A senior Conservative MP is expecting a return of “respect, integrity and trust” in Downing Street after the resignation of Boris Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings.
Sir Bernard Benkin, the chairman of the Commons Liaison Committee, was asked to give his view after reports Cummings would leave the heart of the government at the end of the year.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s an opportunity to reset how the government operates and to emphasise some values about what we want to project as a Conservative Party in government.
“I would suggest there are three words that need to become the watch words in Downing Street – they are respect, integrity and trust.
“Certainly in the relationship between the Downing Street machine and the parliamentary party there’s been a very strong sense that has been lacking in recent months.
“Now we hope the prime minister will choose people around him who will help him restore that relationship.”
He added: “I’m not surprised in a way that it is ending in the way it is. No prime minister can afford a single adviser to become a running story, dominating his government’s communications and crowding out the proper messages the government wants to convey.
“Nobody is indispensable.”
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