Dominic Cummings has left Downing Street this evening for good, a government source has told Sky News.
Last night, Sky News learned the prime minister’s senior adviser would exit Number 10 before the end of the year, and a senior cabinet minister appeared to confirm the departure earlier today.
According to The Daily Telegraph, former chancellor Sajid Javid is front-runner for the role of chief of staff in Mr Johnson’s top team.
Some Conservatives have made no secret of their pleasure at Mr Cummings’s decision to leave.
Backbencher Sir Roger Gale told Sky News said the former Vote Leave boss had “become a distraction” and a “malign influence at the centre of Downing Street for too long”.
“It’s right that he should go,” he said, adding: “The sooner he leaves the better.”
While Theresa Villiers, a former cabinet minister, welcomed the “good opportunity for a fresh start” that will also be marked by Lee Cain quitting as Downing Street’s head of communications.
“Clearly there are concerns about the dismissive attitude sometimes shown by Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings towards people in Government and MPs on the backbenches,” she said.
“This is an opportunity to move on from that and to have a more collaborative approach.”
While another Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood told Sky News: “Let’s move a little bit away from EastEnders and more to the West Wing.”
And Sir Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Commons liaison committee, said it was time to restore “respect, integrity and trust”, which he said have been “lacking in recent months” between Number 10 and Conservative MPs.
“It’s an opportunity to reset how the Government operates and to emphasise some values about what we want to project as a Conservative Party in Government,” he told BBC Radio 4.
Guto Harri, an ex-aide to Mr Johnson, also said it was “goodbye and good riddance” to Mr Cummings, whom he claimed had done “enormous damage”.
“He was player on the field who wasn’t scoring any goals but wouldn’t pass the ball to anyone else,” he said. “These guys light the fuse and leave the scene before the bomb goes off.”
In a blog post in January, Mr Cummings revealed he planned to leave his role by the end of the year, saying he hoped to make himself “largely redundant” by then.
But news of his expected departure comes after a bitter power struggle behind the scenes in Downing Street that ended up with Mr Cain quitting – something that is likely to have hastened his decision.
Mr Cummings had praise heaped on him by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who told Sky News on Friday: “He’ll be missed… but advisers come and go.
“In any government, you require people who are going to shake things up and come up with ideas, and he’s actually been that person.”
Mr Cummings – once reportedly described by former prime minister David Cameron as a “career psychopath” – is a former Conservative Party director of strategy and ex-aide to senior cabinet minister Michael Gove.
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