Recent Tory ministers astonished and depressed that Rishi Sunak secretly met Dominic Cummings

Recent Tory ministers astonished and depressed that Rishi Sunak secretly met Dominic Cummings.

I spoke earlier today with two recent Tory ministers and one still serving, and they are all astonished and depressed that Rishi Sunak held those secret meetings with Dominic Cummings - which The Times disclosed and confirmed. “This is the worst possible start to the year,” said one. “At a time when the PM needs our personal loyalty more than ever, he’s alienated both wings of the party,” said another. Two of the three MPs said they had told Sunak explicitly to stay well away from Cummings, and they feel personally let down.

The third said that the meetings showed “yet again” that “Rishi may be able to do policy but he certainly can’t do politics - if he’d brought Cummings back into government, there would have been the mother of all revolts on our benches, so meeting him to discuss that prospect looks like the worst judgement.” Sunak is perhaps fortunate that the Commons won’t be sitting for eight days. Perhaps Tory tempers will have cooled by then.But as one illustration of the stakes, all three of these MPs feel personally compromised by Sunak’s bill to deem Rwanda a safe country, two because it tramples too much on human rights protections, one because it doesn’t trample enough on them.

None are now minded to swallow their principles to let the legislation through without changing it, and never mind the potential humiliation to Sunak. The PM’s hopes that election year would represent a new beginning in which his troops would rally enthusiastically behind him, and the carping would cease, look forlorn.

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