Liz Truss would make an “even worse” prime minister than Boris Johnson, former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings has said.
The strategist, who has been pushing Conservative MPs to oust his former boss, said the foreign secretary was “as close to properly crackers” as anybody he had met in parliament.
Despite the steady flow of backbenchers calling for change at No 10, Mr Cummings said many Tories had convinced themselves there was no-one better than Mr Johnson to lead the party.
“The Tory party itself is quite rotten now and the sign of that is that they can’t think of anyone better than Boris, who’s clearly just completely shot,” he said in an interview with the Unherd website.
“They are collectively saying, “if we get rid of him, we might get somebody worse”. It says a lot about the state of the Tory party.”
He added: “And they actually could get somebody worse: Liz Truss would be even worse than Boris. She’s about as close to properly crackers as anybody I’ve met in parliament.”
The PM’s former consigliere said chancellor Rishi Sunak had “blown himself up” and also dismissed cabinet minister Michael Gove’s chances of becoming leader – making it more likely that Mr Johnson will “somehow” survive.
“I don’t want to say “no chance”, but I think Rishi is out of the running,” he said in his interview with Suzanne Moore.
“They’re going to be thinking, who can win the next election? Whatever you might think of Michael Gove’s abilities, he is not a loved character.”
Mr Cummings also criticised the Partygate report from top civil servant Sue Gray, saying it was “a bit brazen” to ignore the alleged “Abba party” in the Johnsons’ Downing Street flat on 13 November 2020.
Claiming that “dozens” of staff downstairs could hear loud music in the flat on the evening he left No 10, Mr Cummings said: “All the police had to do was interview any one of them to find out”.
He added: “[Ms Gray] says she stopped investigating the party in the flat because the police got involved – even though the police didn’t then investigate it. So basically, they have sort of just said: “F*** this. We’re not going to get involved with the after-party on the night of the 13th.”
The Vote Leave campaign mastermind said he did not “feel bad” about going to work for Mr Johnson, saying: “If we didn’t go in and sort it out, Brexit wouldn’t happen, and there would be a second referendum.”
However, Mr Cummings said he knew there was “a reasonable chance that this goes t**s up” – before repeating his attacks on Carrie Johnson for “injecting more craziness” into Downing Street.
He also said Mr Johnson was “broke” after his divorce and couldn’t afford the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat. He claimed the PM told him: “I want to get donations in to do it. But obviously it’s bad PR so I have to keep it quiet.”
It comes as John Stevenson, MP for Carlisle, became the latest Tory to call on Mr Johnson to resign over the Partygate “revelations” – telling colleagues to “facilitate a vote of confidence” in his leadership.
Under party rules Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, must call a vote of confidence if 54 Tory MPs submit a letter calling for one.
Close to 30 Tory MPs have publicly called on the PM to stand down. But more than 40 MPs have openly questioned his future, although not all of them have said whether they have written to Sir Graham.
Former Tory leader William Hague said Mr Johnson was now “in real trouble”, predicting that a vote on his leadership could come as early as next week.
