Dominic Cummings has received thousands of ‘weirdo’ applications – the shake-up is on track From Pret workers to university professors, candidates are queuing up to work at Number 10

This is not a conventional government. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings won the 2016 referendum running against the conventional wisdom. Three years on, they repeated the trick in the 2019 general election and they don’t intend to start playing by Westminster’s rules now they have a majority.

The clearest demonstration of this determination came on 2 January. Cummings published on his personal blog an appeal for “assorted weirdos” to apply for jobs at Number 10. This was unusual enough. But Cummings didn’t want them to send their application to Downing Street, but to a gmail address he had set up. You could almost hear the HR department having a heart attack.

Critics were quick to make fun of the 2,924-word blog which carried warnings of the effects of a political job on one’s love life (clue: non-existent) and the drastic need for a government comprised in part of “weirdos from William Gibson novels”. But three weeks later and this unconventional approach has yielded surprising results.

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That gmail account has been bombarded with applications – thousands upon thousands of entries have come in and continue to. They range from university professors to Pret a Manger workers – all offering themselves up as a unique perspective missing from the government machine.

Figures in Number 10 are now going through what will be a lengthy process, given the volume, to whittle them down. While they do so, we can expect the unconventional to continue to define the Government’s strategy in the months to come.

There’s a keen awareness both in No. 10 and No. 11 that the best time to be bold in the course of a majority government is the first year. If they don’t seize the opportunity now to do things differently, they will live to regret it when things become more complicated as the next election nears.

This is being deployed in several ways. The focus in Whitehall is on staffing and skill sets. As well as the job blog, the changes will affect current employees. There is a push away from the typical Westminster all-rounder types to individuals with specific skills. Expect to see No. 10 significantly increase its number of data scientists and physicists. There will also be a push to keep those with specialised knowledge in one department rather than moving them around frequently.

The point of an effective government machine is to allow Johnson to deliver on his priorities. Top of the list is Brexit.

You’ll rarely hear the b-word mentioned in Downing Street these days. Staff report sending in speeches for approval only to find the word has been removed without trace.

The Government is at pains to press the message that Brexit is done; Boris Johnson likes to joke that everyone needs to “banish Brexit” from their vocabulary.

But in order to make this a reality, significant work is required. Even with an efficient government machine, No. 10 don’t see the responsibility as fully on them. Where Theresa May would spend her time trying to reassure businesses and win them around, this Government sees the ball as in the court of UK business.

The Government message is that things are going to change and businesses need to adjust to that. In an interview over the weekend, the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, said there would be “no alignment” with the EU. By being clear, the view in No. 10 is that clarity of direction ought to be helpful even if it’s not businesses’ first choice.



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On immigration, a row is brewing over the Government’s plans to impose new restrictions on low-skilled migrants moving to Britain after the Brexit transition period ends. May had promised a temporary extension of the current rules until 2023. However, this Government feels no urge to dance to the tune of big business and instead plans to set the rules.

That sense of dominance can also be expected as the future of the BBC becomes a matter for debate. With the Tories keen to at the very least decriminalise not paying the licence fee, the corporation is the subject of Conservative criticism with ministers banned from appearing on a number of shows.

With director-general Tony Hall stepping down, there are questions over what direction it will now take and what role the Government will play. Although governments have been critical of the Beeb in the past, there’s a sense that Johnson’s team won’t back down in the way that others have.

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Johnson himself has had more than his share of run-ins with the BBC. After he won re-election as Mayor of London in 2012, he wrote that “sometimes felt that my chief opponent was the local BBC news”.

As a journalist and writer, he also understands that politics is downstream from culture. In 2012, he wrote that “if we can’t change the Beeb, we can’t change the country”. He wanted then a free market, pro-business voice to run it. Johnson won’t be able to pick the next director-general, but he will get to choose the next chairman of the BBC. Expect that to be someone who wants to move the BBC away from the license fee model.

But will this all really happen? Governments always begin with mighty ambitions that tend to be slowly dimmed by the realities of governing. Already one of the big plans of Johnson’s team – a complete reorganisation of Whitehall – has been dialled down.

However, it would be a mistake to read this as the Government backing away from a radical agenda. It’s a question of priorities, and this No. 10 does not think the Government works in its current form.

In order to remedy that, they believe a new approach is required. The number of people applying to Cummings’ job advert suggests there are plenty who agree.