On 11 November, Boris Johnson’s ally, Director of Communications Lee Cain, announced that he would leave his post, just 24 hours after reports suggested that he was in talks to become the prime minister’s chief of staff. Sputnik Radio spoke with Mike Swadling.
“This is a Government in turmoil. It has been this way since the start of the pandemic. It’s not clear they have control of what’s happening. They have a strategy for Brexit, but that seems to be dragging on and on and on”
“fundamentally, if you have a leader, it doesn’t matter what the lieutenants think of you. Know what the general thinks. No one ever thought with Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson – no one thought that the lieutenants were making the rules. They knew there was a general in charge of them”
“you’re chief of staff, and you have to force through a policy, then a professional footballer makes you change it a few days later. Then they do that again, after another few days. Then it feels like you’re following the policy of the Welsh Government or the Scottish Government. Then you say, ‘No’ we won’t have another lockdown, then you have another lockdown, and so on, and so on and so on. You know, you’ll come out of that role with no credibility. Why would you go into it in the first place?”
“There’s nothing you can say about this Prime Minister or this Government that makes you think, ‘Oh, he’s the reason for their being, he is their raison d’etre’. Therefore, until they have a purpose, they’re going to be in constant turmoil”
“Every deadline they’ve given so far has been pushed back. A deadline has to be a deadline. A sensible negotiator would have said, ‘Business needs six months to roll in the new rules, whatever they might be, so let’s set a deadline in the middle of June this year”
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