I should have sacked 'weird' Cummings, says Johnson
The Independent|October 04, 2024
Former aide compared to homicidal robot’ in ex-PM’s book
DAVID MADDOX
I should have sacked 'weird' Cummings, says Johnson

Boris Johnson has branded his former chief of staff Dominic Cummings as “weird” and compared him to a “homicidal robot” as he blamed him for his downfall as prime minister.

In his new autobiography Unleashed, Mr Johnson charted the collapse of his relationship with Mr Cummings from the high point of them working to win the EU referendum in 2016. But the ex-prime minister has alleged that the aftermath of Mr Cummings’s lockdown-breaking trip to Barnard Castle in 2020 led to the former chief of staff using Partygate as a form of revenge.

In his new book, Mr Johnson recounts hearing Mr Cummings in an interview for the BBC admitting that he had been conspiring to bring him down as prime minister from early January 2020, just weeks after the massive election victory. Mr Johnson noted: “I mean WTF?”

“You might have thought that the honourable thing to do would have been to resign, if that was how he really felt,” he added.

He suggested that Mr Cummings may have been like the Shakespearean character Iago, pursuing “the motive-hunting of the motiveless malignant”. Mr Johnson also targeted his former director of communications Lee Cain.

This story is from the October 04, 2024 edition of The Independent.

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This story is from the October 04, 2024 edition of The Independent.

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