Downing Street itself looks to be descending into chaos. Paul Goodman, who runs Conservative Home, has taken to writing articles about it - describing the recent turmoil as like "an unstable Middle Eastern autocracy – with jihadis, family militias, and outside actors exchanging fire." Katy Balls at the Spectator has another piece talking about the "turbulence" in No 10. Let's be honest, these are people with privileged inside knowledge and every reason to play it down, but they don't.
There clearly is something in it. Oliver Lewis, a Vote Leave mate of Cummings, has resigned two weeks after being appointed to run the Whitehall unit trying to prevent Scotland leaving the United Kingdom. He is supposed to have been miffed at the appointment of Henry Newman as Johnson's senior adviser but there is talk of Carrier Symonds being influential, as she also was apparently in the firing of Cummings and Lee Cain.
The Times are also reporting on it and say that Lord Frost only got the EU relations job after threatening to resign himself:
“Frost made clear he was prepared to walk away and he wasn’t bluffing,” one Whitehall source said. “He got everything he asked for and more.”
The Time article is headed: Carrie Symonds allies get key roles in PM’s ‘court of King Henry’ - The atmosphere in No 10 is becoming increasingly febrile as competing groups vie for Boris Johnson’s attention and patronage
None of this should come as a surprise. Johnson's chaotic persona is not an act. He is not known for being decisive and he is a weak man who tries to avoid upsetting people. This is a recipe for being manipulated by those around him. No 10 is apparently not a happy place.
At the centre of it is Carrie Symonds it seems. She is hardly apolitical, having worked at Conservative HQ as a press officer and for Sajid Javid as a media special adviser and also for John Whittingdale. Unlike previous partners of PMs she is actively involved in politics and is probably a liability.
The Bow Group, which describe itself as the oldest right wing think tank and includes people like Bill Cash and Ann Widdicombe is calling for an inquiry into her role in deciding important Downing Street appointments.
It all makes the PMs office look a terribly unhappy place. It is full of journalists, press officers and media types so it doesn't surprise me. Nobody is bothered about the country, half of them are concerned about settling personal battles and the rest in making it look as if they are interested in ordinary people when they are not. Brexit being the obvious example.
When this sort of thing happened under Tony Blair it didn't end well. Something will have to give.
I also note a piece by Nick Cohen in the Observer about Lord Frost and his meteoric rise through Whitehall. He was not, by all accounts, particularly bright and seems to have held a grudge about being denied what he believed to be his rightful position. He was not a keen Brexiteer and appears to have hitched his wagon (like many others) to Johnson's in the hope of getting somewhere.
"Frost moved from Oxford to the Foreign Office, where he became a figure familiar in many workplaces: the frustrated middle manager, whose resentment at an indifferent world that overlooks him gnaws at his pride. Do not underestimate the anger of the men no one remembers."
Frost's mates have been briefing that in his new role as chief of EU relations he would take an “assertive role” over the border in the Irish Sea. Cohen asks if Frost can't see how he will fail again. "Does he not realise that Brexit left the UK isolated and deluded, and choking in a level of paperwork that can only be described as Kafkaesque?"
None of this bodes well for the next few months.
Elsewhere, Michael Gove has written to 'many of his constituents' appealing to them to ask for a postal vote. But he asks for them to return the vote either directly to the returning office or use a reply paid envelope enclosed and send it to his Conservative constituency association. This sounds fishy to me. I think if you apply for a postal vote you get two envelopes anyway. One is for your ballot paper, the other is a reply paid envelope to go back to the local returning officer.
A letter from @michaelgove was delivered to many of his constituents today. It encourages them to fill out a Postal Vote registration form - and to return that form to the local Tory office, rather than to the official Council Election officer. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/QVDjk15Oym
— Surrey Heath LibDems (@SurreyHeathLDs) February 20, 2021
I think you can download and print your own (I always vote in person) but I assume you also get a reply paid label. However, some may choose to use the Tory envelope. Why Gove wants to do this is a mystery. I don't think they can see which way you voted but it goes totally against the electoral commission website advice which says:
Once you receive your postal voting pack, make sure to keep it somewhere safe. Don't let anyone else handle it, and avoid leaving it where someone else could pick it up.
And
Avoid asking a candidate or party worker to post it for you
We are looking more and more like a banana republic.
