Mr Cummings is widely credited with helping Boris Johnson win the 2019 general election. Photo: Holly Adams/Bloomberg
Dominic Cummings held meetings with Rishi Sunak in which he said he had discussed returning to Downing Street to join the prime minister's team, it emerged on Saturday.
The controversial spin doctor said his price for returning was that the Prime Minister would have to legislate sweeping reforms, and that when Mr Sunak objected, Mr Cummings said he would «prefer the Tories to lose.»
Mr Cummings was the director of the Vote Leave campaign during the EU referendum and is widely credited with helping Boris Johnson win the 2019 election. general election.
He was appointed as Johnson's chief adviser in July 2019 but became embroiled in a public row when it emerged he had traveled to Durham at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown.
He left Number 10 in November 2020 after a spectacular row with Johnson, whom he has been fiercely critical of since.
On Saturday it was reported that Mr Cummings secretly met Mr Sunak for dinner in North Yorkshire in July 2023, and also held a meeting with the Prime Minister and his chief of staff, Liam Booth-Smith, in December 2022.
Downing Street confirmed the meetings had taken place but said no offers had been made to Mr Cummings. Source No. 10 said: “It was a broad discussion about politics and the election campaign and no work was offered.”
Mr Cummings became embroiled in a public row when it emerged he had traveled to Durham at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo: Jonathan Brady/Getty
Mr Cummings told The Sunday Times: “He wanted to make a secret deal where I would secure the election and promised to take the government seriously after the election.”
< p> “But I would rather the Tories lose than continue to exist.” office without prioritizing what is important and the constituents.
“The post-2016 Tories are summed up by the fact that Sunak, like Johnson, would rather lose than take government seriously. Both believed that their deputies agreed with them, and both were right.”
He added: «I said I was prepared to build a political machine to crush the Labor Party and win the election only if he committed to No 10 to really prioritize the things that matter most, like the nuclear weapons infrastructure scandal, natural and man-made created pandemics, scandal over MoD procurement, artificial intelligence and other technological capabilities, and broken core government institutions which we started to fix in 2020 but Boris refused.»
The Sunday Times reported that Mr. Mr Cummings advised the Prime Minister to scrap Mr Johnson's tax rise and nearly double the threshold at which people pay 40p income tax, from £50,271 to £100,000.
The newspaper also reported that he had advised the Prime Minister to resolve NHS strikes, launch a national effort to rebuild the health service in the spirit of the Vaccine Task Force and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Revelations about the meeting are likely , will raise questions about Mr Sunak's political views.
Many Tory MPs regard Mr Cummings as a formidable campaigner, but he is a divisive figure within the party and the revelations are likely to raise questions about Mr Sunak's political judgment.
Labour has been sharply critical Mr. Cummings. after his infamous trip to Barnard Castle during lockdown, which he said he made to check his eyesight.
Rishi Sunak is out of touch
Responding to the news, Jonathan Ashworth, Labour's shadow treasurer-general, said: «Unbeknownst to me, Rishi Sunak is asking the wrong question if he thinks the answer is breaking lockdown rules, the architect of Boris Johnson's failed premiership.»
“After promising to restore the integrity of Downing Street, he secretly pleads with Mr. Barnard Castle to rule Downing Street again. From Cameron to Cummings, the Prime Minister admits he has run out of ideas and is too weak to come up with his own.
“As desperate as Rishi Sunak is, the British people are fed up with the Tories' mortgage misery. , tax rises and a record wait for the NHS.
«Sunak's reliance on the ghosts of the Tories' past proves that only Labor can deliver the change our country sorely demands.»
G- Mr Cummings did not hide his contempt for the Conservative Party and many of its MPs. In recent months he has blogged about his plans to replace the Tories with a new «start-up party».
In December, Sir Sajid Javid, the former chancellor, said he had warned Johnson that Cummings «won't rest until will burn the house.»
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