He’s the state-educated ex-journalist who once dressed as a chicken to chase David Cameron around the country but went on to be his successor’s media supremo.
Lee Cain is a rare everyman figure in the blue-blooded hierarchy of Old Etonian Boris Johnson’s No 10 operation before his decision last night to quit as director of communications.
His rise to become one of a limited number of people with the Prime Minister’s ear was stark but he was a divisive figure whose brash style saw him make enemies among Tory politics’ more well-heeled operators.
Mr Cain, who grew up in Ormskirk, a town in West Lancashire close to Liverpool, has developed a reputation as an ardent Brexiteer and helped forge Mr Johnson’s tough stance last year which saw him controversially prorogue parliament in an attempt to prevent pro-Remain MPs blocking a no-deal departure.
He was a key member of a coterie of Vote Leave ‘lads’ installed at the heart of Downing Street when Mr Johnson took power in the summer of 2019.
Having successfully started Britain down the road to leaving the EU by winning the 2016 referendum, the hardcore of the brains behind the Brexiteer organisation fronted by Mr Johnson followed him into No10.
The hardcore of the group was a male quartet; Dominic Cummings, Cain, Oliver Lewis and Rob Oxley, aka Dom, Caino, Sonic and Roxstar.
With a game plan of completely shaking up the internal operations of Downing Street, they formed an inner circle that has been accused of throttling access to the Prime Minister and gaining almost total control over the levers of power.
This set them on a collision path with ministers and MPs, as well as other advisers, especially as Brexit and then the coronavirus pandemic threatened to overwhelm the Government.
And eventually they came together to force him out last night. And the Ormskirk Grammar and Stafford University graduate was apparently forced out by a group including Carrie Symonds, Mr Johnson’s privately-educated fiancee.
Lee Cain (pictured today) is a rare everyman figure in the blue-blooded hierarchy of Boris Johnson’s No 10 operation before his decision last night to quit as director of communications
The hardcore of the group was a male quartet; Dominic Cummings, Cain, Oliver Lewis and Rob Oxley, known internally as Dom, Caino, Sonic and Roxstar
The Ormskirk Grammar and Stafford University graduate was apparently forced out by a group including Carrie Symonds, Mr Johnson’s privately-educated fiancee
There are also claims that Allegra Stratton, Downing Street’s new on-screen press secretary (pictured today), and senior aide Munira Mirza were against the move
The departure was the culmination of a bitter power struggle inside Mr Johnson’s top team, with rival factions battling for supremacy even as the government struggles to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
Mr Cummings – also privately educated – had pushed for his ally to be appointed despite warnings from the PM’s fiancée Ms Symonds – herself a former Conservative Party head of media – that it would be ‘a mistake’ given how the campaign against the pandemic had gone so far.
She is said to have complained the No10 operation was being run in an ‘uncollegiate’ way and the PM was not getting ‘good advice’.
There are also claims that Allegra Stratton, Downing Street’s new on-screen press secretary, and senior aide Munira Mirza were against the move. It would have meant the PM’s core circle being exclusively male.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told BBC Breakfast: ‘It’s understandable that journalists, in particular, will be interested in the personalities of who works as advisers within Number 10 Downing Street.
‘But the Prime Minister runs the Government. He is surrounded by a good team, a strong team of advisers, and, of course, the Cabinet.
‘Our sole focus in Government is trying to steer the country through the pandemic.’
Downing Street has insisted that Boris Johnson remains ‘absolutely focused’ on the coronavirus pandemic despite the infighting inside No 10 leading to the resignation of Lee Cain.
Pressed if the shake-up among senior staff was a distraction, he said: ‘You’ve seen from the Prime Minister this week that he’s absolutely focused on taking all the steps that are required to equip the country to beat coronavirus.’
The spokesman confirmed that he would replace Mr Cain as director of communications, though would remain a civil servant, and that Mr Cain would remain in the post until the new year.
Ten years ago, at the 2010 general election, Mr Cain, 39, was a reporter whose job at the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror saw him engage in fowl play by donning a man-sized rooster outfit to goad the future PM
Oliver Lewis (left) currently serves as a Brexit advisor while Rob Oxley (right, with the PM) now works as an adviser at the Foreign Office having served as No10 Press Secretary
One of the triggers for the turmoil has also been the appointment of Ms Stratton to front the televised news conferences that Number 10 is planning.
The former Guardian and ITV journalist was also partly privately educated and is married to James Forsyth, the political editor of Tory magazine the Spectator – which also employs Mr Cummings’ aristocrat wife Mary Wakefield.
Ms Stratton is thought to have wanted direct access to the Prime Minister rather than reporting to Mr Cain in order to do her job more effectively.
It was also reported that Mr Cain had preferred to choose someone else, BBC journalist Ellie Price, to the role instead.
There is no fixed date yet for the start of those briefings, but Mr Johnson hopes they will help improve the Government’s public image.
The post-Brexit trade talks are entering their end game, with a resolution needed shortly if a deal is to be implemented by the time transition arrangements expire at the end of the year, when the UK leaves the single market and customs union.
The weakened position of the Vote Leave contingent within Number 10 could make it easier for Mr Johnson to compromise, although he has repeatedly insisted he is prepared to walk away without a deal.
Ten years ago, at the 2010 general election, Mr Cain, 39, was a reporter whose job at the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror saw him engage in fowl play by donning a man-sized rooster outfit to goad the future PM.
But after switching from journalism to political communications he swiftly rose through the ranks thanks to the EU referendum.
Again lining up against David Cameron he worked with Mr Johnson on the Vote Leave campaign fronted by the future PM which is credited with paving the way for the result of the 2016 referendum.
When Mr Johnson quit Mrs May’s Cabinet over Brexit in 2018, Mr Cain continued working with him.
He then helped run his leadership campaign before joining his Government as director of communications.
His proposed promotion to chief of staff would raise concerns among some Tory MPs that the Vote Leave operation is tightening its grip on the heart of Government.
It would also be controversial with some elements of the media who have been bruised by Mr Cain’s uncompromising style.
Last year he ordered ministers to boycott BBC Radio 4’s Today programme because of perceived bias. The ban was only lifted when the coronavirus pandemic struck.
The coronavirus crisis has also seen a series of communications missteps, with information affecting the lives of millions of people leaked out or selectively briefed before being formally announced.
Mr Cain has also imposed a boycott of ITV’s Good Morning Britain that has lasted for more than six months this year, in the middle of the pandemic.
He was also alongside Mr Cummings as he was quick to stamp his authority on No10 amid the Brexit crisis.
In August 2019, with his feet under the desk barely a month Mr Cummings sacked chancellor Sajid Javid’s media adviser Sonia Khan and had her frogmarched out of Downing Street by police.
She was accused of staying in touch with people close to her former boss, Philip Hammond, a Remainer, after stories ended up in the press.
Mr Cummings apparently demanded to inspect both Ms Khan’s phones before immediately firing her.
In a damning slight to Mr Javid, who kept Ms Khan on at No10 after taking over from Philip Hammond, he was only told after the dramatic events.
There had already been a huge exodus of advisers from Whitehall by that point, with one former adviser telling MailOnline at the time Mr Cummings increasingly ‘looks like a bully’, and said his conduct raised questions for the PM.
Months later, in February this year, the writing was on the wall for Mr Javid himself after he found himself on the opposing side to Mr Cummings in a power struggle.
Lynn Davidson (left) left her post as special adviser – or ‘Spad’ – to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace after rebuking Dominic Cummings over his behaviourin February
The Bromsgrove MP – who challenged Mr Johnson for the Tory leadership last year before becoming his top minister – was given an ultimatum by the PM that he must accept his political advisers being ousted and replaced by Cummings loyalists to stay in No11.
Instead he chose to walk away and was replaced by his deputy Rishi Sunak.
Days later he made a thinly-veiled attack on Mr Cummings in the Commons, saying he quit as chancellor because changes to the Treasury planned by the powerful aide were ‘not in the national interest’.
The former minister used a resignation statement in the Commons – in front of a watching Boris Johnson – to say that a semi-merger of behind-the-scenes teams at No10 and N011 would hamper the finance department’s ability to ‘speak truth to power’.
He declined to name Mr Cummings directly, but joked that there had been a lot of gossip already about ‘comings and goings’, to laughter from MPs.
The following month, as the coronavirus pandemic took hold of Britain and the world, a political aide who confronted Mr Cummings over his lack of ‘kindness’ left the Government.
Lynn Davidson has been removed from her post as special adviser – or ‘Spad’ – to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace after refusing to be shifted to another department.
The departure emerged weeks after Ms Davidson clashed with Mr Cummings over his behaviour.
The maverick aide had swiped at the end of a meeting of Spads on February 14 that he would ‘see some of you next week’ – a reference to the impending reshuffle in which many of them lost their jobs.
Ms Davidson, a former reporter at The Sun and Daily Mail, later challenged Mr Cummings over the jibe, saying it had been out of order.
Senior Tory sources insisted at the time that her departure – first revealed by Buzzfeed – was not in response to the spat. They insisted Mr Cummings had nothing to do with changes to media Spads, which are being overseen by Cain.
The influence of the group in Downing Street and the Treasury led to a caution from Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the Liaison Committee, in June.
Mr Jenkin, believed to have been proposed for the role because of his backing for Mr Johnson, told the Observer: ‘Frustrations make No 10 advisers hyperactive, ever more directive, controlling, even bullying.
‘The effect is always the same. It leads to cabinet ministers feeling sidelined and hectored and senior officials becoming disengaged, resigned, even resentful.’
Mr Cummings also attracted the opprobrium of a former minister’s wife when she released a tell-all memoir earlier this year.
Sasha Swire, the wife of Sir Hugo Swire, branded him ‘one of those odd amoebas you find in jars in school science labs’.
In Diary of an MP’s Wife she said Cummings is a ‘stark raving mad Rasputin’, and that teaming him up with Michael Gove, the ‘most volatile member of the Government, was always an explosion waiting to happen’.