If Dominic Cummings had leaked, he should have been praised for promoting open government

The prime minister’s adviser has hit back at claims that he is responsible for recent leaks. John Rentoul says that whoever it was performed a public service

Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, has now got his revenge (Getty)

Boris Johnson was unwise to speculate – if that is what he did – that Dominic Cummings might be behind the recent leaks from the heart of his government, including his own text exchanges with Sir James Dyson. The prime minister was right to fear that his former chief adviser was disaffected and might seek to damage him. But the recent leaks are not really Cummings’s style. His style, as we have now discovered, is a blistering full-frontal assault on his blog.

The leaks – about Sir James, David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of Greensill Capital, and even about the refurbishment of the No 11 flat – are nothing like as serious as the revelations contained in Cummings’s damning inside account – particularly where he describes telling Johnson that “his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended”.

If it is true that Johnson authorised his staff to accuse Cummings of being responsible for the previous, covert leaks, he clearly misjudged his former adviser. Not only did it seem unlikely that Cummings had been responsible, but the wrongful accusation was guaranteed to provoke much more damaging retribution. On the external evidence, the leaks appear to have been motivated by a concern for transparent and honest government – the kind of thing that might bother a propriety-minded civil servant more than a swashbuckling political adviser.