Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why is No. 10 turning on Dominic Cummings over ‘leaks’?

Dominic Cummings (Photo: Getty)

After yet another week of government leaks of private correspondence sent by the Prime Minister, Downing Street has hit back. But it’s not to deny the contents of any of the messages – which range from WhatsApps with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince over football to discussions with UK entrepreneur James Dyson about ventilators – it’s to blame Dominic Cummings for the messages being made public in the first place. Late last night multiple papers (though notably not the Boris-sceptic Daily Mail) published briefings by a Downing Street source that Johnson’s former senior aide was likely behind the stories.

A government figure tells the Telegraph that ‘if you join the dots it looks like it’s coming from Dom’ – and suggests that Cummings’s motivation is likely his bitterness that since he left Downing Street ‘rather than falling apart, the government has been making great progress’. While they’re at it, Downing Street ‘sources’ have also returned to the well-trodden topic of who leaked the news of the second lockdown to the press, suggesting that the ‘chatty rat’ was in fact Cummings. It’s worth pointing out that multiple figures – from ministers to current No. 10 aides – have also had the finger of blame pointed at them about this leak. Meanwhile, Cummings is yet to comment – but his allies say he didn’t even have access to many of the leaks in question.

So, why is No. 10 responding now and what’s the point of the allegations? Johnson’s private messages have been weaponised by Labour this week, however, many Tory MPs felt that the Dyson story was failing to land with the public on the grounds that a Prime Minister trying to procure ventilators at a time of crisis by any means possible was not such a bad top line.

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