SIMON WALTERS: Boris Johnson said ‘Being Prime Minister is too much like hard work’
Boris Johnson said ‘being PM is too much like hard work’, compared the job to ‘pulling a jumbo jet down a runway every day’ and he ‘can’t wait to have fun and make money’
- Boris Johnson could step down as Prime Minister in four years, it was claimed
- The suggestion he has already planned his exit was made by Dominic Cummings
- The PM’s former chief adviser said he does not want to ‘go on and on’ in power
<!–
<!–
<!–<!–
<!–
(function (src, d, tag){
var s = d.createElement(tag), prev = d.getElementsByTagName(tag)[0];
s.src = src;
prev.parentNode.insertBefore(s, prev);
}(“https://www.dailymail.co.uk/static/gunther/1.17.0/async_bundle–.js”, document, “script”));
<!–
DM.loadCSS(“https://www.dailymail.co.uk/static/gunther/gunther-2159/video_bundle–.css”);
<!–
Boris Johnson could step down as Prime Minister in four years, it was claimed yesterday – and he says running the country is ‘like pulling a jumbo jet down the runway every day’.
The suggestion that Mr Johnson has already planned his Downing Street exit was made by Dominic Cummings in his latest blog attacking the Prime Minister.
Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser said he does not want to ‘go on and on’ in power, quoting the phrase used by Margaret Thatcher who served 11 years in No 10.
Mr Cummings said: ‘Unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election – he wants to make money and have fun, not “go on and on”.’
If Mr Cummings is right, it means Mr Johnson could resign as soon as 2025. The next election must take place by December 2024, five years after his landslide victory in 2019.
But some Tory MPs believe it could be held as early as 2023 to enable the party to cash in on the Covid vaccine success and before inevitable tax rises.
The suggestion that Mr Johnson has already planned his Downing Street exit was made by Dominic Cummings in his latest blog
The Daily Mail can reveal further details of Mr Johnson’s own colourful thoughts on being Prime Minister – and his post-No 10 plans.
According to a reliable source, he said: ‘This job is too much like hard work. It’s like pulling a giant 747 down the runway with a harness on your back. Every morning you get up and have to start pulling.
‘I do not want to go on and on like Thatcher and Blair. I want to get through this Parliament, win again and then head off soon afterwards.
‘I can’t wait till I can go back to writing, have fun and make money.’
Another source said Mr Johnson is ‘fiercely protective’ of his reputation as a writer and would reject speeches prepared for him by aides if he believed they were sub-standard.
‘His first love is writing, not politics,’ said the source. ‘He would say, “My future income depends on my writing and I cannot have it diluted by any old rubbish”. He would insist on rewriting it in his own inimitable style to protect his “brand”.’
Weeks after winning the 2019 election Mr Johnson took time off to work on a book about Shakespeare.
Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser said he does not want to ‘go on and on’ in power, quoting the phrase used by Margaret Thatcher who served 11 years in Number 10
Mrs Thatcher’s vow to ‘go on and on’ was made in 1987 when she had been prime minister for eight years. Just over three years later she left No 10 in tears, brought down by Tory MPs.
Tony Blair was prime minister for ten years and resigned in 2007 after constant sniping from his Labour successor Gordon Brown.
To beat his Tory rival David Cameron, who was forced to step down after six years and two months as prime minister, Mr Johnson needs to remain in power until October 2025. By that time he will be 61 years old.
Conservative MPs were sceptical about the claim by Mr Cummings, who was forced to resign as Mr Johnson’s senior adviser last year after losing a Downing Street power struggle, that the Prime Minister could leave office in four years.
‘Boris could easily win another landslide and if he does, wild horses won’t drag him out of No 10,’ said one.
Mr Johnson has pledged to scrap the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act to restore the customary right of prime ministers to call an election at a time of their own choosing.
The Prime Minister’s Press secretary refuted the suggestion that he was planning on standing down. ‘The PM has actually been asked this before and has said himself it’s utter nonsense, so that still stands,’ she said.
No 10 said the claims that Mr Johnson had compared being Prime Minister to ‘pulling a jumbo jet’ and was ‘too much like hard work’, and aimed to leave office in four years to ‘make money and have fun’, were untrue.
‘More to come’: Dominic Cummings says he will release ANOTHER batch of revelations about ‘f***ing hopeless’ Matt Hancock after humiliated Health Secretary said he ‘doesn’t think’ he’s incompetent in toe-curling clip
- Dominic Cummings says there is ‘more to come’ following a series of new revelations about Health Secretary
- Vote Leave maverick has taken particular aim at Matt Hancock, saying Boris Johnson branded him ‘hopeless’
- In a Twitter thread that is now 92 posts long, Mr Cummings last night said there was ‘more to come’ from him
By James Tapsfield, Jack Maidment and Henry Martin
Dominic Cummings says there is ‘more to come’ following a series of explosive revelations against the Government and ‘hopeless’ Matt Hancock in particular – amid reports claiming the Health Secretary will be cleared over claims he lied about care home testing.
Mr Cummings yesterday posted a 7,000-word diatribe alleging a series of failures during his time as a top advisor, claiming Boris Johnson has a ‘clear plan’ to quit Number 10 by 2026 because he wants to ‘make money and have fun’.
The Vote Leave maverick has taken particular aim at Mr Hancock, who was said to have been branded ‘f***ing hopeless’ by the Prime Minister.
In a Twitter thread that is now 92 posts long, Mr Cummings wrote: ‘Hancock claimed to MPs a/ ‘no PPE shortage’, b/ ‘everybody got treatment they needed’; c/ he was a heroic success on testing, d/ HMT hampered him on procurement, e/ ‘protective ring around care homes’.
‘His claims = false. Evidence here, more to come…’
Dominic Cummings comes back from a run after tweeting about Matt Hancock yesterday
In a Twitter thread that is now a whopping 92 posts long, Mr Cummings wrote: ‘Hancock claimed to MPs a/ ‘no PPE shortage’, b/ ‘everybody got treatment they needed’; c/ he was a heroic success on testing, d/ HMT hampered him on procurement, e/ ‘protective ring around care homes. His claims = false. Evidence here, more to come’
He attached a link to his blog, outlining in more detail his claims against the Government.
But despite claims the PM held his Health Secretary in such low regard, Mr Hancock is set to be exonerated over allegations he lied to Mr Johnson, The Times reports.
Images published yesterday by Mr Cummings reveal that the Prime Minister considered stripping Mr Hancock of responsibility for the procurement of PPE supplies for the NHS, handing over responsibility to Michael Gove instead.
But Jeremy Hunt, who is the chairman of the joint parliamentary inquiry that heard seven hours of evidence from Mr Cummings earlier this month, said the former chief advisor had not substantiated his key claim that Mr Hancock lied about testing patients who had been discharged into care homes from hospitals.
The committee does not plan to bring more witnesses to examine Mr Cummings’s claims against the Health Secretary, and will likely conclude they are unsubstantiated in a report, reports claim.
Mr Hunt said: ‘It is not possible to stack up the most sensational revelations without evidence. Today’s new tweets [from Mr Cummings] show the PM’s total frustration but do not prove anyone ”lied”.’
Downing Street insists that the Prime Minister has complete confidence in Mr Hancock.
It was also pointed out by allies of the Health Secretary that Mr Cummings had failed to prove his allegations.
The developments came at the end of a day that saw:
- The latest UK figures show the number of daily reported cases has risen above 9,000 for the first time since February 25;
- A leaked document gave a glimpse of the UK’s potential ‘new normal’ with facemasks, working from home and travel quarantine rules set to stay beyond July 19;
- Furious Tories predicted up to 70 MPs could inflict a bloody nose on Boris Johnson in a crunch lockdown vote tonight;
- Over-21s are now being urged to book appointments for their first vaccine dose as the UK’s rollout continues;
- NHS and care home staff are set to be obliged to get vaccinations.
Mr Hancock was forced to defend himself against the charge levelled by Mr Cummings that Mr Johnson described the Health Secretary’s performance at the start of the pandemic as ‘f***ing hopeless’.
As he drove to the Commons in an official car for a debate on delaying ‘Freedom Day’, a journalists shouted: ‘Are you useless, Mr Hancock?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he replied.
In one exchange from March 27 last year, Mr Cummings criticised the Health Secretary over the failure to ramp up testing. Mr Johnson replied: ‘Totally f****** hopeless.’ He then tried to call his senior aide three times without managing to get through.
Another from the same day saw Mr Cummings complain that the Department of Health had been turning down ventilators because ‘the price has been marked up’. Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.’
On April 27, Mr Johnson apparently messaged Mr Cummings to say that PPE was a ‘disaster’, suggesting that Michael Gove should take charge instead.
‘I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on.’
Mr Cummings dropped the incendiary revelations in a lengthy post on the Substack blogging platform just minutes before PMQs.
It included vicious passages condemning Mr Johnson for ‘telling rambling stories and jokes’ instead of chairing crucial meetings properly, and a claim that the PM is intending to quit in order to ‘make money’ rather than serving a full term if he wins the next election.
Downing Street declined to deny that the messages were genuine. ‘We are not going to get into engaging with individual allegations, so we will leave it there,’ the PM’s press secretary said.
Asked if Mr Johnson has full confidence in Mr Hancock, his spokesman said: ‘Yes.’
Mr Cummings has also criticised the way in which Mr Johnson runs meetings as he said summits chaired by Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, were ‘much more productive’ because he can ‘chair meetings properly instead of telling rambling stories and jokes’.
He said Mr Raab did a better job than Mr Johnson because he let ‘good officials actually question people’ unlike the PM who shouts ‘forward to victory’, gives a ‘thumbs up’ and is then seen ‘pegging it out of the room’ when things get ’embarrassing’.
Mr Cummings set out the PM’s alleged Number 10 exit strategy in a lengthy blog post published yesterday morning in which he renewed his attack on the Government over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said a promised public inquiry into the crisis ‘cannot fix’ problems in Whitehall.
He continued: ‘It will not start for years and it is designed to punt the tricky parts until after this PM has gone – unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not ‘go on and on’.
‘So we either live with chronic dysfunction for another ~5 years or some force intervenes.’
Mr Johnson has committed to the public inquiry getting underway in Spring 2022.
Asked if Mr Johnson intends to quit as PM, his Press Secretary said: ‘The PM has actually been asked this before and has said himself it is utter nonsense, so that still stands.
‘The PM was elected in 2019 and continues to focus on delivering on the manifesto we were elected on and leading the country out of the pandemic.’
Mr Cummings told MPs when he gave evidence to them last month on the response to pandemic that he believes Mr Johnson is unfit to be premier.
In his latest salvo, he renewed his criticism of the PM as he claimed Mr Johnson is an ineffective chairman of formal meetings.
He said meetings chaired by Mr Raab when he was in charge when Mr Johnson was recovering from coronavirus were ‘much more productive’.
He said: ‘Under Raab, the meetings were less pleasant for everybody but much more productive because unlike the PM a) Raab can chair meetings properly instead of telling rambling stories and jokes, b) he let good officials actually question people so we started to get to the truth, unlike the PM who as soon as things get ‘a bit embarrassing’ does the whole ‘let’s take it offline’ shtick before shouting ‘forward to victory’, doing a thumbs-up and pegging it out of the room before anybody can disagree.’
In an exchange with Boris Johnson from March 27 last year Dominic Cummings criticised the Health Secretary over the failure to ramp up testing
On April 27, Mr Johnson apparently messaged Mr Cummings to say that PPE was a ‘disaster’
Mr Cummings gave a brutal assessment of the performance of the government during an exchange of messages in April 2020
Dominic Cummings (right) posted bombshell messages from Boris Johnson attacking Matt Hancock (left)
Mr Cummings levelled his latest allegations in a lengthy substack blog post minutes before the weekly PMQs
Alongside the image of the apparent WhatsApp exchange with Mr Johnson, Mr Cummings tweeted: ‘Evidence on the covid disaster: as the PM said himself, Hancock’s performance on testing, procurement, PPE, care homes etc was ‘totally f***ing hopeless’, & his account to MPs was fiction.’
His message, which was dated March 27 last year and contained several typos, read: ‘US has gone from 2200 tests a fortnight ago to 27,000 a week ago to 100k yesterday. This is what we said we shd do. Instead we are still stuck on about 5-7K and MH saying today he’s ‘sceptical’ about getting to 10k by Monday which he said wd ‘definitely’ happen on Tuesday. This means tens of 1000s of NHS staff arent at work over next critical 3 weeks — apart from my earlier point re testign being integral to escape plan…’
The PM, whose name appeared as Johnson Boris in the screenshot, appeared to reply ‘Totally f***ing hopeless’.
In his long blog post, Mr Cummings said that ‘although the PM whinged to me and others, he would say to him, despite dozens of requests from two Cabinet Secretaries, me and other ministers and officials: stop this routine or you’re fired, your behaviour is undermining the whole effort’.
Mr Cummings posted a WhatsApp from March 24 last year – the day after the first lockdown – showing he had questioned Mr Hancock over his claims that the Treasury was delaying progress setting up an antibody testing scheme.
The former Vote Leave chief went on: ‘Under pressure at the morning meeting, Hancock had done what he did so often: blame others, often HMT.
‘As usual, it turned out that the delay was not with HMT but Hancock had misled the morning meeting and wrongly sought to blame others for delays.
‘This was a recurrent pattern and in April got so bad some ministers threatened to stop attending meetings until Hancock was fired (see below).’
In a brutal asssessment of the PM’s skills, Mr Cummings wrote: ‘On 20 April, Hancock faced intense pressure. Under Raab, the meetings were less pleasant for everybody but much more productive because unlike the PM a) Raab can chair meetings properly instead of telling rambling stories and jokes, b) he let good officials actually question people so we started to get to the truth, unlike the PM who as soon as things get ”a bit embarrassing” does the whole ”let’s take it offline’ shtick before shouting ‘forward to victory”, doing a thumbs-up and pegging it out of the room before anybody can disagree.’
Mr Cummings also claimed that Mr Johnson does not intend to serve a full term in Downing Street if he wins the next general election.
He said that ‘unlike other PMs, this one has a clear plan to leave at the latest a couple of years after the next election, he wants to make money and have fun not ‘go on and on’.’
But the premier’s press secretary said: ‘The PM has actually been asked this before and has said himself it’s utter nonsense, so that still stands.
‘As you know, the PM was elected in 2019 and continues to focus on delivering the manifesto we were elected on and leading the county out of the pandemic.’
Labour said the messages showed the need for an immediate start to the public inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Shadow health minister Justin Madders said: ‘This is more evidence that the Conservatives were too slow to lock down, too slow to deliver PPE and too slow to protect our care homes.
‘With this evidence that even the PM thinks Hancock is useless, why in the worst pandemic in our history has he left him in charge?
‘Hancock and Johnson need to respond to these latest revelations and immediately start the public inquiry into their handling of the pandemic.’
But the Labour benches were bewildered that Sir Keir did not seize on the revelations at PMQs.
‘I thought he was going to. And then he just didn’t. It would have been an easy win,’ one senior MP told MailOnline.
‘No-one could really understand why.’
‘There is a lot of unrest about him on our benches. He’s got trouble and things aren’t getting better when he misses easy chances.’
Launching a dramatic bid to bring down the PM and the Health Secretary last month, Mr Cummings blamed a toxic mix of complacency and indecision for the needless deaths.
He told MPs that senior ministers and advisers, including himself, had fallen ‘disastrously short’, adding: ‘When the public needed us most, the Government failed. Tens of thousands of people died, who didn’t need to die.’
In an epic seven-hour performance, Mr Cummings launched attacks on Mr Johnson, his fiancée Carrie Symonds and Mr Hancock over their personal conduct during the crisis.
Mr Cummings claimed the Prime Minister was ‘unfit for the job’ and could not lead Britain out of the pandemic.
He said the Health Secretary ‘should have been fired for at least 15 to 20 things, including lying’.
He alleged Mr Hancock had lied to the PM over the disastrous policy of not testing older people for Covid before they were discharged from hospital into care homes.
The former No10 aide outlined a series of failings by him and the ‘smoking ruin’ Department for Health, including lying in January last year that pandemic preparations were brilliant when they were ‘completely hollow’.
Mr Cummings alleged Mr Hancock lied about testing hospital patients for coronavirus before they were sent back into care homes, in a suggestion that thousands died because of his dishonesty.
He also claimed that the Health Secretary lied about people getting the treatment they needed during the first peak last March and April – adding that ‘many people were left to die in horrific circumstances’.
Mr Cummings then accused Mr Hancock of ‘appalling’ behaviour towards chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, saying: ‘He used the whole ‘we’re following the science’ as a way so that he could always say, ‘well if things go wrong, we’ll blame the scientists and it’s not my fault’.’
Downing Street has not denied that Mr Johnson considered sacking the Health Secretary in April last year but insisted the Prime Minister has confidence in him now.
Addressing the barrage of claims about his conduct from Mr Cummings at his own evidence session earlier this month, Mr Hancock denied claims that he ‘lied’ to fellow ministers and the public about the coronavirus response.
He replied bluntly ‘No’ when he was asked by science committee chair Greg Clark whether he had misled Boris Johnson about people being tested before returning from hospitals to care homes.
He said he had ‘no idea’ over why Mr Cummings was targeting him specifically over the problems. But he admitted that he knew the PM’s top aide had wanted him sacked because there was ‘briefing to the newspapers’.
He also swiped that government has been functioning much better since Mr Cummings left.
Mr Cummings told the joint committee last month: ‘One thing I can say completely honestly is that I said repeatedly from February/March that if we don’t fire the Secretary of State and get testing into somebody else’s hands, we’re going to kill people and it’s going to be a catastrophe.’
On the claim that Mr Hancock lied, Mr Cummings said: ‘There are numerous examples. In the summer he said that everybody who needed treatment got the treatment they required.
‘He knew that that was a lie because he had been briefed by the chief scientific adviser and the chief medical officer himself about the first peak. We were told explicitly people did not get the treatment they deserved, many people were left to die in horrific circumstances.’
Mr Hancock had also blamed NHS chief Sir Simon Stevens and Chancellor Rishi Sunak for PPE problems.
Mr Cummings said he asked the cabinet secretary to investigate, who came back and said ‘it is completely untrue, I have lost confidence in the Secretary of State’s honesty in these meetings’.
The former aide said Mr Hancock’s public promise to deliver 100,000 tests a day by the end of April was ‘incredibly stupid’ because it was already an internal goal.
‘In my opinion he should’ve been fired for that thing alone, and that itself meant the whole of April was hugely disrupted by different parts of Whitehall fundamentally trying to operate in different ways completely because Hancock wanted to be able to go on TV and say ‘look at me and my 100k target’.
‘It was criminal, disgraceful behaviour that caused serious harm.’
There have been reports that Mr Cummings has documents showing the PM’s office summoned Mr Hancock to No10 on May 3 last year, for a meeting the following day, to explain misleading him, the PM and then Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill on the testing of patients before discharge into care homes, as well as about further testing of residents and staff.
The DoH said it ‘did not recognise’ the claim and Mr Hancock ‘had many meetings with the PM across a range of issues’.
Mr Hancock has previously said on care home testing: ‘We worked as hard as we could to protect people who live in care homes, and of course those who live in care homes are some of the most vulnerable to this disease because by its nature it attacks and has more of an impact on older people.
‘Now when it comes to the testing of people as they left hospital and went into care homes, we committed to building the testing capacity to allow that to happen.
‘Of course it then takes time to build testing capacity.
‘In fact, one of the critical things we did was set the 100,000 target back then to make sure we built that testing capacity and it was very effective in doing so.
‘And then we were able to introduce the policy of testing everybody before going into care homes, but we could only do that once we had the testing capacity which I had to build, because we didn’t have it in this country from the start.
‘We started with a capacity of less than 2,000 in March last year and got to 100,000 tests a day.
‘And we set all of this out at the time in public documents. It’s all a matter of public record.’
Mr Johnson has said the government faced an ‘incredibly difficult series of decisions, none of which we have taken lightly’ and ‘at every stage we have been governed by a determination to protect life’.