 Boris Johnson is currently under fire due to leaked texts sent between himself and British businessman James Dyson in the text. Johnson said he could fix a tax issue which Dyson claimed was a barrier to his firm entering the ventilator challenge during Britain's first wave of the pandemic. Now, Boris Johnson defended the texts. He said he was just doing everything in his power to get ventilators out in the middle of a pandemic, but it's difficult for them because obviously it seems at this point in time, like basically we have government by WhatsApp. If you're friends with the government, you can get stuff done. If you're not, you're going to struggle. Because this Dyson story was feeding into this narrative of sleaze, many people believe the Downing Street operation did something we call a dead cat strategy that's throwing a different dramatic revelation on the table so that newspapers talk about something else. And on Thursday night, so last night, they made the dramatic decision to point the finger at Dominic Cummings for making these leaks, for leaking the Dyson text. So they're saying, let's stop focusing on the contents of these leaks and start focusing on who's leaked them. And they said it's all Dominic Cummings. They said Dominic Cummings had not only leaked the texts with Dyson, but had also been the one to leak details of the October lockdown to Britain's newspapers. Now, if this was a dead cat strategy, if the aim was to distract from awkward issues about cronyism or sleaze, it worked. Cumming accused of leaking number 10 texts. The sun has gone for Boris Dom's a text maniac. And the Times went for Cummings is accused of leaking PM's texts. So they've completely shifted the news narrative, not to be about sleaze, but to be about personality and especially Dominic Cummings, someone the press loves to talk about in the short term successful. However, in the medium term, potentially starting a war with Dominic Cummings, someone who likes a battle and also has quite a lot of dirt on Boris Johnson, wasn't necessarily a great idea. So Dominic Cummings today wrote a blog published a blog, responding to the allegations, we're going to go through some of the claims he makes now he's rebuts the allegations one by one. So first of all, on the Dyson texts, he says, this is the text between Boris Johnson and James Dyson. I do have some WhatsApp messages between the PM Dyson forwarded to me by the PM. I have not found the ones that were leaked to Laura Coonsburg on my phone, nor am I aware of being sent them last year. I was not directly or indirectly a or the source for the BBC Coonsburg story on the PM Dyson texts. And later on in that section, he writes, I am happy to meet with the cabinet secretary and for him to search my phone for Dyson messages. If the PM did send them to me as he is claiming, then he will be able to show the cabinet secretary on his phone when they were sent to me, it will therefore be easy to establish at least if I was ever sent these messages. So Dominic Cummings sounds quite confident that he can clear his name on the issue of the Dyson texts. That would potentially be embarrassing for the PM because they'd brief something false. I mean, it'd be survivable, wouldn't it? There was a rebuttal to a second point, though, which could be pretty damaging for Boris Johnson, I think. This was the one, the claim that the Downing Street source made last night to so many newspapers that Dominic Cummings was not only the source of these Dyson, Boris Johnson texts, but also the source of a leak in October about a lockdown. So you might remember the situation. It was fairly dramatic. The government looked pretty weak and in crisis because they had a meeting about a lockdown. It got briefed to the papers instead of being told to us by the politicians. Everyone was pretty angry. Now, there was at the time an inquiry into this leak, and it was led by the cabinet secretary. So it's kind of the top civil servant in government. And Cummings is saying, look, this wasn't me because an inquiry was launched by the cabinet secretary and he cleared me. Not only did he clear me, you were in the meeting and in the meeting where we were in about that inquiry with the top civil servant, he said, it wasn't me, Dominic Cummings. It was actually Henry Newman. Now, Henry Newman, you might not have heard of him. He's a different advisor to Boris Johnson. So someone else who works in number 10. What happens next is interesting because Cummings writes that after Johnson was told this news, he said, or he was, he says, the PM was very upset about this. He said to me afterwards, if Newman is confirmed as the leaker, then I will have to fire him. And this will cause me very serious problems with Carrie as their best friends. Perhaps we could get the cabinet secretary to stop the leaking inquiry. So Boris Johnson essentially saying, look, there's an official investigation going on by a politically neutral civil servant into a matter of government. It's quite important who's leaking COVID policy before it's being delivered through the proper public health channels. And he's saying, oh, if we point the finger at that guy, it will upset my girlfriend. So therefore, let's quash the whole thing. Now, you might say, look, this is just one one person's word against another. Should we believe Dominic Cummings? He's obviously got an axe to grind. Let's go to what's next in the blog. Dominic Cummings writes, I told him that this was mad and totally unethical, that he had ordered the inquiry himself and authorized the cabinet secretary to use more invasive methods than are usually applied to leak inquiries because of the seriousness of the leak. I told him that he could not possibly cancel an inquiry about a leak that affected millions of people just because it might implicate his girlfriend's friends. I refused to try to persuade the cabinet secretary to stop the inquiry. And instead, I encouraged the cabinet secretary to conduct the inquiry without any concern for political ramifications. I told the cabinet secretary that I would support him regardless of where the inquiry led. I warned some officials that the PM was thinking about canceling the inquiry. They would give evidence to this effect under oath to any inquiry. I also have WhatsApp messages with very senior officials about this matter, which are definitive. So there he's saying he's got this juicy claim that Boris Johnson tried to quash a leak inquiry because it was pointing to a friend of his girlfriend and saying, I've got the WhatsApp messages to prove it. He's saying I've got the evidence and he's constantly sort of inferring throughout this blog that he will reveal it when he gives evidence before MPs. There's one more revelation we're going to go to in a moment. First of all, Aaron, what do you make of this blog? It's such a tough one, Michael, because on face value, Boris Johnson versus Dominic Cummings, in terms of who has more credible testimony, who would you trust? It's like being made to choose between, I mean, I'm trying to think of compulsive lies. But effectively, neither comes with a strong kind of character references, and they also have a history of lying at the very highest level, Dominic Cummings most memorably around a year ago in regards to Barnard Castle and so on and so forth. What I find fascinating for me, and maybe, I mean, you're going to peel this back and go to, I think, a story which I think is probably the biggest one of the lot in this blog. But this will lead on BBC, you know, not World at One, but PM, 6 o'clock news, News Night, it'll be, you know, bigger over the weekend. But for me, I mean, I think just comparing it to the other stories that we're talking about tonight, I think we should talk about it because it's going to shape the political context of British politics and Tory infighting is a big variable if they want to keep power, obviously. But it's just not a big story compared to the Biden on climate change, what's going on in India, and so much more. I think where it does is very potentious. It kind of could have real importance going forward is, you know, to what extent are we going to see a breakdown in relations between vote-leaf Tories and kind of establishment Tories that came together behind Boris Johnson. Because of course, if that happens, he will struggle to, he will struggle to A, govern and B to win another election. And I don't say that as somebody who thinks Labour, you know, in with a strong chance of winning next time. But that was the coalition he brought together in December 2019 and really talented campaigners and strategists obviously around vote-leaf, Lee Kain, Dominic Cummings, Matthew Elliott. And so if this gets really bitter and rancorous, that's only bad for number 10, and it's only bad for Tories if they're seeking re-election. Now, I mean, to respond to a couple of those points, I mean, of course, this is not as important as a COVID crisis or climate change. But there are some revelations in this. And again, I agree that no one's going to take Dominic Cummings as his word, he's going to have to, you know, provide the receipts. But if he can provide the receipts, I think potentially this could do some damage because unlike those text messages to businesses during the COVID crisis, when Boris Johnson can say, look, we're in a pandemic, I was trying to get ventilators made, even though Dyson didn't make any ventilators, but he can say at least I was trying to get ventilators made, or I was trying to get PPE. That's why I gave this contract to my friend. You know, he's got an excuse there and the public, you know, contracting stuff is very complex. I barely understand it. And I'm a political commentator. I shouldn't say, I mean, I have a reasonable understanding because I try and explain it to you. But what I'm saying is it's not something that's that immediate. Whereas, I mean, trying to intervene in an investigation to protect your girlfriend, I think that's a bit more easily understandable. So if Dominic Cummings can provide the receipts, I think that could be awkward. Again, obviously, the big variable here is do the press want to go to war with the Conservative Party over this? I think quite unlikely at this point in time. They did in the 90s because, you know, they were one rather board of John Major and also they were really, really confident having Tony Blair in power because he basically won all the billionaire class over. Will that happen now? Keir Starmer's not quite there yet, although he's trying, the final bit of awkward information from that blog. I think this is what Aaron thinks is most damaging. This concerns Boris Johnson's Downing Street flat. So this was renovated at a cost of £200,000. And it's alleged that part of that was paid for by Tory donors. There's lots of claims and counterclaims about this at this point in time. But on that issue, Dominic Cummings writes, read the flat. The Prime Minister's DOC, that's Director of Communications, has also made accusations regarding me and the leaks concerning the PM's renovation of his flat. The PM stopped speaking to me about this matter in 2020. As I told him, I thought his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were on ethical, foolish, possibly illegal, and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations. If conducted in the way he intended, I refused to help him organize these payments. My knowledge about them is therefore limited. I would be happy to tell the Cabinet Secretary or Electoral Commission what I know concerning this matter. Aaron, you think this is the really damaging one? I mean, I can see why. If this was written down in black and white that Boris Johnson wanted to secretly have it funded or paid for by donors and Dominic Cummings was saying, no, that's completely unethical and Boris Johnson does it anyway. I mean, that's pretty damaging to his integrity, isn't it? But also, I mean, you've got a former sort of close advisor saying, I think this is illegal. That's a big claim. Even if it's not illegal, the frame there is that former advisor says to Prime Minister in office, you shouldn't do this, it's probably breaking the law. He does it anyway. He's now saying he's willing to talk potentially to the Electoral Commission. And again, look, the Electoral Commission kind of toothless and do much. But this stuff can, it has done in the past, led to criminal charges. That's not going to happen here. But when you start talking about legality and the Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission, this isn't just, oh, he said, she said, that's a serious accusation. Like you say, Michael, if he can bring receipts, and if there are sort of ancillary witnesses with testimonies which kind of stack up, then yeah, Boris Johnson has problems.