Boris Johnson urged to reject 'firing squad' approach to Whitehall

Boris Johnson has been urged by a former cabinet colleague to abandon his apparent inclination to implement Whitehall changes by “firing squad”.

David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, was speaking in response to a front-page story in the Sunday Telegraph claiming that Johnson has a hitlist of three senior permanent secretaries that he wants to replace.

Downing Street has refused to comment on the story, which is based on quotes from two unnamed Tory sources and identifies Sir Tom Scholar, head of the Treasury, Sir Philip Rutnam, head of the Home Office, and Sir Simon McDonald, head of the Foreign Office, as being in the firing line.

All governments have used unattributable briefings, but under Johnson there has been a marked increase in the prevalence of stories quoting unnamed government figures making threatening or pejorative comments about the administration’s critics, including figures in the civil service, the judiciary, the House of Lords and the BBC.

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Generally the Downing Street press office tends not to confirm these stories with on the record comments – although at Westminster they do tend to be read closely on the assumption that, even if they don’t come from Johnson personally, they reflect the views of his most senior aides.

In an interview for the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Davis, who served in cabinet with Johnson when the latter was foreign secretary, said that although he thought there were “issues to resolve” in the civil service, he thought No 10 was going about it the wrong way.

“You don’t solve a piece of managerial reform with a firing squad, that’s not the way to do it,” Davis said.

“There are ways of making government work better, there are ways of making the permanent secretaries behave better but it doesn’t involve making hitlists.”

According to the Sunday Telegraph claims, Scholar is unpopular with No 10 because the Treasury has been opposed to Brexit, Rutnam because he is seen as obstructive, and McDonald because he fell out with Johnson when he was foreign secretary.