DAN HODGES: Casting out Team Carrie is like being on the Titanic and hurling deckchairs at the iceberg
It appeared to be the end of Team Carrie. As Boris fought to save his premiership, it was reported one of her key allies, Henry Newman, had been shunted out of No 10.
In a ‘mutually agreed decision with the Prime Minister’, Newman would be returning to work with his old boss Michael Gove.
But many in Westminster were concerned it was a smokescreen. As one Minister told me: ‘Henry’s based in Marsham Street now. That’s about a thousand yards down the road.
Carrie Johnson speaking at the annual LGBT+ pride reception hosted in partnership with Stonewall at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester last year
‘He can still wander round to the flat to see Carrie any time he wants. Nothing’s really changed.’
Actually, it has. Newman’s move – and the infighting attending it – has highlighted a conflict at the heart of Johnson’s Government.
Should it pursue the liberal, One Nation agenda favoured by his influential wife and her allies? Or should it return to the true-blue Tory messages that saw Boris break the Brexit logjam and deliver Election triumph?
For a number of Red Wall Tory MPs, Newman’s return to Gove’s side at the department delivering the Levelling Up agenda has made the toxic situation inside Government worse. One Red Waller told me: ‘A big part of our problem is all this green stuff [about climate change].
‘And that’s being pushed by Newman and the inner-London clique around Carrie. They just don’t understand Red Wall voters.
‘And until that group goes, this whole thing is going to keep spiralling.’
A No 10 insider attests to Newman’s influence: ‘He was responsible for pushing the trans rights agenda through Carrie.
‘And he’s also blown up efforts to find ways of getting round the European Convention on Human Rights.’
Friends of Newman and the Prime Minister’s wife forcefully reject reports that they have been running what their enemies describe as ‘a shadow government’.
As one told me: ‘The stuff Henry gets blamed for is crackers. He didn’t really work on Brexit in No 10 or [the drive to get carbon emissions to] net zero.
‘On LGBT [rights] he didn’t come up with the idea of banning LGBT conversion therapy – it had been Government policy since 2018.
‘Now he’s being told he’s bad for the Red Wall. Honestly, it’s mad and totally unfair.’
A Minister who has worked closely with Newman added: ‘The idea there is this cohesive group operating like some old-school communist cell in the heart of government, all with their own rigid line and agenda, is a fantasy.
Boris Johnson with Carrie, pictured last October, after he delivered his speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester
‘Henry isn’t this great Svengali. He’s very talented and able, but he’s one adviser. It’s the PM and Michael who are setting the Levelling Up agenda. And the course is set.’
Perhaps it is. But the stories about the way in which Carrie Johnson and her inner circle have had a destabilising impact on Boris’s official political operation are legion. And they pre-date entering No 10.
‘A lot of it goes back to the leadership election,’ one senior campaign adviser told me, ‘and that night Boris and Carrie had their row, and the police were called. Some of Boris’s main advisers told him she was causing him too many problems, and he had to cut her loose. She never forgave them for that.’
Carrie Johnson’s allies don’t dispute there were tensions on the campaign trail. But they say they were a reflection of the jealousy members of the City Hall team that worked with Boris as London Mayor had at their influence being questioned.
They say the strain also reflected Carrie’s concern Boris had become too dependent on the advice of older, socially conservative men with a narrow outlook.
It’s this influence Mrs Johnson was supposedly attempting to counterbalance with the establishment of a team of young, diverse advisers inside No 10. But it immediately created friction.
One Downing Street staffer told me: ‘She’d say “I’m with The Gays up in the flat. Can you come up?”‘ It was meant as an affectionate nickname, but I’m told it made a number of aides uncomfortable.
Carrie attending the annual LGBT+ pride reception last October. One Downing Street staffer told Dan Hodges she would say: ‘I’m with The Gays up in the flat. Can you come up?’
Something that made people even more uncomfortable was the manner in which Team Carrie quickly began to clash with other senior staffers over policy, political strategy and communications.
What alarmed Ministers and advisers was how frequently Boris would be dragged into an internal briefing war.
‘Team Carrie would tell the PM they knew from friendly journalists who was planting stories against him,’ one Minister told me, ‘and sometimes they’d be right. But other times they’d be wrong. And occasionally it would be deliberately wrong to stir up divisions and settle scores.’
This Reservoir Dogs-style face-off exploded over a report that Dilyn – Boris and Carrie’s rescue dog – had run amok at Chequers, causing more than £1,000 damage.
Incredibly, Boris was told a member of his family was responsible for the briefing. ‘It was a nightmare,’ one of the PM’s ministerial allies told me.
‘His press team were telling people Carrie was pointing the finger at someone in his family. Carrie was saying the press team had briefed it themselves, and were blaming his family to cover it up. The whole thing was farcical.’
But it was differences over policy that caused the deepest divisions. When Dan Rosenfield was appointed Downing Street chief of staff, he was co-opted into a move by members of Team Carrie to replace Boris’s policy chief Munira Mirza with Newman. A plan that backfired in comical fashion.
‘Rosenfield wasn’t properly across who the key players in No 10 were,’ a Minister told me.
‘So he went up to Dougie Smith [a senior Boris adviser] and said, “I’m thinking of advising the PM to move Munira and get Henry into the policy unit. What do you think?” And Dougie replied, “Dan, I think you should know Munira is my wife.”‘
Ten days ago Mirza resigned, citing Boris’s criticism of Sir Keir Starmer for his failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
Boris being kissed by Carrie at the 2019 Conservative Party Conference in Manchester
But the issues went much deeper. Issues Boris’s ‘shadow whipping operation’ has been frantically trying to resolve.
Last week, MPs were being told Team Carrie was being disbanded. Others were even briefed about a plan for Carrie to move out of No 10 and into another grace-and-favour building.
All of which wouldn’t so much represent a shuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic, as hurling them at the iceberg in the hope it will go away.
Henry Newman. Team Carrie. Carrie herself. They are handy scapegoats. Yes, the claim issued last week by her spokeswoman that she ‘has no role in government’ is false. But it’s not her government.
Part of the problem is that Carrie Johnson and her allies are trapped in an Influence Loop. If they take an interest in an issue, Ministers and their aides assume they are successfully selling that issue to Boris.
In turn, they respond by driving it up the agenda of their department. At which point perceptions of Team Carrie’s influence are enhanced. And myth and reality merge.
Another problem is Boris’s personality. Ask any Minister and you will hear how they walk away from every meeting convinced he is backing their agenda. And when he changes course – as he does – they seek someone to blame.
Boris and Carrie shared a moment after he delivered his keynote speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester last year
Someone who is a softer target than their own boss. A green agenda. A pro-trans agenda.
It’s convenient to point the finger at the Prime Minister’s wife – or her friends – for foisting woke metropolitanism upon them.
But those who recall Boris sporting his pink stetson at London Pride, or still do daily battle with his labyrinth of cycle lanes, knows those issues are dear to his heart.
Which is why those MPs face a dilemma. Reports of the death of Team Carrie may have been exaggerated. But even if they have not, a disbandment would not change the fundamentals.
If the Tory Party wants an end to the net-zero drive or to engineer a rethink on trans rights as it battles to shore up its Red Wall, fine.
But it’s going to have to stop scapegoating Carrie Johnson and her allies – and muster the courage to stand up to the Prime Minister himself.
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