Boris Johnson stokes Dominic Cummings row by comparing himself to Shakespeare’s tragic hero OTHELLO being brought down by his Iago-like former top aide turned arch critic
- PM made the allusion to furious Tory MPs at a Commons showdown last night
- Othello is an honourable general manipulated and destroyed by a jealous aide
- Cummings has alleged the PM broke the law by attending lockdown parties
- Has branded Johnson a ‘babbling f***wit’ without ‘the balls’ to stand up to Carrie
Boris Johnson stoked his bitter row with former top aide Dominic Cummings last night by comparing himself to Shakespeare’s tragic hero Othello.
The PM made the allusion to furious Tory MPs in the aftermath of the Sue Gray Partygate report, which revealed police are investigating multiple events in Downing Street he attended personally.
William Shakespeare’s tragic Jacobean masterpiece is a study of jealousy, passion and race.
The titular character is an honourable black military commander who is brutally manipulated by his bitter white subordinate Iago into murdering his beautiful new wife Desdemona, after being conned into believing she has been unfaithful.
It is one of the Bard’s most popular plays, with the title role being played previously by stars including Sir Lenny Henry, James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Famous names to have played Iago include Daniel Craig, Ewan McGregor, Kenneth Branagh, Sir Ian McKellan and Christopher Plummer.
The comment came as Mr Johnson addressed the backbench 1922 Committee of Tory MPs last night, the Times reported.
Mr Cummings, who was sacked in December 2020 after losing a No10 power struggle with the PM’s wife Carrie, has emerged as one of his fiercest critics.
He has made a string of allegations about Downing Street parties now being probed by the Metropolitan Police.
Earlier this week he used an American magazine article to brand Mr Johnson a ‘babbling f***wit’ who has not ‘got the balls’ to stand up to his ‘forceful’ wife Carrie.
The PM made the allusion to furious Tory MPs in the aftermath of the Sue Gray Partygate report, which revealed police are investigating multiple events in Downing Street he attended personally.
Mr Cummings, who was sacked in December 2020 after losing a No10 power struggle with the PM’s wife Carrie, has emerged as one of his fiercest critics.
Othello is one of the Bard’s most popular plays, with the title role being played previously by stars including Sir Lenny Henry (above), James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Shakespeare’s classic study of jealousy and passion
Othello is a timeless tale of jealousy, passion, race and deceit.
Thought to have been written by William Shakespeare around 1603 it is set in the contemporary Mediterranean.
Othello is a Moorish commander in the army of the powerful Republic of Venice who is sent to defend Cyprus from an invasion by the Ottoman Empire.
Willard White and Sir Ian McKellan as Othello and Iago in 1989
He takes with him his new wife Desdemona, who is young, beautiful, rich and white.
Also part of his top team is Iago, a soldier who harbours a furious bitter jealousy of his boss, fuelled by being passed over for promotion.
A top manipulator, Iago sets up Othello for a fall by deceiving his normally stoic and honorable commander into believing Desdemona is being unfaithful.
In an unusual fit of rage Othello murders his wife, before Iago’s deception is uncovered by his own wife Emilia.
A distraught Othello commits suicide, while Iago is arrested to face justice.
The play is believed to have popularised the phrase ‘the green-eyed monster’ to describe jealousy.
In a rare interview, the former No10 chief swiped that the PM saw himself as a ‘king’ or ‘Roman emperor’ and only cared about big infrastructure projects that would act as monuments to himself.
But he swiped that in reality the Tory leader was a ‘f***wit’ obsessed with ‘babbling’ to the media rather than ‘important’ policy problems.
Mr Cummings said Mrs Johnson had been running a ‘disastrous’ shadow briefing regime from their No11 flat, and his former boss was unable to tell her ‘I’m prime minister’.
The intervention, in an interview with New York magazine, came as Mr Johnson awaited the verdict of top civil servant Sue Gray and the police on Partygate allegations.
Mr Cummings has been instrumental in stoking the crisis for the PM, having highlighted a series of potential lockdown breaches at No10.
He told the magazine that he viewed getting rid of Mr Johnson as ‘an unpleasant but necessary job’. ‘It’s like sort of fixing the drains,’ he said.
The maverick ex-adviser said Mr Johnson had been useful for delivering Brexit and defeating Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
‘But after that what’s the point of him and Carrie just rattling around in there and f***ing everything up for everyone and not doing the job properly?’ he added.
Mr Johnson is still desperately trying to quell Tory Partygate fury today as MPs accuse him of running No10 like a ‘medieval court’ and warn he should be ‘very worried’ about a coup.
The PM is leaving the pressure cooker of Westminster on a diplomatic mission to Ukraine after a stripped back version of the Sue Gray report was published yesterday – but still revealed that he is being investigated by police over four breaches of lockdown law.
Mr Johnson suffered a mauling from a slew of Conservatives in the Commons, with Theresa May demanding to know if he thought the rules ‘didn’t apply’ to him, and former Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell saying the premier had lost his support.
Mr Mitchell stepped up his attack this morning warning that the row was ‘like battery acid corroding the party’ and condemning Mr Johnson’s leadership style.
‘One of the most interesting things that the Prime Minister said yesterday is that we must look at ourselves in the mirror,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘The truth is that it is he who needs to look at himself in the mirror.
‘These sorts of things never happened and would never happen under Mrs Thatcher, can you imagine it having happened under Mrs May?’
Even normally-loyal MPs conceded that the PM’s response in the chamber was a ‘car crash’, although Mr Johnson appeared to buy himself some time with a more conciliatory performance at a private meeting with his rank and file last night.
Writing in the Times, Lord Hague criticised Mr Johnson for getting the tone wrong, saying he should have ‘acknowledged that the buck stops with him’ and ought to be ‘very worried about the number of his own MPs who asked unhelpful questions’.
‘Instead of reinforcing the momentum in his favour, he quite possibly stalled it. If I were him, I would be very worried about the number of his own MPs who asked unhelpful questions at the end of his statement.’
The looming verdict from Scotland Yard – which is sifting through more than 300 photos of Whitehall bashes and could interview both Mr Johnson and wife Carrie within days – could provide a moment of truth for the premier, but he has also been forced to agree that a full, unredacted version of Ms Gray’s report after the criminal process concludes.
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