Boris’s biggest call – whether to make Michael Gove deputy Prime Minister

The government cannot be said in the British system to be the Prime Minister’s government. It is the Queen’s, or King’s, government. The constitutional position is that Prime Minister serves merely at the pleasure of the monarch and although it is described, frequently and mistakenly, as the government of the occupant of Number 10, it isn’t. He or she is appointed by the Queen as her chief minister, usually after an election.

In the case of victorious Boris Johnson, cock of the walk, resplendent, triumphant, it is easy to make the mistake and think of it as his government to do with as he will, such is his dominance. Right now Johnson is an unusually powerful premier. It is – as a Reaction reader observed to me the other day – the first time since 2001, when Blair won his second landslide, that a British leader has been as free of constraints. After 2005, late period Blair was trapped in a post-Iraq bind with Chancellor Broon, Gordon Brown, glowering and demanding that he should step aside because… well, because Gordon in his spoilt brat way thought himself due the premiership by right.

Boris has more power, more scope to do as he wants, than any of them since Blair. More than Brown (a fag end Prime Minister) and Cameron (in coalition until 2015 and then up against it on the EU in 2016). For almost a year Theresa May seemed all powerful but she had inherited a small majority and had only the most limited capacity for campaigning and maintaining her grip. After the 2017 election when she lost her majority, her own fault, she was ruined.

Boris was the boy whose childhood ambition was to be world king. He’s king now.

“He will never be more powerful. He can do whatever he wants,” says a nervous minister.

All Westminster knows it. As the place awaits the imminent reshuffle of the cabinet everything is in suspended animation. Fatalistic cabinet ministers wait to find out if they will be executed by order of Number 10. Senior civil servants are busy trying to demonstrate to the centre that they can deliver the surge of energy and reorganisation that is demanded by the team around the Prime Minister.

Soon all the players, and those of us watching the drama, will know which characters have been eliminated and who will survive to appear in the next series.

One day the consensus is that Boris will be brutal in sacking ministers and show no loyalty to close associates. The next day the consensus is different. Perhaps he will be less radical and more cautious, and fire fewer colleagues.

There has been a widespread expectation that Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, will be whacked. Rees-Mogg was banished by the Tory leadership during the general election for appearing on radio and being baffled that the victims of the Grenfell disaster had not ignored the instructions of the fire brigade and left the burning building.

Removing him would be an error. Not only has Rees-Mogg learnt from his mistakes (he will not be caught lounging flat out on the government front bench again as he did before the election) he is also someone it would be unwise to put on the backbenches for five years to lead the hardline Tories who will be furious with Boris if there is a sell-out in the next phase of the negotiations with the European Union.

The assumption is that this government is 100% rebellion-proof with a majority of 80. Do not bet on that. A dominant government need not lose votes in the Commons to suffer damage to its authority – it just needs its majority cut substantially to lose its sheen of invincibility.

So Johnson has power but he must be mindful of the risks in case public sentiment shifts, which it will at some point, or the economy tanks.

In truth, the only person who really knows what he is about to do to his colleagues, and to the departmental dispensation, is Johnson. Even those at the recent meetings held with the Prime Minister to discuss the future shape of the government do not know for sure what is in his head and what he will do.

“Boris does not give untrammelled power to anyone, to any advisor,” says a minister. “He decides.”

The critical decision in front of Johnson is not the hyped question of whether to restructure Whitehall’s departments, shuffling the aid department, DFID, or putting business in with something or other, or turning the Treasury upside down.

The main call will be whether or not to appoint Michael Gove Deputy Prime Minister. To ask Gove to help him drive the government.

Contrary to the claims of his enemies, Johnson is not a slacker. Colleagues say he works hard. But his generalist, optimistic style is such that he is going to need someone at the heart of government alongside him dedicated to years of delivery and implementation. This government is supposed to rebalance the country, kick start the sluggish economy, save the Union with Scotland, define a new foreign and defence policy, and handle the aftermath of departure from the EU. Right now, it sounds hectic and chaotic in there. A strong deputy based in the cabinet office, to handle cabinet committees and monitor reform, seems like a good idea. Gove is the obvious candidate.

This is tricky for Johnson, and not just because Gove stood against Boris twice for the Conservative leadership. Johnson’s chief of staff is Dominic Cummings, formerly chief of staff and fixer to Gove when he was Education Secretary.

Throughout most of the Gove-Cummings collaboration and friendship, Gove was the senior partner and Cummings, the advisor, the junior partner. During the referendum campaign, when Cummings ran Vote Leave with Matthew Elliott, they were equals.

For the last six months, since Cummings arrived as Johnson’s disruptive chief of staff in Number 10, he has been the senior partner above Gove. Cummings controls the special advisors across Whitehall and he is quoted as saying that a revolution is coming. As an elected politician, Gove’s radicalism is tempered with more realism about the limits of what is possible, a state of mind born of meeting and having talked to voters.

Behind the scenes, so far Cummings has not been half as disruptive as the hype suggests. Civil servants says that he has been for the most part thoughtful, considered and interested in seeking their help on reform. But he has what he has long sought – the Number 10 machine to play with and a lot of attention and power.

Will he now be content to see that diluted with an appointment making Gove second in command? Or will Johnson seek to create an arrangement which balances the talents of Gove and Cummings, utilising them both in a structure that endures?

This critical call – put Gove in as his deputy to help drive government, or entrust the greatest control to wild card Cummings – will tell us in the next few days what kind of administration Boris envisages running.