A subtle signal was sent across Whitehall last week when Tom Scholar, once identified by aides loyal to Dominic Cummings as on the notorious “s**t list” of senior civil servants, was reappointed as permanent secretary to the Treasury.

The prime minister now has a new machine, most notably in his chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, and his press secretary, Allegra Stratton, who plan to give his No 10 tenure a reset.

Johnson’s boosterism, and Matt Hancock’s, have led to a multitude of issues, including impossible targets being set – as well as a combative approach from the No 10 operation that sought never to give in to press criticism, but which ended up in embarrassing U-turns.

The relaunch has hardly gone without a hitch, because Johnson himself is the root of many of the issues. The prime minister was deeply personally reluctant to cancel the proposed Christmas mixing and so aides dutifully briefed straight after a crisis meeting with the devolved administrations that the prime minister had saved Christmas. But within days the picture was so desperate Johnson had no alternative but to change course.

The same pattern followed with schools: it was Johnson who personally held out to keep them open until his chief scientists said they would raise the Covid alert to its highest level, meaning the NHS was under serious threat.

In all, five senior civil servants have resigned, and Rutnam is claiming constructive dismissal, but Cummings’ critics say that beyond instilling a fear and resentment, little changed in the structures of the civil service and his reforms to recruitment policies have fallen flat.

The five replacements are predominantly from the same backgrounds as their predecessors, there has been no major overhaul of No 10’s structures and recruitment policies have continued much as they were before Johnson’s election.

Civil Service?

Sack the bloody lot and start again.

The outcome couldn't be worse than what we have at present.

Hi

Really?

Untrained Enforcement Officers?

Sack the Politicians more like.

Priti is still instructing that Illegals be released on Bail.

It is a complete nonsense.

Civil Service?

Sack the bloody lot and start again.

The outcome couldn't be worse than what we have at present.

I agree. I'd bet a £ to a penny not a single one of them would stand a chance in a real world job. I suggest hiring people into the CS that have at least 5 years actual real job experience in the outside world and I'm not talking about anyone that has a "Mickey Mouse" degree either.

In Boris Johnson’s first year since winning a majority of 80, he has shed as many key aides as most prime ministers do in a full term. He’s already on to his second chancellor and his second cabinet secretary, while two of his one-time closest Downing Street advisers are now firmly on the outside.

Even for a politician famed for reinvention, it risks looking careless. He’s also seen his relationship with his parliamentary party plummet – he has gone from being viewed as a freedom-loving Brexiteer to an “authoritarian” politician at odds with many of his MPs on the issue of the day: coronavirus.

The problem for the prime minister is that going into 2021, there is little to suggest his problems are subsiding any time soon. If anything, they are about to get worse.

But for all the bad news, in Downing Street there is still optimism that next year can in the medium term be much better than what came before. That is not just because 2020 is such a low bar. It is down to changes currently being made.

The completion of a Brexit deal on Christmas Eve is viewed as the first step to a brighter political landscape. “A lot of us have looked at the past few months and decided the government is incompetent; the Brexit deal shows that actually the PM can get things done,” says an MP from the 2015 intake.

But any reputation for competence in the long term rests on a successful vaccine rollout - Johnson’s promises of a return to normal are now a running joke among his colleagues.

The departure of Vote Leave aides and the arrival of the new chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, and press spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, is meant to herald a less combative era with more parliamentary outreach.

Yet this is where the biggest risk lies for Johnson in 2021: who will MPs blame when something goes wrong? If restrictions run past the spring? If the union looks in jeopardy? If tax rises land in the wrong place?

Over the past year, angered MPs have been quick to turn on those around Johnson, whether it was bad comms, bad scientific advice or simply the existence of Dominic Cummings. A lot of the people who were being blamed for mistakes are now gone and he doesn’t have an obvious human shield.

The prime minister enters the new year with the hope that he can get his premiership back on track with new aides to help him achieve it. But in doing so, Johnson has also made himself more politically accountable. As a parliamentary colleague puts it:

The biggest risk for Boris Johnson in 2021? Having no one else to blame

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rollout-brexit (extracts)



Food for thought .....

The Guardian really is a crap newspaper.

The news that the prime minister is looking at easing some restrictions by mid-February came as a surprise to many reporters – and to No 10.

The slip by Boris Johnson went against what insiders have been briefing for many weeks: that the easing of restrictions is a long way off and that this time there will be extreme caution.

“The one to four [most vulnerable] groups are going to be vaccinated by 15 February. Before then we will be looking at the potential of relaxing some measures,” he said.

Aides have underlined to reporters that Johnson’s comments were misinterpreted – “looking at” only means the government will be starting to make decisions, and that nothing will change before the 15 February review point. Less generously, it was a bit of a tongue twist from Johnson.

Government sources have underlined again and again that nothing will be eased until ministers are certain the vaccine programme is advanced enough to allow it. Put simply, they do not want to countenance the possibility of a fourth lockdown or to pull students back out of the classroom once they return. When England unlocks, it will be for good.

There will be more and more pressure on Johnson, who likes to please, to set out the "unlock" path. Conservative MPs are starting to clamour to see that relaxation roadmap – and the clamour will become a roar as the 15 February deadline approaches.

The vaccination programme is the UK’s most precious asset. It is in the Treasury’s interests to also make sure the strategy of “the lockdown to end all lockdowns” works. There are many who will say this strategy comes a year too late.