Governments with big majorities destroy themselves from the inside and Boris Johnson is under growing pressure to shackle or sack liability Dominic Cummings.
The Prime Minister’s arrogant chief aide, a creature of privilege playing the rough outsider, smashes Downing Street hero to zero records.
Labelled a “career psychopath” by David Cameron, complaints he is a posh bully mount rapidly when Cummings is accused of picking on junior special advisers after losing bruising battles with Cabinet Ministers over HS2 and the Budget.
One senior Tory told me Johnson thinks Cummings is “a hoot” and full of “jolly japes”, without appreciating the damage inflicted.
Menacingly informing ministerial advisers “I’ll see half of you next week”, implying the other half are for the chop, was the last straw for a prominent Tory MP. “Tell me how that’s not bullying?” he asked, rhetorically.
“Punching up is one thing but Cummings stopped doing that because he discovered people bigger than him punch back.”
The same MP, a mover and shaker in Parliament, observed Cummings’ rudeness to an ITN reporter, filmed at the end of last month, was the vanity of a man “disappearing up his own backside” with “aggressive hubris”.
Cummings’ establishment background, expensive Durham School then Oxford University education, followed by marriage to an heiress with a Northumberland castle in the family, is shielded by dressing deliberately scruffily for No10.
How Johnson handles the destructive and self-destructing figure will partly define his Premiership.
Labour must be praying a Dr Frankenstein Prime Minister doesn’t fire an Igor little helper sparking more trouble than the entire Shadow Cabinet.
Some Tories hope Cummings will walk – the head of the Brexit campaign tiring of defeats, with this week’s expected Cabinet reshuffle unlikely to carry the fingerprints of a wrecker increasingly reckless over his impotence.
Blame for the self-defeating war with the media is pinned on a Cummings putting himself first, silly personal spats favoured over sensible political strategy.
Breaking up is hard to do in politics too but Johnson has a big decision: it’s him or Cummings.
