The Sunday Times May 29, 2022 7
They failed to collar the
Big dog
One of the MPs involved in the plotting
said: “The really dangerous thing for
Boris is that it’s not co-ordinated. It’s just
people who have had enough.”
YouGov modelling published on Fri-
day suggests that if an election were held
now, the Conservatives would hold just
three of 88 battleground seats, with John-
son’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat
falling to Labour. It also predicts that
Labour will reclaim Wakefield, which the
Tories won in 2019, in the by-election on
June 23. On the same day, party sources
say they are resigned to losing the Tiver-
ton & Honiton seat to the Liberal Demo-
crats, an election caused by the resigna-
tion of Neil Parish who admitted
watching pornography in parliament.
Pollsters say the collapse of Tory sup-
port in the south of England is caused by
Johnson’s unpopularity. James Johnson,
who was No 10 pollster under Theresa
May, said: “The brand damage
caused by the Downing Street par-
ties — and the ensuing cover-up
— has fundamentally changed
views of Boris Johnson, which
will persevere beyond the
story being in the news.
“For two months after the
invasion of Ukraine, John-
son had his MPs
behind him and
the most pop-
ular manon earth, in President Zelensky, praising
him — but the public’s view of him deep
down did not budge.”
The dilemmas facing Tory high com-
mand were spelt out at an away day for
MPs in target seats on Thursday. Isaac
Levido, who led the 2019 election cam-
paign, explained polling that shows vot-
ers are unlikely to change their vote
because of the war in Ukraine, or defence
and foreign policy.
Instead, voters in the north of England
want more focus on the NHS and immi-
gration, but voters everywhere regard
the economy as the top issue.
The attempt to deal with that came to a
head on Tuesday, when Rishi Sunak, the
chancellor, presented his plan to John-
son to impose a windfall tax on the oil
and gas companies and use that money
to help the least well-off.
For several weeks, Sunak had kept his
cards close to his chest. He ordered Trea-
sury officials to gameplan different
options but did not share them with fel-
low ministers. When the cabinet was
held in Stoke-on-Trent, two weeks ago,
the chancellor broke off from drinks with
colleagues and hid in a cleaning cup-
board with his laptop to get a briefing.
The deal was agreed, however, only
after Johnson demanded advice from a
panel of four economists. On Monday, he
summoned the group to seek reassur-
ance that the Treasury’s plan was not
itself inflationary. Gerard Lyons, a former
adviser to Johnson, was joined by Lord
King of Lothbury, the former governor of
the Bank of England, Rupert Harrison,
who was George Osborne’s right-hand
man as chancellor, and Baroness Shafik
of the London School of Economics.
Shafik floated the idea of a wealth tax
but it was not supported.
King was withering about the
Bank’s performance in approving
quantitative easing last year — a
decision approved by Sunak —
but said a handout package
need not be inflationary now
the money supply is shrink-
ing. Harrison suggested any
boost needed to put a sum
equivalent to at least 1 per
cent of GDP into the econ-
omy.
Insiders say the meeting
was highly significant
because it was evidence
that Johnson is keen to
assert his position as “first
lord of the Treasury” and
go around his chancellor.
Lyons called for “timely,
targeted and temporary”
help, but contested the
Treasury orthodoxy that
what was needed was both
tight monetary and tight fis-cal policy. The economists backed signifi-
cant fiscal loosening.
That helped shape a decision,
announced on Thursday, to fund a £
billion handout to families hit by soaring
fuel costs — a boost of about 1.5 per cent
of GDP. Every household will get a £
fuel bill rebate, with more for pension-
ers, the disabled and those on means-
tested benefits.T
he windfall tax decision was seized
on by Labour, which backed the
plan months ago, that it is now mak-
ing the political weather, though
Sunak’s version grants huge tax
relief to companies that invest and raises
far more than Labour planned to.
When Johnson addressed the 1922
Committee of backbench MPs on Thurs-
day, he was quick to stress that the prob-
lems of the parties are behind him and a
new team is running the show. Not all the
MPs are impressed.
The arrival of David Canzini, a political
operative who worked for Sir Lynton
Crosby, has increased talk of an election
next year to keep aides in campaign
mode and on their toes. At the away day,
he sparked laughter when he began his
seminar by extolling the virtues of an
autumn 2023 general election while
standing in front of a poster with a road
on it emblazoned with “2024”.
After his speech, MPs were sent away
in groups to think about what changes
were needed for the Tories to win the
next election. “Many of them concluded
that a start would be to find a new leader
— although, unsurprisingly, no one piped
up in the public session,” a source said.
Instead, suggestions were sticking to a
safer narrative and calling for the party to
become more Conservative. With that in
mind, the government will this week
throw more red meat to the Brexiteers in
“red wall” seats by announcing the
return of imperial weights and measures.
Even if Johnson survives the next few
weeks, the problems laid bare this week
will continue to hamper him. He still
faces an investigation by the Commons
privileges committee into whether he
intentionally misled parliament about
the parties.
Further down the line, the official
inquiry into the pandemic will take evi-
dence from senior aides and officials,
many of whom have been alienated by
the slapdash behaviour in No 10, and jun-
ior civil servants who were fined while
the PM escaped. “The problem he’s going
to have with the privilege committee and
the Covid inquiry is that he’s now got no
friends,” a former official said. “I know a
lot of civil servants who think, ‘We can’t
trust him, he lies’.”
Johnson himself has had his wobbles.
After a bruising interview last month
with Sky’s Beth Rigby about the parties
scandal, insiders say he openly but only
momentarily feared for his future.
“He had quickly done a 180 and was
saying, ‘They’ll have to drag me out of the
building’,” a source said. “He’s confident
he can see off a challenge, if there is one.
And if people come at him in a
year’s time, he is threatening
to call a snap election.”
And if that happens, he will
have more than a bark-
ing dog to worry
about.He was supposed to be the
“gatekeeper of No 10”, the
official responsible for
ensuring Downing Street
continued to function legally
at a time of national
emergency. Instead, Martin
Reynolds appears to have
become a law unto himself,
repeatedly organising and
attending gatherings that
drove a coach and horses
through the Covid rules the
government he served had
brought in.
The Sue Gray report
showed the prime minister’s
principal private secretary
was among the worst
offenders in the Downing
Street parties scandal.
Mentioned 24 times in thedocument, Reynolds
attended many of the 16
gatherings investigated by the
inquiry and had a significant
hand in organising at least
two of them.
They included the “bring
your own booze” event in the
Downing Street garden in
May 2020, as well as a leaving
do for one of his colleagues,
held in the Cabinet Office the
following month, which
involved excessive drinking, a
drunken brawl, and vomiting.
Reynolds is no longer a
relatively unknown civil
servant, but rather “party
Marty”, the man who, in his
own words contained in
messages given to the Gray
report, thought he had “got
away” with it.
It is a remarkable fall from
grace for a senior mandarinwho, in July 2019, was
brought into Downing Street
to provide order for a prime
minister not known for his
organisational skills.
He had already impressed
Boris Johnson during his time
in the Foreign Office, where
he began his career in public
service in 1997, following a
short stint as a lawyer after
graduating from Gonville and
Caius College, Cambridge.
He went on to hold
postings in London, Brussels
and Singapore before moving
to Pretoria in South Africa
where he was British deputy
high commissioner between
July 2011 and 2014. Reynolds
then returned to London,
where he became the
principal private secretary to
three foreign secretaries,
among them Johnson.According to colleagues
who worked with Reynolds,
he and Johnson quickly
became allies. One said that
unlike many civil servants in
King Charles Street, Reynolds
did not think Johnson was
incompetent.
On one trip to America, as
Johnson’s focus was turning
away from foreign policy to
supplanting Theresa May as
prime minister, Reynolds was
wheeled out to speak to
journalists and is said to have
“gushed about what an
amazing man Boris was”.
“He saw his career as
benefiting from being hooked
to this guy,” one source said.
“I think it was self-interest
rather than anything
philosophical.”
When Johnson achieved
his dream of becoming primeminister, Reynolds was called
back from his new post as
ambassador to Libya in
October 2019 to serve again
as his principal private
secretary in No 10.
While Reynolds was
dismissed by some in the
Foreign Office as “buttoned
up” and a “suck-up”, in No 10
he was widely liked.
“Always, Martin wanted to
do well by the prime
minister,” said one former
aide. “His heart was in the
right place. If you take the
first phase of No 10, through
to the general election, it was
one team and everyone was
working well together.”
However, as the pandemic
struck and the building went
into crisis mode, tensions
between Reynolds and
Johnson’s senior politicaladvisers began to build. Lee
Cain, then director of
communications, and
Dominic Cummings, the
prime minister’s chief adviser
at the time, began to view
him with disdain over his
repeated attempts to organise
social gatherings while Covid
restrictions were in place.
Both said they warned
Reynolds against the BYOB
event, only for Reynolds to
organise it anyway.
Gray said she had found
“failures of leadership” in
both No 10 and the Cabinet
Office yet, unlike many
officials named in the inquiry,
Reynolds has not been
ousted. Instead, he has been
shuffled back into the Foreign
Office, and is expected to be
confirmed as the next British
ambassador to Saudi Arabia.ILLUSTRATION: RUSSEL HERNEMAN
AND JULIAN OSBALDSTONEHarry Yorke
Deputy Political Editorfrom parties, said he had been asked by
relatives: “How can you work there?”
Johnson repeated his apologies in the
No 10 post room, as well as to the clean-
ers the following morning. He even went
to say sorry to his protection squad offi-
cers. One of them, brandishing his
weapon, smiled and said: “Don’t worry,
sir, no one was rude to us.”
The report might have been even
more embarrassing. A Downing Street
official said Gray also investigated claims
that two couples were caught having sex
in the building on the night Dominic
Cummings and Lee Cain left No 10 in
November 2020. “She did not find
enough evidence to put it in the report,”
the official said.
Nonetheless, the culture of impunity
over which Johnson presided prompted
others to come forward this weekend
with claims about the treatment of staff.
Two Conservative sources say that a
female employee at Chequers, the prime
minister’s country retreat, left after “per-
sonality clashes” with the Johnsons.
“Staff at Chequers had a lot of problems,”
one said. “The dog was chewing every-
thing and shitting everywhere.” A second
source said: “One of the housekeeping
left because she found it a nightmare.”
Insiders say the laissez-faire approach
comes directly from Johnson. “He abso-
lutely thinks none of the rules apply to
him,” said a source who knows him well.
“He’s been telling everyone for months,
‘I’ve done nothing wrong’. The reason
the apologies sound so fake is that he
doesn’t think he needs to apologise.”
Lord Sedwill, the former cabinet sec-
retary, told allies he left No 10 amid con-
cerns about the “frat house” atmos-
phere. He told friends he knew
nothing about a party in his office
on June 18 until the next day,
when he learnt staff had been
dancing on his desk.
Another example of lax dis-
cipline was that the 8.30am
meeting of senior staff was
moved at one point to 9am
because Johnson kept
being late. “You had peo-
ple coming in from miles
away to be there by
7.30am but he couldn’t
be bothered to walk
down two flights of
stairs to get there on
time,” a source said.
It is also claimed that
Martin Reynolds, the
former principal private
secretary who left after
organising a “bring your
own booze” party, used
to pretend Johnson was in
meetings to cover for him
while he was having an aft-
ernoon nap.
The latest revelations
prompted a trickle of MPs
announcing that they were
submitting letters of no-confi-
dence in the prime minister. Fif-
ty-four need to do so, but the num-
ber who have gone public is in the
mid twenties.
There is growing concern in Tory
high command that there could
be a vote when MPs return
from recess a week
tomorrow. “Under
Theresa May, the num-
ber of letters was
about twice the num-
ber who were publicly
declared,” said one
party official.The Sunday Times May 29, 2022 7
Party Marty —
the gatekeeper
who was a law
unto himself