Former Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings has described Boris Johnson's plan to link Scotland to Northern Ireland as "stupid."
In an interview with the BBC last night, Mr Cummings, who left No 10 in the last year after a power struggle with the prime minister's now wife, said Johnson did not have a proper agenda.
“You know the Prime Minister’s only agenda is buy more trains, buy more buses, have more bikes and build the world’s most stupid tunnel to Ireland – that’s it,” he said.
Mr Cummings said he was so disappointed with Johnson that he was looking to oust him as Prime Minister only weeks after helping him secure an 80-seat majority.
He said Johnson “doesn’t know how to be Prime Minister”.
The Vote Leave mastermind said he assisted the Conservative Party poll victory in December 2019 in order to settle the Brexit debate rather than due to any firm belief in his leadership.
Mr Cummings also laid bare the extent of the fractious relationship between former Vote Leave officials and Mr Johnson’s now-wife, Carrie Johnson only weeks after the landslide win.
“Before even mid-January we were having meetings in Number 10 saying it’s clear that Carrie (Johnson) wants rid of all of us,” said the former de facto chief of staff.
“At that point we were already saying by the summer either we’ll all have gone from here or we’ll be in the process of trying to get rid of him and get someone else in as Prime Minister.”
Mr Cummings claimed that in 2019, ahead of the election, Mrs Johnson was happy to have Vote Leave officials working in Downing Street, but this later changed.
He said: “As soon as the election was won her view was, ‘why should it be Dominic and the Vote Leave team?’ Why shouldn’t it be me that’s pulling the strings?'”
He added about Johnson: “He doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t know how to be Prime Minister and we only got him in there because we had to solve a certain problem not because he was the right person to be running the country.”
Formerly an aide to Michael Gove when he was education secretary, Mr Cummings said his relationship with Mr Johnson was starting to break down “by summer 2020”, with him and former director of communications Lee Cain departing by November.
Explaining the split, Mr Cummings said the Prime Minister was “fed up with the media portrayal of him being a kind of puppet for the Vote Leave team, it was driving him round the bend”.
He also said there were disagreements over the strategy on handling the pandemic, for improving the country and over the-now Mrs Johnson’s increasing influence over how Government was run.
“I had a plan, I was trying to get things done, he didn’t have a plan… he didn’t have an agenda,” he continued.
The pair had a “big argument”, according to Mr Cummings, after Mr Johnson’s then-girlfriend called for people to be fired or promoted “in ways that I thought were unethical and unprofessional”.
A Number 10 spokesman said: “Since the start of the pandemic, the Prime Minister has taken the necessary action to protect lives and livelihoods, guided by the best scientific advice.
“The Government he leads has delivered the fastest vaccination rollout in Europe, saved millions of jobs through the furlough scheme and prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed through three national lockdowns.
“The Government is entirely focused on emerging cautiously from the pandemic and building back better.”
The spokesman added: “Political appointments are entirely made by the Prime Minister.”
During the programme, Mr Cummings made a series of allegations, including:
– The Prime Minister did not take the threat of coronavirus “seriously” in the early stages of the pandemic and that it was a “nonsense” scare story.
– He had to talk Mr Johnson out of going to see the Queen in-person only days before a national lockdown was ordered in March 2020, warning him he could give the monarch Covid-19 and kill her.
– Mr Johnson argued in September as Covid cases were rising that it was mainly older people who were dying of the virus and that he “no longer bought all this NHS overwhelmed stuff”.
– Mr Johnson fell out with his closest aide because he was “fed up with the media portrayal of him being a kind of puppet for the Vote Leave team”.
– He helped broker a deal between Mr Johnson and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove to become prime minister and chancellor respectively after the Brexit result.
