London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Jul 21, 2025

Boris Johnson’s ministers watch and wonder as MPs sense the ‘end of days’

Boris Johnson’s ministers watch and wonder as MPs sense the ‘end of days’

Analysis: The PM needs to replace his lost team quickly as some in the cabinet start to pull away

Boris Johnson ends a bruising week with a vacuum at the heart of Downing Street and cabinet ministers beginning to distance themselves from his leadership.

The loss of his communications director, Jack Doyle, his chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, his principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, and his policy chief, Munira Mirza, all in one day leaves the Tory party unsure who is now running the Johnson project in No 10, what its aims are and who will carry out their pursuit.

While the first three have notionally agreed to stay on until replacements are found, many MPs are beginning to doubt whether a team can be stitched together in time to stave off a confidence vote.

Boris Johnson started the week aiming to overshadow partygate.


With every day that passes, Tory MPs agree among themselves that Johnson’s premiership has an “end of days” feel to it – and yet the threshold of 54 letters signalling a loss of support in the prime minister has not been reached, leaving the party and government in a paralysed limbo.

Johnson started the week with a schedule of announcements designed to overshadow the damaging revelations of the Sue Gray report and the Met police investigation into the Downing Street parties.

A day trip to Ukraine was set up to make him look like an involved international leader, and there was the launch of his flagship policy on levelling up. MPs appeared temporarily boosted by the news that Sir Lynton Crosby, his elections guru, would be back giving him advice.

But on closer inspection, each of these events only served to make him look weaker, as he ran shy of the press by taking just a Sun journalist with him to Kyiv, and failed to take the lead on the white paper, sending out the cabinet minister Michael Gove instead to do a statement and media interviews. It also became increasingly clear that Crosby’s involvement would be at arm’s length only.

A bellicose performance at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday also triggered at least one of the resignations – that of policy chief Munira Mirza as he failed to apologise for his slur two days earlier against Keir Starmer. Johnson had falsely claimed that Starmer had failed to prosecute the serial child abuser Jimmy Savile when director of public prosecutions..

For all the furore around the parties, it is the prime minister’s flailing response and lack of contrition over the Savile slur that appears to have been the last straw for Mirza, along with some other MPs, such as Gary Streeter, who was one of at least five to put in letters of no confidence this week.

And all the while, his cabinet ministers are watching from the sidelines, wondering whether the moment will come soon for a leadership contest.

Rishi Sunak returning to Downing Street on Friday.


Rishi Sunak, the chancellor and the frontrunner to succeed Johnson, was the first to draw a line between himself and the beleaguered prime minister, saying he would not have made the Savile comment about Starmer.

And then Sajid Javid, the health secretary, another possible rival, also laid down a marker that he did not approve of the remarks, saying Starmer as director of public prosecutions did a “good job and he should be respected for it”.


Several of the cabinet – Liz Truss, Nadhim Zahawi and Grant Shapps – are in isolation with Covid, but the collective role of Johnson’s top team will become increasingly important in the days to come.

Should Johnson manage to cobble together only a weak and insubstantial team over the weekend to replace his losses in No 10, then MPs may begin to lose the faith even before the conclusion of the Met police investigation and full publication of the Gray report.

In this situation, they will increasingly be looking to the cabinet heavyweights and potential leadership challengers to give them the nod that now is the time to start submitting letters in droves. That moment has not yet come – but MPs and Downing Street are on tenterhooks.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
Iranian President Reportedly Injured During Israeli Strike on Secret Facility
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Defends Attorney General Pam Bondi Amid Epstein Memo Backlash
Renault Shares Drop as CEO Luca de Meo Announces Departure Amid Reports of Move to Kering
Senior Aides for King Charles and Prince Harry Hold Secret Peace Summit
Anti‑Semitism ‘Normalised’ in Middle‑Class Britain, Says Commission Co‑Chair
King Charles Meets David Beckham at Chelsea Flower Show
If the Department is Really About Justice: Ghislaine Maxwell Should Be Freed Now
NYC Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Antifada’ Remarks Spark National Debate on Political Language and Economic Policy
×