All language subtitles for Laura Kuenssberg State of Chaos S01E02 Johnson

This programme contains
some strong language.

This place is meant to be in charge.

But with five prime ministers
in six years,

it hasn't felt that way.

The whole operation at Number Ten
was utterly broken down.

What's the answer?

We became a laughing stock
of the world.

An utter catastrophic disaster.

In this series, we're trying
to work out what happened

to our political system.

I think we lost our minds.

I don't know a single MP
who didn't get a death threat.

The party that likes to believe
it's born to rule

has indulged in an epic drama
with no lasting heroes.

I have been a systematic plotter

who's tried to remove
a Prime Minister.

You are not children
in the playground.

You are legislators.

I'm Laura Kuenssberg and I was
the BBC's Political Editor

for nearly seven years.

It was my job to make sense
of what on earth was going on,

or at least to try, as we all
lived through a norm busting,

convention defying
moment of history.

Was Boris Johnson
a good Prime Minister?

Erm...

No.

Boris is an extremely
complex character.

In this episode -

a maverick Prime Minister
and his power hungry adviser

face the biggest crisis
since the Second World War

with dramatic results.

I said, he won't be satisfied
until he burns the house down.

Months in the making,
working with insiders

who've never spoken publicly before,

we go behind the scenes
to Westminster's real cast list.

The civil servants, the ministers
and the political advisers

now free to speak.

During Boris's era, you had people
in power who felt the brand of Boris

was so great that they could
get away with anything.

How close did our political system
come to falling apart?

And will it ever be the same again?

It is the end of normal.

TICKING

BELL CHIMES

TELEVISION COMMENTARY:
It is ten o'clock,

and the polls in
the General Election suggests

that it is a Conservative majority.

And if these numbers
are broadly correct,

Boris Johnson may just have
redrawn the map.

I would like to thank Boris.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Boris! Boris! Boris!

The winner took it all.

After months of paralysis
in Parliament,

a mammoth majority
meant opportunity.

We did it. We did it.

We pulled it off, didn't we?

My favourite film is Gladiator.

You know, when he stands there,
"I am Gladiator."

That's what he must have felt like.

f you want to put Gladiator
into political terms,

he was a man who had done something
extraordinary.

Yeah, and there he was,
standing in front of the Colosseum.

Amazing. I mean, amazing.

Boris Johnson is a very
vivacious character

and can relate to people
all over the country.

It was a night of delirium
for almost every single

Conservative MP because result
after result after result

was blue, blue, blue, blue, blue.

Will never turn blue, has never been
blue, is now Conservative.

It was an amazing feeling.

I was in Downing Street
when the results came through.

It was incredible.

It wasn't just a win,
it was an absolutely huge win.

And it put an end
to Jeremy Corbyn's reign.

The Conservatives smashed Labour,

grabbing seat after seat
in towns they'd called their own.

Traditional Labour voters were
reluctant to back Jeremy Corbyn.

It was our worst election
result in terms of seats

since the mid 1930s.
It was terrible.

I've never knocked on so many doors
and people have said,

"I've always voted Labour,

"but..."

Yet, it wasn't just Labour's woes.

Boris Johnson had relentlessly
promised to get Brexit done.

I require no response from you.

I require no response
from you, young man.

His vow? To end Parliament's
three year screaming match

over leaving the EU.

And it went down a storm.

People were tired of politics

being chaotic
and people in Westminster

arguing about it.

And Boris was the politician
who most closely understood

that desire just to deliver
and just have done.

With this mandate
and this majority,

we will at last be able to do, what?

CROWD: Get Brexit done!

They've been paying attention.

Boris had just taken the question
of Brexit to the British people,

run an election campaign on getting
Brexit done and won handsomely.

He just reaffirmed the democratic
point that the country had decided

to leave the European Union.

With an 80 seat majority,
I think I'm right in saying

the biggest Conservative majority
since Margaret Thatcher's time,

you know, it was, it was,
it felt huge.

And there's a lot to look forward to
and a lot could be done.

I mean, this was the opportunity
to do something remarkable,

to change politics for good.

Boris Johnson now held real power
in the country and in his party.

But to many of us in Whitehall,
it was clear the man who helped

put him there
had his eyes on a big prize too.

PEOPLE CHEER

His most senior adviser,
Dominic Cummings, wanted control,

and with an 80 seat majority,
Boris Johnson could grant it.

Everybody knew that Dominic Cummings
was key in the operation,

but nobody really knew
what the bounds were of his power

or what the relationship was
with the Prime Minister.

So everybody's trying to work
this out from very early on.

The two men's bond had been forged
in the Vote Leave campaign.

Cummings had been willing
to smash the ceiling, literally,

to pursue his cause.

Installed at Number 10
as Johnson's Chief Adviser,

he loomed large over everything
and everyone in government...

You all right? Yeah.

..happy to be known
from the shadows.

Oh, sh... What?

OFF CAMERA REMARK

Yeah, these are live cameras,
just to let you know.

Ha-ha, very funny.
No, they are.

They are live cameras.
I thought you...

I thought you were someone
who understood technology.

He saw the election win
as his chance to rewire the country

and change how government worked...

Switch it off now so I can walk
past. Yeah, they are live.

..as he saw fit, whether elected
politicians liked it or not.

Dominic Cummings had far too
much influence on government

and decisions.

And it felt really that he acted
like the Prime Minister.

He felt he was
the Prime Minister himself.

So I would sort of ask Number 10,

is the Prime Minister OK
with this or that?

And I'd get a response quite often,

I would find the things that
I was being told by his office

were his decision.

Boris Johnson would have no
knowledge of them whatsoever.

And that became a bit
of an issue for me.

At best it was like having
two prime ministers,

and sometimes they agreed
and sometimes they didn't.

At worst it was,
you had one Prime Minister,

it just wasn't the elected one.

Every time he was in a room,
the way he spoke about MPs,

engaged with MPs,
the way he engaged with Boris,

there was such an obvious derision
and contempt,

as if he had to manipulate
the puppets of politicians

so that he could achieve
his great outcome that he saw,

his great vision for the country.

I saw Boris and Dom up close

and I saw actually a real team,
a strong team.

They thrived off one another.

And I think what any
government needs,

any government of all
political parties,

you do need someone in there
who will shake things up.

You do need someone with
a sort of revolutionary zeal

that will constantly
be asking, why?

You know, challenging
the sort of orthodoxy.

So, you know, he provided that.

After he left Number 10, Cummings
revealed just how much he'd wanted

to challenge the orthodoxy

to get his own way.

But you've just said that within
months of the Prime Minister winning

the biggest Conservative
majority in decades,

you and a few others from
the Vote Leave campaign

were discussing the possibility
of getting rid of him.

Days, not months.

Within days of the election, you
were discussing getting rid of him?

Yes.

Well, for all the reasons
we've been discussing.

He doesn't have a plan, he doesn't
know how to be Prime Minister.

And we'd only got him in there
because we had to solve a certain

problem, not because we thought
that he was the right person

to be running the country.

But Dominic Cummings' apparent
contempt for Boris Johnson

was trumped by
his long standing ambition

to get the UK out of the EU.

The ayes to the right - 330.

The noes to the left - 231.

CHEERING

A deal was struck.

Number 10's independence day
had arrived.

Crowds of Brexiteers
cheered outside Parliament.

Inside Downing Street, it was
the moment the Vote Leave tribe

had been waiting for.

..Eight, seven, six,

five, four, three,

two, one!

Among the revellers -
Cleo Watson, Cummings' deputy.

It was quite a strange event.

There were some speeches
and Johnson stood up

and this was the pinnacle
of his political career so far.

He'd campaigned for Brexit
and here we were.

And he stood up and kind of
gave his speech

about French knickers and cheese.

French knickers
made in this country.

It was sort of gags and...

..it was sort of fun, but there was
no kind of stronger message

and no sense of him having
achieved this huge moment.

And then Dominic Cummings stood up

and you could just see
how much it meant to him.

Dom was just standing on a box,

and he started to speak
and then, and he burst into tears.

And he couldn't,
he couldn't say anything.

And, you know, for him,

this was the delivery
of a long held,

strongly held belief that Britain
would be better off

outside the European Union,
and he'd achieved it.

And not only had he achieved it,

but he was in Downing Street
delivering it.

Dominic Cummings
sort of stole the show,

which obviously did not go
down very well,

I would say, with... with Johnson.

I can remember at the time thinking,

hmm, I wonder if this is going
to cause us some problems?

Because it's around
that period where, you know,

there were the caricatures of Boris
Johnson as Dominic Cummings' puppet.

You could start to feel
that tension coming in.

NEWS COMMENTARY: 6:07am is the time.
Other news to bring you -

Boris Johnson is preparing for his
first major government reshuffle

since the General Election
in December.

It's thought it may not be the
radical overhaul some had predicted.

Cabinet reshuffles
can be big news days.

But after the bitterness
before the election, Boris Johnson

wasn't expected to stir up
even more trouble at the top.

Many of his existing ministers
and their special advisers

who worked directly for them
were expecting to stay,

including the Chancellor,
Sajid Javid.

The first thing the Prime Minister
said is that, you know,

you're reappointed
and congratulations.

And of course,
I'm happy at that news.

But then all of a sudden he said,
"Look, there is a condition

"and that is that you have
to fire all your advisers."

I had six special advisers.

"You have to fire them all."
You know, no ifs, ands or buts.

"All have to go and you'll have a
new team. But don't worry about it,

"Dominic Cummings is going
to pick it for you."

Dominic Cummings insisted that every
special adviser across a range

of government departments answered
not to their ministers,

Ministers of the Crown,
elected representatives,

but would answer to him.

Cummings wanted to influence
the positions as much as possible.

He had a plan.

And the trouble is with that kind
of focus, I suppose,

and ability to just see how
you think things should be done

is that it doesn't always make room
for other people.

Outside Number 10, it seemed
something big was brewing.

Yeah, fine. Do you want to give me
a first quote?

Text me a quote. OK, bye.

INAUDIBLE

Oh, my God.
WHISPERED CONVERSATION

I'm very clear that I'm not
going to accept this

and that he has to choose
between his Chancellor

and Dominic Cummings.

He wasn't willing to make
a decision and wanted both.

And I said, "That's not possible.

"You know I can't serve
on that basis."

And I did say to him,
"I don't understand the hold

"that this individual has on you."

And I said, "This individual,
Mr Cummings, he won't be satisfied

"until he burns the house down
and you wait and see."

And I walked out.

In the last few minutes I've heard
that the Chancellor, Sajid Javid,

has decided that rather than obey
the orders of the Prime Minister

to sack his advisory team,
he has instead turned down

the second most important job
in government

and has decided to resign.

The Prime Minister's adviser
had got rid of the Chancellor.

The message to other ministers
couldn't have been more clear.

Cummings wanted control and Boris
Johnson was willing to give it.

CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK

It was Dominic Cummings' way
essentially of controlling

what happened in every department
and making every minister anxious

or nervous that, you now, far from
having an ally, they had a potential

spy in the office with them.

Deeply, deeply dysfunctional,
offensive

and frankly, unconstitutional.

The Prime Minister of the UK
is in a very powerful position

in government
relative to their colleagues,

and if they rely excessively
on a small team of advisers,

they are more prone to error.

Boris became incredibly reliant
on Dominic Cummings

to a dangerous degree,
dangerous for himself

as well as for the conduct
of government.

In those early months
after the election,

in there they felt almost
unstoppable.

Leaving the EU was just the start.

Dominic Cummings wanted to rewire
the whole place,

believing Whitehall
was stuffed with the wrong people,

with the wrong ideas
and the wrong ways of working.

Officials at the top had long said
the Civil Service shouldn't get

stuck in an unhappy status quo,

open to claims of being too slow
or reluctant to change.

There was sympathy for the desire
to shake things up,

but the question was, how would
Dominic Cummings go about it?

I thought lots of the things
he was saying, absolutely spot-on.

Far too much group think,
not enough diversity of thought.

And he was always going on about,
how do we get a different calibre

of political advisers? How do we
really kind of get different DNA

into some of them,
and particularly things

that we weren't naturally good at?

So the actual idea, you know,
good idea.

The way of doing it, not great.

It was very clear from very early on
that Dominic Cummings wanted to

break things, to try
something completely new.

It was destabilising,

because I worked for
the Foreign Office for 38 years.

I was a company man.

I ended up as
the Permanent Secretary.

So even though I could see
absolutely the imperfections

in the system, I thought basically
the system was a good one

and having the people at the top
basically disagree with that

was new and disagreeable for me
personally.

The job of the Whitehall Civil
Service was to carry out the policy

of the Government of the day,

not to decide whether that
is a good or bad policy.

There's no authority to do that.

So if Whitehall is obstructing...

..ministers, then Whitehall deserves
to be criticised for it.

While Dominic Cummings advertised
for misfits and weirdos to join him

in Downing Street,

top civil servants
were being ushered out,

not with P45s at first,
but dark hints in the press.

I just want to show you something

that ended up in one of
the newspapers.

Erm...

HE LAUGHS

Yes, I remember this.

In the United Kingdom,

civil servants are figures in
the background.

The deal is, you are close
to the centre of power,

you have the... your job is
to advise,

to give your ministers options.

They decide, so they carry
the can of accountability.

But you advise in private.

Under Boris Johnson,
that very much shifted.

So seeing my name on the front page
of the Sunday Telegraph

as one of four people
on a Number 10 hit list was...

..surprising, disagreeable
and I thought wrong,

it's not how
the British system works.

But I note that within weeks,
one of the four had gone

and within two years,
all four had gone, including me.

Their jobs weren't safe.

Later in the year, a scandal hit
the Department for Education

when it decided exam grades
should be decided by an algorithm.

The Government had had to make
an embarrassing U-turn.

So, a decision we'd made to go
down the moderated grades route

was a decision
that everyone had supported.

And in reality,
it wasn't the right approach

and it became very clear
it wasn't the right approach.

In past scandals, it had usually
been the minister that took the rap.

But this time, the top official
in the department, Jonathan Slater,

came under pressure.

There was a bit of
anonymous briefing against me.

You know,
is the Permanent Secretary

of the Department Education,
you know, for the chop type stuff?

Obviously rather dispiriting.

But then it did seem to become,
becoming clear that...

..questions were being asked
as to whether I would need to leave.

The only person
he could turn to was his boss,

the Cabinet Secretary and Head of
the Civil Service, Mark Sedwill.

He didn't have anything particular
to say other than to refer me

to what Dominic Cummings was doing

removing permanent secretaries
more generally.

He's described permanent
secretaries as blockers,

so, you know, you can draw
your own conclusions from that.

Was it fair, though,
that the Permanent Secretary

of your department left
around that time?

I mean, some people say
you should have been the fall guy,

but he took the bullet for it.
So I offered to resign.

I said, made it quite clear,
that I offered my resignation

and offered to go when the Prime
Minister asked me to carry on.

I just did everything I could to put
that right as quickly as possible.

The key was that it was
within the rules.

The British system concentrates
power in the hands

of the Prime Minister.

Most prime ministers, although aware
of that, do not exploit that fact.

And so the system works.

But Boris Johnson was aware
of that and would try to use

all that power himself,

or people around him
were using his name

in order to achieve
their objectives,

which they were aligned
with the Prime Minister's.

Sounds like, maybe not a revolution,
but a revolution within the system.

It was different from
anything that went before.

There are good and bad
civil servants,

like there are good
and bad politicians.

But overall, the British Civil
Service is very loyal to the state,

to democracy,
to the elected government.

So I think sometimes politicians
in recent years have played out

their frustrations in lashing out
at the Civil Service.

Years of dispute and delay seemed
to breed suspicion

between Brexiteers and officials, a
fear that scores were being settled.

What I saw from the outside
was this, this fraying

of the confidence of
the Civil Service to do its job,

tell the truth and uphold standards,

and that degrades
the quality of government.

It will mean ministers
will take poorer decisions

which will have a bad effect
on this country.

And the country would soon need
a government that could take

good decisions more than ever.

NEWS REPORT: ..About China's
wildlife markets,

the suspected source
of this latest virus.

..With flu-like symptoms...

In Wuhan today, an old man collapsed
on a street corner.

The first thing I knew about what
became Covid-19 was reading about

an unknown pneumonia
in China in the newspapers.

And then I asked for a briefing
when I got into the office

the following Monday.

And the clinicians
in the department,

Chris Whitty, Jonathan Van-Tam,
were already across it.

Everyone was starting to see
these reports coming out

of this obscure city in China.

There didn't seem anything
particular to worry about.

And then increasingly
it became clear

this was something to worry about
and more questions were being asked.

We had a meeting with Matt Hancock
in January and he said,

"We're not going to avoid this.
It's coming.

"Potentially thousands, maybe tens
of thousands of people will die."

It's just like, what? It's like one
of those disaster films

with the asteroid
heading towards Earth.

Something always saves Earth
in the end, doesn't it?

It turned out to be the biggest
nightmare for any government

since World War II.

The need to act was becoming clear.

But Boris Johnson's dislike for the
rules was apparent from the start.

Good morning. Good morning.
How do you do? Good to meet you.

I was at a hospital the other night
where I think there were,

there were actually a few
coronavirus patients,

and I shook hands with everybody,
you'll be pleased to know.

And I continue to shake hands.

I think Johnson just
sort of couldn't believe

it was happening to him.

He obviously felt uncomfortable
with the idea of locking down.

But he also has quite a...

..casual attitude to his own health.

He thinks he's indestructible,
and so it was challenging to get him

to stop shaking hands with people,
and to wash his hands and to kind of

remember how to kind of
interact with people

who felt much more cautious
than him.

We know from WhatsApp messages
that have been leaked,

not just yours, but others too,
over time

that sometimes Boris Johnson
was absolutely arguing

for herd immunity.

Sometimes he used the phrase,
"Let it rip."

So how aware, I suppose, were you of
him going backwards and forwards?

How aware was I? God, it was...
it was, it was a constant.

And the best way I can describe it
is that the way that Boris

makes decisions is to try out
all the arguments.

I was trying to get the attention
of the Downing Street machine,

if you like, and I couldn't get
the machine to grind into action.

Boris is a remarkably
bullish type chap.

He's a can-do, he's a glass half
full rather than half empty.

He is fundamentally a liberal

and live-and-let-live type person.

Truthfully, I think this is where
Dominic did have a bit more urgency.

He was quite concerned about it.

And Dominic's kind of focus
and clear-mindedness...

..came up very hard against
Johnson's willingness

to kind of hear lots of
different arguments

and not quite make up his mind.

And the trouble is that those
decisions were life or death.

Politicians and government medics
were scrambling

to make the right decisions.

There wasn't a rule book
or much of a plan

for dealing with an unknown virus.

And the notion of a politician
telling everyone to stay at home

felt unbelievable at first.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you
very much for coming along.

But finally,
Boris Johnson was pushed to act.

I remember sitting
at the Cabinet table...

..and saying across the table...

.."Prime Minister, we're going
to have to tell people

"to stop all unnecessary
social contact."

From this evening, I must
give the British people

a very simple instruction.

You must stay at home.

And I remember having a slight
out-of-body experience thinking,

here I am at the Cabinet table

and I'm telling the Prime Minister,
in all seriousness,

that he's got to say this
to the nation.

None of us have ever heard
a message like it.

No politician alive could ever
have imagined delivering it

and that's because the coronavirus
crisis is a situation

that the country has simply
never faced anything like

in living memory.

Those moments were so strange,

so scary, so completely
unlike today.

This place was empty.

Politicians and officials
were under overwhelming pressure.

Everyone's health was at risk,

the economy was in danger

and no-one knew how long
the pandemic would last

or how many people would die.

Ministers and civil servants
would have to find ways of working

together to get the country
through it.

But of course, they were vulnerable
to the virus too.

Boris Johnson doesn't get unwell.

He said, "I can't remember
taking a sick day before."

But he started to cough
and his temperature starts to go up

and it became clear
that he certainly wasn't well.

Boris and I contracted Covid
on the same day.

And we were really worried
about the impact of this

on the public's morale, essentially,

in a way that you don't
really worry about morale

outside of... outside of wartime.

And then for a week,
we were both ill.

Although I am sequestered here
in Number 10 Downing Street,

I am, thanks to the miracles
of modern technology,

able to be in constant touch
with my officials, with everybody

in the various departments
across the whole of Whitehall.

And then on the Thursday
of the next week,

I went back into work
and I was essentially better.

And Boris said to me, "I think
I'll just stay off until Monday."

And at that point, as I got better,
he got very seriously worse.

Boris Johnson is in intensive care
tonight in a personal fight

against the virus that
the Government and the country

is trying to beat.

I was told the stats of what happens
with people who go into ICU.

I'm no sycophant, but someone
who I've worked with for years

and years and loved dearly...

And it was... I was gobsmacked,
to be honest, it was a real shock.

Did you think he might die? Yeah.

Yeah, I knew there was absolutely
a 50-50 chance of that.

Given his weight at the time,
I did not think that was a good

combination for someone
who was becoming so rapidly ill.

I was really emotionally affected
and at the same time,

there was a huge impact
on the leadership of the country.

And the Foreign Secretary
has been asked to step up for now.

And you did this extraordinary
interview with Dominic Raab

late at night when
he looked incredibly worried.

Are you confident now
that the Government

is under control tonight?

There's an incredibly strong team
spirit behind the Prime Minister

and making sure that we get all of
the plans that the Prime Minister's

instructed us to deliver,

to get them implemented
as soon as possible.

And that's the way we will bring
the whole country through

the coronavirus challenge
that we face right now.

Actually, I worried that
that interview might really damage

the morale of the nation.

But what he did absolutely right

was not try to look as if he was
the stand-in Prime Minister,

which would have been worse.

If you're doing my job,
there is not a manual for this.

I was extremely worried
about the impact it would have

if he was gone and the shock
it would be for the country,

and how on earth we were going
to manage if the worst happened.

And you have to just reassure people
that it's going to be OK

and there is a plan.

One of the things I've done is,

what happens if the Prime Minister
is really ill?

So I remember going back to my
office and turning those rough notes

into something that looked
like maybe a document

that had been around for
a much longer period of time,

in order to just, I mean, just as
a kind of agenda for discussion,

but, you know, to try to, again,
create the illusion that it was,

you know, we had a list.

Good afternoon. I have today
left hospital after a week

in which the NHS has saved my life,
no question.

We got that exclusive.

And it was really fascinating
going in to see him that day,

because he was a changed man.

He was sitting down a lot more.

Normally, he leaps around
the room and he's...

you know what a big character he is.

And he was a lot more frail.

He'd lost weight
and his voice was a bit quieter.

And sometimes it's hard with Boris
to get him to sort of be

kind of serious, you know, he likes
to be the joker and so on.

It was quite an emotional
interview for him.

The Sun's readers were very
relieved that he survived,

and so there was a lot of support
for him at that particular time.

Got his highest poll rating ever
as people were just, you know...

You do slightly think if
the Prime Minister can die from this

then anybody can.

BANGING

That wave of public support
felt like a symbol.

In that moment, Covid was changing
our relationship with our leaders

for the first time in years.

After all the bitterness, many
members of the public wanted

to believe in their Government
and to obey their instructions

to follow the rules.

Are you going to resign,
Mr Cummings?

Did you leave the family home
in Durham?

Is it one rule for you, Mr Cummings,
and another rule for everybody else?

It was almost impossible to believe.

Number 10 had told the country
to stay in their homes.

But Boris Johnson's most senior
adviser, the man who'd made

the plans for lockdown, had been
spotted nearly 300 miles away.

I didn't know that Dom had gone
to Durham, so that surprised me,

and I thought the whole thing
was just really surreal, actually.

I couldn't make any sense
of it at all.

It seemed a huge betrayal.

The most senior staffer
in Downing Street

had broken the rules
he'd helped put in place.

All eyes turned
to the Prime Minister,

expecting him to rebuke
his right hand man.

If one of your most senior team
wasn't paying proper attention

to the rules,
why should anyone else?

Above all, what he did, if you look
at the measures that he took,

they were designed
to stop the spread of the virus.

And I think that he at all times,
as I say,

behaved responsibly and legally.

It was abundantly clear to me,
just like everyone else

in the country,
that all the rules had been broken

and there was absolutely
no excuse to it.

I did contact Boris.

I texted him and I said, look,
you know, what did I tell you

when I was leaving
just a couple of months earlier?

I told you this guy's not going
to be content until he burns

the house down.
Look what he's just gone and done.

And if you want any sort of
ability to try and survive this

and move on and not let this now
lead to a constant weakening

of your government,
you have to let him go.

Sorry I'm late.

I don't want to get into exactly
how Boris replied,

but let's just say that it was
the last thing I was expecting,

after receiving his reply,
was that press conference.

Boris Johnson not only stood by him,

he let Cummings use his back garden
to mount his defence.

I could barely believe it.

There is no regulation covering
the situation

that I found myself in
on Friday night.

As a politician,
watching a master at work,

the way he sat at the desk and got
you all to come up and address him

like a courtly king,

it was a masterstroke of politics

and another illustration of why
he should never been allowed

anywhere near Downing Street.

Do you understand for some people,
it seems as if there was one version

of the rules for you and one version
of the rules for everyone else?

Thank you, Laura.

Erm... N-n-n...

No, I don't,
I don't regret what I did.

I think that was the point
at which I thought,

"Dominic Cummings, is he mad?"

Because to do what he did
and then to go on television

and give what was not even half
an apology for how he'd behaved

was quite extraordinary.

And it was...

There was definitely
something going on there.

How did he think he could behave
differently to every other person

in the country and yet,
and not give any apology for it?

It was my job to then try and
explain what our position was

and why we were standing by Dom
during that time.

Obviously, it was difficult. Erm...

And I think perhaps even Dom himself
has since said

the sort of comms around it,
the way it was handled,

could have been better.

It's funny because
I didn't know at the time

that he was he was also
trying to get me fired.

Erm...

I was just...

That whole episode
was not well handled.

At the time, it seemed
that Cummings was important

to the government effort.

There was a lot to be done, there
was a lot to be done post-Covid

and that Cummings had some
very good ideas on the reforms

that we needed,

and therefore it was worth
spending political capital

to keep him in place.

But that was clearly,
in hindsight, a mistake.

You know, he chose Dominic against
my advice. It was a disaster.

I'm afraid nobody likes somebody
who tells them I told them so.

I told them so.

Having worked closely with him, why
do you think Boris Johnson does tend

to show loyalty to people
who have made mistakes?

Is it loyalty
or is it something else?

It's a very particular kind
of loyalty, I think.

I think people take it very
personally and think,

yes, he saved my bacon
and I owe him so much.

But that's the point -
you owe him so much now.

What do you mean by that? Well, it's
worked out well for him to save you.

Boris is very loyal,
but that loyalty is conditional.

And it's conditional on,

do you back him in everything
that he says or does?

And that's the basis
that you win that loyalty.

You are the leader of
the country and the party.

And, yes, you've got friends

and, yes, you've got people
who've been loyal to you.

But that is very much
a secondary consideration.

And you have to override
those friendships or that loyalty

if there's something you need
to do to protect the reputation

of government, country.

Inside and outside government,

Boris Johnson's decision to hang on
to his adviser was toxic.

So UK Civil Service
official Twitter account says -

"Arrogant and offensive.

"Can you imagine having to work
with these truth twisters?"

It was sent around informally
between civil servants

and discussed and the, the...

..general comment, view was,
we don't have to imagine it,

we're doing it.

This is a sign of the relationship
between civil servants

and ministers breaking down.

This is an exasperated civil servant
saying that the politicians

she or he is working for
are not telling the truth.

And it's their exasperation
at that that has bubbled up

in this public tweeting.

This is not good for the Civil
Service, shouldn't be doing this.

But you can understand
the frustrations that maybe

have led to what, in my view,
is poor behaviour.

I don't want people to think
that I'm a truth twister,

but I understood the anger
behind that person

running that Twitter account.

Some civil servants
clearly felt that that's it -

they'd been pushed their limits,
they couldn't do this,

they couldn't deal with it any more.

This wasn't just about name calling
or the odd disagreement

here and there.

At this point, there wasn't enough
PPE in our hospitals.

Test and Trace was a shambles.

The virus appeared to be spreading
almost unchecked in our care homes.

The Government was struggling
profoundly to cope

with the very urgent demands
of the pandemic.

And yet, just at the moment
when the government machine

was needed the most,
relationships were breaking down.

And soon, even the job of the
country's most senior civil servant

was on the line.

Dom Cummings and Mark Sedwill
clashed repeatedly

and everybody knew it.
Everybody could hear the clash.

Could hear it?

Well, because the reverberations
were clear,

that Mark Sedwill was defending
the system

which Dom Cummings
was trying to deconstruct.

So it's not a surprise
that they came...

I was going to say
they came to blows,

but there was never
anything physical.

But they disagreed energetically
with each other.

Do you mean people could actually
hear the shouting matches?

I never heard that.
That's misleading.

But when Mark told me about
the conversations later,

they sounded pretty punchy

in the sense of sort of
out there rather than physical.

What people probably never
understood was just how testy

and toxic and unpleasant it got as a
place to work during those periods.

And the sense from the political
team that they thought that,

you know, the Civil Service
wasn't really up to much.

So there was an awful lot of wasted
energy in April, May, June time,

I think, on kind of internal
fights and people not getting on

with each other at a time
when we ought to have all been

really working well together.

There was intense worry
about what was going on -

Number 10's contempt for rules.

Senior officials took
an extraordinary step,

appealing to Buckingham Palace.

I can't talk about conversations
with the Palace.

I'll get into trouble.

But what was it that was, that you
were worried about in government?

There were definitely times
after the Prime Minister came back

from his illness when
the kind of, the perception

amongst the political team in Number
10 about the kind of failings

of the system, and the failings
of the Civil Service

and the failings of different
institutions was so extreme

and the way that they're
articulating that,

they were in absolutely kind of
smash everything up,

shut it all down, start again.

We were systematically
in real trouble.

By June, Mark Sedwill had had enough
and announced he would quit.

The unhappy exit of
the country's Civil Service boss

and National Security Adviser
was a grave signal.

Our system of government
was in trouble.

I genuinely don't think
that either the Prime Minister

or any of his really close advisers
understood the symbolic impact

of the Cabinet Secretary
leaving his job.

That the whole of the Civil Service
system is kind of reliant

on somebody at the top
being able to hold a line.

And if your boss's boss's boss

or your boss's boss's boss's boss
is no longer there to protect you,

that can feel, at a time
which was very destabilising anyway,

even more destabilising.

Mark Sedwill was replaced
with an ally of Number 10,

41-year-old Simon Case.

He'd never run a department before,
now in charge of a government

workforce of nearly
half a million people.

The fact that Mark Sedwill
could just be replaced

with somebody who clearly was
a very political appointee,

who didn't have the experience,
the respect of the Civil Service,

sends a very strong, clear message

that you're expected
to toe the line,

and toeing the line being...

..cover up for mistruths
if necessary.

Don't tell politicians things
they don't want to hear.

Don't worry so much
about facts and evidence.

Just do as you're told.

The Prime Minister and his team
wanted to decide everything,

not only policies, but appointments.

And the British system traditionally
has been balanced,

that patronage and decision making
has been devolved.

But Boris Johnson's Number 10
brought all that into the centre.

So every sort of public appointment

was their business

and everybody knew that.

And the sort of candidate
that was acceptable

was clearly someone exactly
of their political view,

which again has not
been the British way.

Many people say many things
about Boris.

He didn't rest on his laurels.

I think there was a desire
to certainly change the way

the Government is operating.

You've got to remember, you're only
as strong, you know, on day one.

And if we'd have left it any longer

to do some of the things we wanted
to, it would have been impossible.

You can't do big change, you know,

from middle towards the end
of a term.

I think people should remember
the vaccine roll-out,

which was fastest in the world.

In addition, he got Brexit done.

He did get the deal.

He fixed it and ended it.

Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings'
habit of busting convention

had some important success.

Lovely. Thank you, sir.

It's hard to imagine
a different government

creating a vaccine programme
in the same way.

Yet, the relationship
had a shelf life.

It was combustible from the start.

Perhaps now, the only real surprise
is it took so long to implode.

But when Dominic Cummings left,
he left behind a government

full of turbulence, a system
that didn't really seem to work.

And as the months went by,
the effects of that would be felt

not just at home, but abroad.

NEWS REPORT:
Afghanistan has new masters.

20 years after their first
experiment in power

came to a shattering end,
the Taliban are back.

The Prime Minister's role
is absolutely critical.

Afghanistan is another example
of how Cabinet government

declined in the years after David
Cameron left as Prime Minister.

David Cameron set up
the National Security Council,

which brings together
all the key ministers, military

and intelligence chiefs.

That didn't really function
in the Kabul crisis,

the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The British had gone into
Afghanistan with the United States

after 9/11, but with troops
going home after 20 years,

the Taliban took the capital, Kabul,

much quicker
than anyone had expected.

Afghans who'd risked their lives
to work with the British forces

were targets and needed to escape.

Go.

To get them out, the Foreign Office
set up a crisis centre in London.

Civil servant Josie Stewart
offered to help.

There was no ability to prioritise
any of these people and

what very quickly ended up being,
what we actually did,

was search for and give updates
to politicians,

to ministers and MPs about
individuals that they knew

and cared about,
or that they knew personally,

or that their constituents
were lobbying them on,

high profile people
with connections.

What about us? We are working
with them, we support them.

Afghanistan was impossible.

It was an international disaster,

everywhere you look
in every single way.

And it was one of the worst
two weeks of my life

because you didn't sleep,
because you had a list of people

you needed to get out.

And it was fighting the system
and arguing

and working out
where these people were.

GUNSHOTS

We were spending our time
on the wrong things

and there was a terrifying
humanitarian crisis playing out.

Help, help, help!

The evacuation descended into chaos
and desperation on the ground,

thousands stranded
at Kabul airport.

But the Foreign Secretary, Dominic
Raab, was nowhere to be seen.

NEWS REPORT: Government officials
asked the Foreign Secretary,

Dominic Raab, on Friday to urgently
call his Afghan opposite number.

Mr Raab was not at his usual desk,
he was on holiday in Crete,

and the call was delegated
to a junior minister instead.

Labour said he should be sacked
or quit.

It was a complete abdication
of personal responsibility

not to come home.

The foremost job of the Foreign
Secretary is to support his people

and to make sure things get done,

and I will never accept
any reasoning for that.

It was wrong.

Raab dismissed his critics, claiming
he'd been working all along.

But he didn't need to worry.

Boris Johnson's response
was his usual -

stand by your supporters
as long as they support you.

But it wasn't long before Johnson
also came under attack.

With thousands still stranded
at Kabul airport,

a plane carrying animals
from Nowzad, a charity run

by a former British Marine,
headed to safety.

In the end, a plane left Kabul with
only one passenger, Pen Farthing,

and a load of dogs and cats.

As far as I'm aware, it was never
the case that there was any sort of

decision to prioritise animals
over people.

But there was a decision to evacuate
Nowzad's Afghan staff,

whom, according to policy,
were not priorities.

It was common belief in the crisis
centre that that decision

came from the Prime Minister,
Boris Johnson.

I saw emails confirming it had been
discussed with Number 10

and with the Cabinet Office.

Did you intervene that way?
No, that's complete nonsense.

Today, Boris Johnson again denied
he'd had a hand in it.

No, and that is absolutely...
This whole thing is total rhubarb.

Boris Johnson had announced publicly
that he had nothing to do with it

and did not make the decision.

And officials felt unable to say
that that was not true.

They could not say that
the Prime Minister was lying.

Josie Stewart voiced her concerns
about the evacuation to the media.

She was later sacked
by the Foreign Office.

Despite an MPs' inquiry finding
no alternative explanation,

Number 10 repeatedly denied any
involvement by the Prime Minister.

The Foreign Office argued
his association

was a communication error.

Boris Johnson himself hailed
the whole thing a great success.

I think that
the operation, Op Pitting,

to airlift 15,000 people out
of Kabul in the way that we did

over the summer was one of the
outstanding military achievements

of the, of the last 50 years
or more.

In policy terms and human terms
it was a horrible moment

for the Foreign Office,
and it is not possible to present

that evacuation
as any kind of success.

It was the Ministry of Defence who
had to go and rescue the situation.

So there are again important
lessons for the future.

We won't always be able to foresee
what is going to happen,

but the system should be able
to cope with it across departments.

The UK's reputation as a major power
had taken a serious hit

on Boris Johnson's watch.

He was looking less like a Prime
Minister with a historic opportunity

and more like a liability.

Yesterday, I went, as we all must,

to...Peppa Pig World.

I don't know if you've been
to Peppa Pig World?

Hands up, anybody
who's been to Peppa Pig World.

Not enough.

In the past, Boris Johnson had
happily and colourfully dismissed

business upset about Brexit.

After a bumpy time
as Prime Minister,

this speech to the CBI business
group was an important chance

to show he took industry seriously.

Erm...

Forgive me.

Forgive me.

This speech was so bizarre...

..and sort of Trumpian that, erm,

I think a lot of people
were quite shocked.

There were a lot of raised
eyebrows of people thinking,

"Is this a serious person?
I don't know."

I think the hardest part
is that he likes chaos,

so he doesn't want to be
organised particularly.

In your speech to the CBI, you lost
your notes, you lost your place.

You went off on a tangent
about Peppa Pig.

Frankly, is everything OK?

I think that... I think that people
got the vast majority of the points

I wanted to make. And I thought,
I thought it went over well.

Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you.

It looked more like a pantomime,
not the mastery of power.

LOUD CHEERING

Mr Speaker, I think he's lost
his place in his notes again.

LAUGHTER

The operation of British
government depends greatly

on how the Prime Minister of the day

exercises their functions
personally.

Whether they read the memos,
whether they chair the meeting,

the questions that they ask
every day.

The system responds to that.

And if that doesn't happen,

the system starts
to be all over the place.

And senior people in Downing Street
tell the BBC

it's just not working.

Is everything OK, Prime Minister?

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE:
Prime Minister.

We came in on a high supporting him,
believing in him,

hoping that he would break some
of the things that people hate most

about politics.

And the problem you had was
there was poor management

of the system.

There were people put in positions
of power who shouldn't have been.

The majority went to Boris's head

and it went to the head
of those around him.

I used to be a big believer
in the flexible power

of the Prime Minister.
What a fantastic thing that was.

And I'm not as big a believer
in that any more.

So I would absolutely strengthen
those kind of, the kind of

hard wiring bits of the state
and make sure that it was...

government had to be
more transparent.

People had to be more accountable,
the independent offices

have to be stronger and take
some of the kind of poison

out of the world in which we seem
to have accidentally fallen into.

There was never a question
about Boris Johnson's ability

to light up a campaign,

but there was always a question
about whether he was up to the job

or fit for office.

And that was asked again and again,

more and more loudly
as soon as he took charge.

He created an administration
that was casual about the rules

and the truth, and presided
over chaos just at the time

when the country needed
its government in crisis.

And the biggest irony - his election
when was meant to give us stability

we hadn't had for years.

But the reality -
with him in charge,

it rarely felt like that at all.

People do give him a second chance
and a third chance

and a fourth chance.

And that is down to sheer
force of personality.

It's amazing.

Some people have dogs like that,
and I don't want to compare

the Prime Minister to a dog,
but I've had dachshunds,

and no matter what my dachshund did,
no matter how many carpets he chewed

through, bluntly, how many curtains
he peed on and cocked his leg on,

you still loved him because he was
a dachshund and he's there.

And Boris has this amazing
sort of charm and ability.

"Oh, bloody hell, it's Boris again."

But it is Boris, you know. God!

Next time - Tory infighting
tears off Boris Johnson's crown.

We were getting a resignation
every half an hour.

After market mayhem,
the party's second Prime Minister

in just over 100 days
sacrifices her closest ally.

I said,
"This isn't going to save you.

"I think you've got
three weeks now."