Boris Johnson’s future was thrown into further doubt after Cabinet colleagues Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak failed to back the prime minister.
One cabinet minister called for Johnson to sack Chancellor Sunak, and others accused the him of being “on manoeuvres” for criticising the prime minister for an apparent personal attack on Sir Keir Starmer.
Health Secretary Javid followed his fellow Cabinet minister by saying the Labour leader deserved respect for his former role as director of public prosecutions.
Their provoked a backlash from allies of Mr Johnson as the under-pressure prime minister fights for his survival as Tory leader.
One cabinet minister told The Times : “He who wields the knife never wears the crown. It’s just so blatant. Once the May elections are out the way there will be a reshuffle. Sunak has to go. I don’t see how he [Johnson] can keep someone who is so openly on manoeuvres.”
A cabinet source said that Javid’s intervention was “plain stupid” and played down the suggestion that he had rebuked the prime minister.
John Glen, a Treasury minister and ally of Sunak, criticised Johnson and said that the behaviour of staff in Downing Street during lockdown was indefensible. Writing in his local newspaper, Glen said that the culture in No 10 “fell short of what the country had a right to expect”.
The prime minister is also thought to be considering appointing Dame Emily Lawson, who oversaw the successful rollout of the vaccines programme, to fill a new role as permanent secretary in a new office of the prime minister.
Mr Johnson is also being pressurised by Brexit-supporting MPs to sack senior adviser Henry Newman, who is a close friend of his wife Carrie.
“Unless Henry Newman or Carrie Johnson are taken out of No 10 there isn’t a lot of hope,” they said. “They’re zealots on the green stuff, in the woke stuff.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Bell became the eighth Conservative MP to reveal that they had submitted a letter of no confidence in Johnson’s leadership and Nick Gibb, MP for Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, called for him to resign.
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