The Telegraph‘s political editor Ben Riley-Smith has had excerpts of his new book The Right To Rule excerpted over the past week. The book will appear on September 28, 2023.

What a juicy read they have been.

Yesterday, I featured what he found out about Liz Truss’s premiership.

More titbits follow about Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie and Rishi Sunak.

Carrie Johnson

While her husband Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, coverage of his fiancée-turned-wife Carrie Symonds Johnson was frequent. In fact, many British political junkies commenting online said that she was a liability and ruining Boris’s premiership.

On Saturday, September 16, we found out more in ‘Imaginary meetings and traffic jams: the Downing Street tactics to get Carrie out of the way’.

Not surprisingly, Carrie’s team deny any of the following ever happened (emphases mine):

There was one constant during the Johnson tenure: Carrie Symonds, or Carrie Johnson as she became halfway through their time in Downing Street. Carrie would be dragged into the press spotlight more than her predecessors, Philip May and Samantha Cameron. She was already a creature of Westminster, having been a special adviser to Sajid Javid and John Whittingdale, which partly explains why. Given this background, questions about her influence were inevitable.

Tensions emerged between the old guard of Johnson advisers and Carrie during the summer 2019 Tory leadership campaign, and spilled over into Downing Street. Self-interest on the part of the former camp, suspicious of the appearance of a new point of influence, may have been a driver. Whatever the cause, the rift was real.

Two claims were made by multiple figures engaged in the leadership campaign. One was put forward by four different people: that Carrie would sometimes send text messages from Boris’s phone. One source said that a particular campaign figure was dubbed the “text whisperer” for their apparent ability to tell whether the author was Johnson or Carrie. “It was just the tone. Boris is quite chatty in his messages, Carrie was blunt,” they added. Examples given included demands for comments to be issued rebutting press stories.

A second source was also convinced Carrie messaged from Johnson’s phone. A third campaign figure said: “You could always tell, because she used block capitals. He didn’t use block capitals. She used words that he didn’t use. You know, Boris has a very particular use of language and it’s very easy to see if he has written or somebody else has written it.” The fourth person said the habit was seen in Downing Street: “You could tell when she was texting on his phone. His normal messages are like anyone’s mum or dad texting… completely sporadic punctuation and the minimal amount of texting required.”

Ultimately the sources could not, of course, prove who authored the messages …

The second set of claims concerns how those running the campaign handled Carrie on the trail. They describe steps taken to keep her away from Boris after she was deemed a distraction. One campaign source explained: “It was finding things for her to do. We’d say, ‘Oh, well, Carrie, we’ve got this event with some donors. Can you pop off to that?’ And while she was, in theory, getting ready for that, we’d whiz Boris out to some remote part of the country, to get him meeting members… and get her out of his hair. And then, about said event [to Carrie]: ‘Oh, they’ve just cancelled.’”

Another campaign source said: “Once they put her in a taxi to go to an event and there were roadworks in one part of London, so they got the driver to go through the roadworks purpose[ly] so she’d be late.”

Boris allegedly made reference to Carrie as well:

… at times the Prime Minister did little to dispel the idea of his partner’s influence. On occasion he would “grimace” and “literally point” upwards to the flat he lived in with Carrie, indicating the topic of discussion would not wash.

Cabinet appointments allegedly involved her as well, for good or bad:

Carrie urged Johnson not to make Brandon Lewis Northern Ireland Secretary in the February 2020 reshuffle. Lewis had headed up CCHQ [Conservative Party HQ] when Carrie had her expenses looked into. Nothing was made public about the inquiries and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing. Lewis would get the job after senior advisers pushed back.

Another Number 10 figure said the return of Carrie’s old boss John Whittingdale to the frontbench was thanks to her …

However, she is a faithful wife:

Whatever else can be said, ultimately Carrie, unlike many figures in Johnson’s first Number 10 inner circle, remained by his side throughout his premiership and was with him the night he decided to finally resign.

Boris’s final frustration with Rishi

On July 5, 2022, Boris was furious with Rishi and, in private conversation, let the f-word fly.

Boris fans often say that Rishi betrayed him and say he cannot be trusted. The following explains why.

‘”It was a knife in the front”‘ has more about Boris’s final hours as Conservative Party leader. He vacated No. 10 once Queen Elizabeth II made Liz Truss Prime Minister two months later:

The Prime Minister had just been told that the second most important figure in his government had quit. Rishi Sunak was out – and without giving his boss any warning. No meeting was requested by the Chancellor to explain his reasons, as had been the case with Sajid Javid, the departing Health Secretary, earlier that day, 5 July 2022. There was no conversation over the phone; not even a text. It fell to the Number 10 political secretary to tell his boss a resignation letter was on the way. Johnson was raging.

Sunak had been a lowly local government minister when Boris reached the top as Conservative Party leader back in 2019. It was Johnson who had brought him into the Cabinet, first as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and then, aged just 39, as Chancellor. Now, three years on, he was going, swiping at Johnson’s ethics and economics as he went. ‘It was basically a knife in the front,’ said a Boris ally who was by his side that day.

The power dynamics between the pair had been shifting Number 11’s way for months. During the Covid pandemic, they had worked well together. It was over what came next – how to control spending and meet Tory demands for tax cuts – that tensions emerged. By the start of 2022, with the Prime Minister facing backbench revolt over the Partygate saga and Sunak topping potential-successor lists, things were deteriorating. Then came the blindsiding resignation.

The act would cast a long shadow over the Conservative Party. ‘Boris betrayer’ would be the tag stapled on to Sunak, with consequences in the leadership race that would follow. A year on, Johnson allies would still be pointing the finger of blame his way when explaining Boris’s ‘ouster’.

… So, just how much blame can be laid at Sunak’s door for Johnson’s descent? And was more happening behind the scenes than the public knew?

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were not always rivals. Quite the reverse. For much of his premiership Johnson saw their relationship as one of ‘mentor’ and ‘mentee’, according to one Boris aide. Another said he grew to view Sunak as his natural successor …

During the countless internal debates about pandemic policy that followed, the pair were often of similar mind. But as the crisis eased with the mass rollout of vaccines in early to mid-2021, the focus turned to how to manage the post-pandemic economy. Johnson, with his populist instinct, was a big spender, having vowed to end austerity and seeing pound signs as the easy way out of many political binds. Sunak had a firmer ideological commitment to traditional low-spend, low-debt and ideally low-tax Tory economics, seeing fiscal prudence as the way forward.

… There would be an early, telling clash over social-care policy – Boris demanding the extra spending, Sunak saying a National Insurance rise would have to pay for it. The move split Tories and soured Number 10-Number 11 relations.

When did Sunak start thinking about the Tory leadership? And when did he start acting on that thought? Perhaps it is an unfair question …

… during Johnson’s eventual descent, there are an array of facts – some of which can be made public here for the first time – that show actions to prepare Sunak for Number 10 taking place behind the scenes earlier than is commonly acknowledged. One such indicator came in late autumn 2021, when a special adviser to then Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis overheard the Chancellor’s inner team in a Westminster pub discussing the shape of a Sunak premiership. ‘They were literally plotting out who they thought should be in various positions in the Cabinet,’ said a source familiar with what was heard.

Idle chitchat, perhaps. Another came later that year, on 23 December, with the registration of a domain name: readyforrishi.com. It was the slogan that the Sunak campaign would adopt come the Tory leadership race the following July. By that point the site was redirecting visitors to the official campaign website, ready4rishi.com …

It was around the time of the registration that the PM let slip his worries about Sunak as a potential leadership rival. ‘Just promise me one thing,’ he pleaded with Lynton Crosby, the Australian election guru and Johnson’s most trusted political sage, during one of their many calls. ‘You won’t help Rishi.’ ‘Why would I help him?’ replied Crosby. ‘Oh well, you know…’ the Prime Minister tailed off. 

His suspicions of a Downing Street neighbour considering what next were not without foundation. Long before Johnson fell, some Cabinet ministers felt they were being sounded out by Sunak with an eye to potential support. Lewis was invited to breakfast with Sunak in late 2021 and again in early 2022. During one of their conversations Sunak remarked that Lewis would make a good home secretary, according to one well-placed source. Later, around June, then Home Secretary Priti Patel was urged by Sunak allies to meet him, another approach interpreted as a sounding-out. Both were ministers loyal to Johnson, meaning recollections may have been coloured by what followed, but the claims circulate nonetheless.

Some approaches were more explicit. In February 2022, after the publication of Sue Gray’s initial findings about Partygate, Sunak talked to ministers and parliamentary private secretaries in the Treasury, asking outright for their backing. ‘Boris Johnson isn’t going to carry on forever. There will be a contest at some point. Will you support me if I decide to run?’ he said, or words to that effect, according to one who was approached.

All but two of the MPs connected to the department would end up endorsing Sunak …

Dominic Cummings

Boris was also worried that his former top adviser Dominic Cummings, who had left the employ of No. 10 in late 2020, was in contact with Rishi or someone close to him:

Boris Johnson was prone to believing in political conspiracies. Many friends and former advisers attest as much. One wild and unsubstantiated rumour he voiced was that Sunak’s father-in-law, Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy, had Dominic Cummings on a retainer. There is no suggestion it was accurate. Yet ‘Boris believed it to be true’, said the senior Johnson Cabinet minister who relayed the story …

No doubt by 2022 Cummings wanted his former boss gone. He would release damning claims about Johnson in Substack blog posts after leaving Westminster. The idea that something similar was happening in private is not fanciful. But seeing a Cummings puppet master behind every negative story was incorrect …

Dougie Smith

Few armchair pundits at home know who Dougie Smith is. It is often the case that some of the most powerful figures remain firmly in the shadows.

Dougie Smith is one of them:

There are, however, three stories grounded in fact that are worth retelling when it comes to the question of Sunak, his allies and their role in Johnson’s fall. One involved a man known to almost nobody outside Westminster: Dougie Smith. The Scot had been a constant feature behind the scenes in the long Tory run in government since 2010, variously described in press cuttings as a political fixer and a modern-day Machiavelli. Boris grew to rely on Smith to sort out political problems, according to Number 10 insiders. But Smith was also close to Sunak. He had helped Sunak get selected as the Tory candidate for Richmond (Yorks) for the 2015 election. A Sunak ally said Smith had been ‘continually supportive’ and was ‘definitely a friend’. Which makes what followed so intriguing.

In February 2022, Johnson got a call from Smith. Six Johnson inner-circle figures have described it to me, most saying it happened on the day Smith’s wife, Munira Mirza, quit as head of Boris’s policy unit. Smith warned Johnson he was at risk of being forced from office, the sources said. The phrase attributed to Smith is variously quoted as ‘they’re going to get you’ or ‘we’re going to get you’.

Given that only Johnson and Smith are likely to have been on the call, and that the remarks are in wider circulation because Boris described it to others, it is difficult to prove categorically what was said. Was the tone one of warning or threat? What is certainly true is that Johnson has since concluded it was the latter – that is, part of a plot against him – and told others as much.

Smith would find himself sidelined under Liz Truss, Johnson’s successor. But when Sunak took over, he was back in the fold, once again with a Number 10 pass and freedom to roam Downing Street.

Rupert Murdoch

In August 2022, The Times came out firmly for Rishi Sunak in the Conservative Party leadership campaign. The paper is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. The story is that Murdoch told Rishi not to resign in April 2022:

The second incident came on 12 April 2022, the day both Johnson and Sunak were fined for breaking Covid laws over the PM’s birthday gathering in the Cabinet Room. Johnson was at Chequers when the news broke. Allies rejected the idea of getting him driven back to Number 10 because there was a broadcast helicopter hovering overhead – they did not want an ‘OJ’ moment, with Boris’s car tracked as it sped along – so joined him there instead.

That afternoon things got worse. Sunak was on the brink of resigning. Those at Chequers recalled a fraught Johnson, one saying it was ‘very clear’ that Rishi might walk. A Sunak insider confirmed this was correct, explaining: ‘He believes a lot in upholding rules.’ Such a development would have been disastrous for Johnson – if the Chancellor was quitting over the fine, why wasn’t the Prime Minister? …

In the end, Sunak made the eye-catching move of drafting a full resignation statement. The words were shared with Lord Hague, the former Tory leader and a Times columnist, who had preceded Sunak as MP for Richmond … whispers of the dramatic move were spreading among senior figures at Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper …

The story is still passed on by Johnson’s allies. However, a Sunak source said Rishi did not get a direct call or text from Murdoch.

A spokesperson for News UK, Murdoch’s British publishing company, declined to comment, while a Johnson spokesperson said he did not recognise the account.

Who is to blame: Boris or Rishi?

Ben Riley-Smith says that Boris must take the blame for his own downfall, which Sunak triggered:

The stories underscore how Sunak and his allies played a part in Johnson’s downfall, no doubt hastening the end. But that should not be mistaken for swallowing the narrative – pushed by Team Boris – that his premiership only ended because of Sunak. Circumstance played a part, a once-in-a-century pandemic rocking the government and putting huge strains on the public purse. So too did Partygate, the defining scandal of his tenure, which drained support from voters and MPs. But also, crucially, there were Johnson’s own whims and weaknesses.

What became apparent from speaking to those who worked with him was that Johnson’s lack of a deep-rooted ideology, along with an instinct to delay decisions when faced with conflict and a susceptibility to switch positions on issues not key to his political survival, slowed Whitehall. His lack of interest in the boring bits of the job – from engaging with the mechanics of Parliament to driving through changes – was problematic too.

When it came to the serious work of governing there were notable differences from his predecessors. One concerned the ministerial red box. Each evening, the Prime Minister, in common with other government ministers, is handed a box full of papers relating to pressing decisions that need sign-off … Johnson was less regimented, according to multiple aides. Less systematic would be a kind way of putting it; too often indifferent a harsher one.

Said one adviser, ‘Some days he just didn’t bother… Often we submitted papers again and again.’

Delays meant that at times decisions had to be forced …

The way Johnson approached meetings could also undercut the push for speedy decisions. Here a consistent picture emerges from the accounts of many Cabinet ministers. Civil servants would produce an itemised discussion plan, only for Johnson to roam as he pleased. ‘He hates somebody steering a meeting,’ said one minister. ‘He wanted to have a wider discussion but that means he can go off on a tangent and you have to fight incredibly hard to keep him on track.’ Another said ‘you’d be lucky’ if 25 per cent of the time in a meeting was spent on the issue at hand. Friendly ministers framed this as the PM following his nose. Others called it a lack of necessary focus.

His limited interest in Parliament, while not uncommon for prime ministers, could be an issue too. He had a massive majority in the Commons, but not in the House of Lords. ‘Can’t you just bosh this on?’ an exasperated Johnson would ask Lords Leader Baroness Evans as legislation stalled there. ‘That’s not how it works,’ she would reply …

It was often said Johnson is not a ‘details’ person. That is too simplistic, according to those interviewed. When he needed to, on an issue of pressing importance or personal political risk, he dove into details. On the intricacies of the Brexit deal during talks, or Russian incursions in Ukraine, he would consume information. He could surprise ministers by drilling into unexpected details. ‘Nobody can go into a room and assume you can bluff with Boris,’ said Michael Gove.

At times, though, other ministers left meetings frustrated by his lack of focus …

In the deadline-driven world of journalism he had a reputation for filing just under the wire. It was the same in government, as one Number 10 adviser explained: ‘One of Boris’s techniques is where the system leans towards taking decisions early, he will try to leave it as long as possible.’

Political calculation was a factor. A lack of ingrained policy convictions may have complicated things too. Layered on top is an aversion to conflict, another feature of his tenure mentioned by many insiders. ‘To get through a difficult moment he’ll say whatever you want to hear,’ said one friend, ‘then five minutes later he’ll say whatever somebody else wants to hear’ …

During the 2019 leadership contest, Johnson’s aides had detected concern among Tory MPs about his lack of specificity on issues beyond Brexit, and set him a task: to write down what he believed. That the exercise was even needed said something of his chameleon ideology. He needed a vision. A form of big-tent, big-spending Conservatism would emerge, but shuddered under the weight of its own contradictions. Critics still question whether, beyond delivering Brexit, a reforming mission to match his majority ever existed. One of the most senior mandarins who served him addressed the point: ‘He didn’t really have a programme. I think that was, in a sense, almost concealed by Covid…’

… One former Conservative Party leader, among just a few politicians to have seen the pressures of that job from the inside, said historians would ‘struggle’ to comprehend Johnson’s fall from the biggest Tory Commons majority in 32 years to his resignation as PM.

But to put his downfall down solely to an ‘ouster’, or rebels who played a part during the slide, would be remiss. For that narrative ignores the critical wider reality. The reason Johnson lost his premiership was not Sunak; it was not Sunak who had allowed a culture of Covid law-breaking to develop in Downing Street, with some 126 fines being issued to 83 people over at least eight events. It was not Sunak who rolled out blanket public denials that would be proved palpably false. Yet it was Sunak, with Javid, who triggered the end.

The real problem – and root of Johnson’s demise – was nothing to do with Sunak …

Boris’s final night: the reshuffle board

On July 5, 2022, after Sajid Javid resigned as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (he was Matt Hancock’s succcessor) and after Rishi’s resignation as Chancellor, Boris Johnson was between a rock and a hard place.

He needed Cabinet replacements at a time when more resignations followed in quick succession.

On September 16, Ben Riley-Smith told us what happened on the night of July 6, 2022 — complete with photos — in ‘”Deck chairs on the Titanic”: The reshuffle board on the night Boris was toppled’:

Moving between his private office and the Cabinet Room on Downing Street’s ground floor, Johnson met with Cabinet ministers who were urging him to accept it was all over.

But above, on the first floor, a group of ultra-loyal advisers and allies had gathered in Margaret Thatcher’s old study, attempting to keep his government afloat.

Among those present were then Tory MP Nigel Adams, advisers Ross Kempsell and Charlotte Owens, the former Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis – a longtime Johnson confidant – and Chris Heaton-Harris, the Chief Whip.

Their task: to somehow plug the gaps that were appearing right across the front bench. How to replace the quitters in government departments? And who should get the promotions?

The scene was chaotic, according to multiple sources who spent some time in the room that evening …

Cabinet members were shocked by some of the people who appeared at points on the reshuffle board – the whiteboard wheeled out whenever there is a reshuffle – aware of scandals lurking from the past. One was so unsuitable it was ‘just mental’.

At points ministers still pinned up had actually already resigned. ‘Deck chairs and Titanic,’ summed up a Tory veteran who saw the board …

The reshuffle board has never before been seen in public. This exclusive photograph appears in The Right To Rule, my new book exploring how the Tories have managed to stay in power since 2010. The image offers a glimpse into how prime ministers reshuffle their Cabinets and provides clues to the chaos of that evening. 

Johnson would eventually succumb to political reality, announcing his own resignation the following day, Thursday 7 July 2022.

What Rishi’s really like

On Monday, September 18, I read Riley-Smith’s inside look at the Prime Minister, ‘Geeky tech bro and trash TV devotee: What Rishi Sunak is like behind closed doors’ and was shocked by some of the girly things he enjoys:

Sunak is a fan of ‘trash TV’, according to those who know him well. Bridgerton and Emily in Paris are two favoured Netflix boxsets. Heart is his radio station of choice, packed with cheesy classics from the first decade of the new millennium. One aide recalled how, once, during a late-night ride back in a ministerial car, Sunak belted out Britney Spears’s ‘Baby One More Time’. ‘He was singing along. He knew all the words,’ the source said.

Sunak can rap the opening to Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ice Ice Baby’, as he once proved in an interview. His love of Jilly Cooper bonkbusters also appears genuine, the prime minister eagerly telling journalists on one foreign trip that the Rutshire Chronicles series, starting with the novel Riders, was his favourite. ‘He just wants to do something that is just total escapism,’ said a Downing Street adviser. Anything too close to his profession is vetoed. He waved away the recommendation to start watching the political series The Diplomat for that reason.

Sunak’s pastime pursuits can have the ring of teenage banality. The Star Wars and James Bond franchises are among his top films (while Jaws is one of Boris’s favourites). The Beatles is his favourite band. His penchant for Nando’s, the chicken restaurant chain, was such that he kept his own set of their branded sauce bottles in the Treasury. ‘He was a medium-hot guy,’ said an aide. Chicken club sandwiches were also a favoured lunch order.

Despite being slim-built and only 5ft 6in tall, he has a notably sweet tooth. ‘He just always has some sort of chocolate bar on the go,’ said a Treasury insider. Sunak does not drink alcohol: he was made to down vodka shots on his stag do and hated the taste.

His love of Coca-Cola has been broadcast far and wide, not least thanks to a giggling clip featuring two school pupils that went viral in which he confessed to being a ‘total Coke addict’. A full-sugar version of the pop drink was a treat for Sunak on Saturday nights when running the UK economy. Following a meeting in California with the ‘leader of the free world’, President Joe Biden, the plane home was stocked with bottles of Mexican Coke …

That is because Coke in Mexico is still made with cane sugar syrup rather than corn syrup.

He likes loose-fitting clothing when not in front of the cameras: hoodie tops, tracksuit bottoms and slip-on footwear.

For exercise, he enjoys his Peloton bike. He also enjoys running and cricket:

He clocked in a 10km at 47 minutes and 41 seconds in May 2023 – a time none of his prime ministerial predecessors is likely to have matched …

Sunak is also a cricket fan. At the Treasury he had a signed England team bat in his office that he would swing about, practising forward defensive shots and cover drives while mulling things over with officials. In the evenings, he would sometimes head to nets at the Oval with his cousin.

During the working day, when an England test was on, he would keep the BBC’s ball-by-ball online coverage up on his computer so that he could track the match’s progress. Appearing on the BBC’s beloved live commentary programme Test Match Special in July 2023, during the Ashes series, Sunak admitted diving into a statistical breakdown of England’s 2022 performance …

He enjoys watching football and still supports his hometown team, Southampton.

On the spiritual side, Rishi is a devout Hindu. He has a statue of Shri Ganesh on his desk, a symbol of good luck in new endeavours.

It may be said that you can take him to California — Rishi studied at Stanford on a Fulbright scholarship — but you cannot take California out of him:

It is in the tech scene that Sunak feels most comfortable, according to a former Tory chancellor: ‘When he’s sitting down with a bunch of corporates, FTSE CEOs, his eyes glaze over. When he sits down with some start-ups and unicorns and Californian types, his eyes light up.’

He works long hours, from 7 or 8 a.m. to 10 at night:

A former Treasury colleague said: ‘His answer to most things is to work harder.’

This approach brings an intensive thoroughness to his ministerial work – and others are expected to step up too. Sunak as chancellor had a habit of requesting to talk to junior officials whose speciality he wanted to master. It was a sign of his determination to understand policy in depth and his willingness to listen to young staffers – but it also required them to be contactable at the drop of a hat, at weekends or in the evening. Some in Downing Street believed Sunak had a photographic memory, such was his ability to conjure up specifics from reading materials, though he always denied that.

… Sunak was not an avid consumer of newspapers. He would sometimes scroll through the front pages but had an unusual arms-length approach to the press. Instead he would rely on the early briefings from his communications team.

Rishi is nothing if not loyal:

But one key feature of Sunak the boss was the strong bond he built with a tight-knit group of advisers. His core team barely changed between the Treasury and Number 10 – a testament to the loyalty Sunak instilled.

Who is better: Liz or Rishi?

This final bit comes not from Ben Riley-Smith but Andrew Lilico, whose article ‘Rishi Sunak is half the PM Truss would have been’ appeared in Monday’s Telegraph:

… the UK’s fiscal situation remains dire. The Hunt/Sunak plan involves public spending remaining unprecedentedly high into the medium term, with GDP growth almost stagnant, and taxes rising far above levels the UK economy has ever shown itself capable of generating. Hunt’s numbers can’t, in the end, add up, and markets know it.

Hence recent government bond yields have been just as high, and sometimes higher, than they ever were during Truss’ term. The “grown-ups” have proved themselves to have no answer better than hers.

The UK economy needs growth, UK public spending needs to fall, and the UK political right needs to embrace change. The past year has only made these truths of Truss’ position plainer for all to see.

On Wednesday, September 20, Rishi made a grand speech in Downing Street about his determination to water down the UK’s Net Zero plans, written in stone by Theresa May, following Labour’s 2008 example from Ed Miliband, energy secretary at the time.

I hope Rishi can — and will — follow through. We shall see when the Conservative Party conference takes place in early October. I won’t be holding my breath.