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LONDON — Boris Johnson’s former top adviser Dominic Cummings was given a pay raise of at least £40,000 this year before he was forced out of No. 10, newly released government documents indicate.
Cummings — who will formally leave his job on December 18 — currently earns between £140,000 and £144,999, an increase on the £95,000 to £99,999 salary disclosed in 2019.
The raise was disclosed in the footnotes of the government’s annual report on special advisers, the temporary civil servants appointed to provide political advice to ministers.
A public power struggle over the role of the prime minister’s chief of staff last month led to Cummings’ departure from Downing Street, alongside his ally Lee Cain.
Cummings and Cain — who worked together in the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 Brexit referendum — were the highest-paid advisers listed in the report, alongside the now-acting Chief of Staff Eddie Lister, Policy Unit Head Munira Mirza and incoming Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield.
Newly appointed Downing Street Press Secretary Allegra Stratton earns between £125,000 and £129,000. She will be leading White House-style televised government press briefings from next year.
Cummings’ pay raise came in a year where he sparked fury by appearing to break lockdown rules by traveling more than 400 kilometers from London to Durham in April. Johnson backed him at the time, telling journalists his then-top aide “acted responsibly and legally, and with integrity.”
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner pointed out that news of the raise came after public-sector workers saw their pay frozen in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review.
“Boris Johnson defended Dominic Cummings when he broke lockdown rules — then awarded him a £50,000 pay rise. Yet he’s freezing pay for key workers and refusing to give our care workers a pay rise to the living wage,” the opposition frontbencher said.
The Cabinet Office has been approached for comment.
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