Dominic Cummings calls for ‘weirdos’ to apply for Downing Street jobs

Dominic Cummings Credit: Yui Mok/PA

Boris Johnson’s key adviser Dominic Cummings has called for “weirdos” to apply for jobs in Downing Street as he seeks to overhaul decision-making in Government.

Mr Cummings posted an apparent job advert on Thursday saying Number 10 wants to hire an “unusual set of people with different skills and backgrounds” to work as special advisers and potentially officials.

The blog post exceeding 2,900 words came amid reports that the Prime Minister is planning “seismic changes” to the civil service.

Mr Cummings, a former Vote Leave director, said he hopes to be made “largely redundant” within a year by the recruitment drive.

He called for officials including “weirdos and misfits with odd skills”, data scientists and policy experts to apply to a gmail account if they think they fit the bill.

Mr Cummings warned that there is “some profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions” and that he currently makes decisions “well outside” his “circle of competence”.

And he says the need for change comes with Brexit requiring large policy and decision-making structure changes and a Government with an 80-strong majority having “little need to worry about short-term unpopularity”.

Under a subsection on hiring “super-talented weirdos”, he writes that the Government needs “some true wild cards, artists, people who never went to university and fought their way out of an appalling hell hole”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson with his senior aide Dominic Cummings. Credit: Victoria Jones/PA

Mr Cummings’ post came after Rachel Wolf, who helped draw up the blueprint of Tory election pledges, said civil servants could be made to take regular exams to prove they are up to their Whitehall jobs.

Under “seismic” changes being planned by Number 10, she also said that civil servants are “woefully unprepared” for sweeping reforms that Mr Johnson is keen to push through.

Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, which represents senior civil servants, warned that the PM’s allies are exhibiting a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the modern civil service.