When No. 10 briefed three newspapers on Thursday night that Dominic Cummings was behind a series of damaging leaks against the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson hoped the move would put him on the front foot and calm the government lobbying row. Instead, that decision appears to have spectacularly backfired. After Cummings hit back with an explosive blog, the newspaper briefing has reignited the Downing Street civil war and led to a plethora of stories on the No. 10 power struggle.
The Sunday front pages make for distressing reading for the Prime Minister – ranging from ‘MPs fury over Downing St sleaze claims’ to concerns within No. 10 over fears Cummings has a ‘bombshell dossier’. No. 10 is still struggling to deal with the first set of Cummings revelations – detailed in his blog on Friday – alleging Johnson considered behaving inappropriately on funding the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat and that he pondered the idea of pulling a leak inquiry on lockdown II over concerns it could implicate a close friend of his fiancée Carrie Symonds.
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