Dominic Cummings claims Boris Johnson offered him peerage
Dominic Cummings has claimed that Boris Johnson offered him a seat in the House of Lords as he was leaving Downing Street last year.
Cummings said the Prime Minister “almost immediately started laughing” after he made the offer and that the Prime Minister “realised that that was not exactly the sort of thing that would buy me off”.
“All reports about me getting big payoffs are all false,” he said.
Cummings left his position as chief aide to Johnson in December last year after he and director of communications Lee Cain were ousted amidst Downing Street infighting.
He was at the centre of an internal power struggle, with Carrie Johnson helping to oust Cummings and Cain.
In recent months the former Vote Leave mastermind has made a series of damaging claims about the Prime Minister and his ability to lead the country.
The former Number 10 aide claimed the Prime Minister said repeatedly that his wife was driving him “crackers” throughout last year.
Recounting Johnson’s comments to the Spectator, Cummings said: “We’ve got to find her a job with lots of foreign travel. Could we get the Cabinet Secretary to give her a job on COP26, travelling round with Kate Middleton?”
In July, Cummings said in an explosive Substack email that in 2019 before becoming his chief aide he thought “the problems of Boris as PM can be partly mitigated by us, given we understand Whitehall much better than him and understand effective political action much better than him and the Conservative Party”.
Cummings said he also went to work for Johnson in government in order to get a Brexit deal through parliament and to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.
He said a second referendum and a Corbyn Number 10 would be far more damaging than having Johnson in office.
Cummings told the BBC last month that he and others were plotting to remove Johnson from office just weeks after the 2019 election.