On Tuesday, the last cabinet meeting with Sajid Javid as health secretary and Rishi Sunak as chancellor passed without any hint that either was about to resign. The ministers did not co-ordinate their resignations, but they had both been tipped over the edge by growing evidence that No. 10 had misled MPs by declaring Boris Johnson had no prior knowledge of Chris Pincher’s behaviour. Sunak had also grown tired of the Prime Minister’s economic ‘cake-ism’ – the fantasy of wanting both high spending and low taxes. The contradictions had become untenable.
In that cabinet meeting, Johnson offered more cake. He was his usual ebullient self, promising a morale-raising speech to move on from recent woes. It was Michael Gove who confronted him. Now is the time for candour, he said, not misleading boosterism. Tackling inflation would be very painful so there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. And didn’t part of the problem rest around the cabinet table? ‘Fiscal Nimbyism,’ he called it.
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