Dominic Cummings accuses Carrie Johnson of having ‘bog-standard’ Sajid Javid made Health Secretary
‘Carrie appoints Saj’: Dominic Cummings claims PM’s wife landed ex-boss Javid with new Health Secretary job in tweet blasting ‘bog-standard’ ex-chancellor who will be ‘awful’ for NHS
- PM’s former top aide said Mr Javid would be ‘awful’ new Health Secretary
- Accusing PM’s wife of having the ‘bog standard’ Sajid Javid appointed
- Matt Hancock quit last night after his affair with an aide was revealed
Mr Cummings accused the PM’s wife of having the ‘bog standard’ Sajid Javid appointed as Matt Hancock’s replacement.
Dominic Cummings has reignited his feud with Carrie Johnson, accusing the Prime Minister’s wife of having the ‘bog standard’ Sajid Javid appointed as Matt Hancock’s replacement.
In a stinging Twitter broadside the PM’s former top aide said Mr Javid – whose resignation as chancellor he engineered last year, would be ‘awful’ for the NHS as the new Health Secretary.
Mr Cummings claimed he tricked Mr Johnson into firing Mr Javid, a former leadership challenger to Mr Johnson, from No10 in February last year, shortly before the pandemic struck.
Mr Javid resigned after losing a power struggle with Mr Cummings, who demanded that he sack all his aides and replace them with No10 loyalists, and was replaced by Rishi Sunak.
After the Bromsgrove Mp was appointed last night, following Hancock’s resignation, Mr Cummings tweeted: ‘So Carrie appoints Saj! NB If I hadn’t tricked PM into firing Saj, we’d have had a HMT (Treasury) with useless SoS/spads, no furlough scheme, total chaos instead of JOINT 10/11 team which was a big success.
‘Saj = bog standard = chasing headlines + failing = awful for NHS. Need #RegimeChange.’
Mr Javid has said he was ‘honoured’ to be asked to be Health Secretary following the resignation of Matt Hancock amid intense pressure for breaching social-distancing rules by kissing an aide.
Former chancellor and home secretary Mr Javid was appointed to the prominent role just 90 minutes after Downing Street announced Mr Hancock had resigned on Saturday evening.
Mrs Johnson was once a special adviser to Mr Javid during his tenure as communities secretary.
In a stinging Twitter broadside the PM’s former top aide said Mr Javid – whose resignation as chancellor he engineered last year, would be ‘awful’ for the NHS as the new Health Secretary.
Mr Javid resigned after losing a power struggle with Mr Cummings, who demanded that he sack all his aides and replace them with No10 loyalists, and was replaced by Rishi Sunak.
Sajid Javid’s appointment as Health Secretary sees him return to a Cabinet he abruptly left in shock fashion some 16 months ago.
He was just six months into his role as chancellor, and less than a month away from delivering his first Budget, when he quit after being told he must sack all his advisers if he wanted to keep his job.
His departure in February last year came after a bruising Whitehall power struggle with Boris Johnson’s then chief adviser Mr Cummings.
But in a reversal of fortunes it is Mr Javid who returns to Boris Johnson’s top team, while Mr Cummings hurls criticism from outside Government.
Mr Javid’s previous showdown with Boris Johnson reached a climax when he refused to dismiss his team of aides and replace them with a joint No 10/No 11 unit.
In a Commons statement, Mr Javid said chancellors had to be able to ‘speak truth to power’ and ‘the arrangement proposed would significantly inhibit that, and it would not have been in the national interest’.
He also took a swipe at Mr Cummings, who has been blasting the Government’s pandemic performance since leaving No 10, saying: ‘I don’t intend to dwell further on all the details and the personalities… the ”comings” and goings if you will.’
Tension between No 10 and No 11 simmered after Mr Javid’s adviser, Sonia Khan, was escorted out of Downing Street by police after being sacked by Mr Cummings in August 2019.
Appointed in July 2019 to Mr Johnson’s first Cabinet, Mr Javid’s planned Budget in November that year was cancelled as the Prime Minister sought a snap election.
Mr Javid, the first British Asian to hold one of the great offices of state, did not last long enough in the role to be able to deliver the parliamentary set-piece scheduled for the following March.
He was the shortest-serving chancellor since Iain Macleod, who died shortly after taking office in 1970, according to the Institute for Government.
Mr Javid returns to the Cabinet to help lead the pandemic response at a crucial time, as efforts focus on suppressing a rise in coronavirus cases ahead of the planned easing of restrictions next month.
Before his appointment this month, Mr Javid said he would be introducing a private member’s Bill to raise the minimum age for marriage to 18, to protect vulnerable teenagers from religious and cultural pressures to marry too young.
Mr Hancock bowed to growing pressure on Saturday evening, less than 48 hours after pictures emerged of him in a passionate embrace with Gina Coladangelo, an aide at the Department of Health, as he told Boris Johnson in his letter of resignation that the Government ‘owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down’.
Gina Coladangelo (pictured with the Health Secretary in September 2019), initially taken on by Mr Hancock as an unpaid adviser on a six-month contract in early 2020, is also leaving her position on the board of the Department of Health
It has come to light that the Health Secretary told his wife, Martha (pictured for the first time since his resignation announcement), that he would be leaving her on Thursday night – immediately after discovering that his affair with Gina Coladangelo was about to be laid bare
Matt Hancock wrote a letter of resignation (pictured above) to Boris Johnson where he said the Government ‘owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down
Now it has come to light that the former Health Secretary told his wife, Martha, he would be leaving her on Thursday night – immediately after discovering that his affair with Gina Coladangelo was about to be laid bare.
Images and video showed Mr Hancock in an embrace with aide Ms Coladangelo last month, and the Health Secretary was facing increasing pressure to quit over the breaking of social-distancing rules.
Friends said on Saturday night the pair had been seeing each other for around six weeks, but were a ‘love match’.
In a video announcing his resignation Mr Hancock said: ‘The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.
‘I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I also need (to) be with my children at this time.’
He will be replaced by former chancellor and home secretary Sajid Javid, it has been announced.
A statement from 10 Downing Street said: ‘The Queen has been pleased to approve the appointment of the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.’
The Prime Minister said he was ‘sorry’ to receive Mr Hancock’s resignation as Health Secretary.
He said Mr Hancock ‘should leave office very proud of what you have achieved – not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before Covid-19 struck us’.
Boris Johnson added: ‘I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.’
Ms Coladangelo, initially taken on by Mr Hancock as an unpaid adviser on a six-month contract in early 2020, is reported to also be leaving her DHSC job, but the department had not confirmed this on Saturday night.
Mr Johnson had refused to sack Mr Hancock, with his spokesman saying the PM considered the matter closed after receiving the West Suffolk MP’s apology on Friday.
But by the next day Conservative MPs began to break ranks to call for Mr Hancock to go.
