsApp message exchanges posted to Twitter and seven-hour testimony to two parliamentary committees on the handling of the pandemic have all shone a light on the inner machinations of Johnson’s administration. However, some Tory figures have questioned his trustworthiness given the infamous breach of Covid rules when he travelled to Durham and Barnard Castle during the first lockdown last spring.

Cummings said that until the general election where the prime minister won a landslide Commons majority of 80 on the back of a promise to “get Brexit done”, Boris and Carrie had been happy to have veterans of the pro-Brexit campaign group he ran working in Downing Street.

But after that moment in December 2019, he said Carrie Johnson became frustrated that he was running the show inside No 10.

With his allies fearing for their positions by January 2020, Cummings said people inside government began privately speculating that “either we’ll all have gone from here or we’ll be in the process of trying to get rid of [Johnson] and get someone else in as prime minister” and discussed ways to oust Johnson.

He said they thought Johnson “doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t know how to be prime minister and we only got him in there because we had to solve a certain problem, not because he was the right person to be running the country”.

Shedding light on his departure as one of Johnson’s most senior advisers, Cummings said the disagreements between him and the prime minister over how to tackle Covid grew, and that a “big argument” blew up over Carrie Johnson’s “interfering” with appointments in an “unethical and unprofessional way”.

Reflecting in his role in the run up to and years after the 2016 EU referendum, Cummings said that he did try to “provoke” some remainer politicians – but that that was a “by-product” of them pushing for a so-called “people’s vote” or confirmatory ballot on the terms of Brexit.

Speaking to the BBC for a programme to be aired at 7pm on BBC Two on Tuesday, Cummings said: “Did we lean into that in various ways to try and disorientate the people on the other side, yes! But that’s … politics.”

He also said anyone who was sure about answers to questions on the issue of Brexit “has got a screw loose”, and added that “no one on earth knows” if leaving the EU was a good idea.

Cummings urged Brexiters to consider creating a new party to take on the Conservatives or do what he did and “take over an existing party and try and bend it to something that’s different” – but did not say he should necessarily be at the forefront of such a movement.

A No 10 spokesperson insisted Johnson had “taken the necessary action to protect lives and livelihoods, guided by the best scientific advice” throughout the pandemic.

They stressed that the UK had seen “the fastest vaccination rollout in Europe”, saved millions of jobs through the furlough scheme and “prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed”, adding: “The government is entirely focused on emerging cautiously from the pandemic and building back better.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×