But Cummings will reportedly be leaving his post on 31 October (he has some condition for which he needs an operation under general anaesthetic, and he supposedly promised his wife his time as Johnson's brain would be time-limited so he could go ahead and get it done - no waiting lists for that champion of the working class, obviously).
Whether that claim of bad blood is real or another chunk of propaganda, I've no idea (Cummings is an intellectual and political snob if nothing else, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's true), nor whether Cummings would overcome it for the prospect of electoral gain, or whether Johnson will stride out on his own path once Cummings leaves post.
Given the fuss about the Tory pact with the fringe DUP (and the earlier fuss about the possibility of the SNP shoring up a Labour government), you'd hope such an alliance would taint the Tories so much it'd be out of the question, but given the times we live in ...
It's an alliance potentially fraught with danger - both during the election, when I guarantee the calibre and histories of some of the Brexit Party candidates will grab some unfavourable headlines, and in any parliament after, when MPs of a party without a detailed manifesto and with no constituency structure or formal leadership hierarchy beyond the Great Leader himself could mean benches stacked with loose cannons - so I guess it depends on how desperate things seem.
The Tories need to make substantial gains in seats they've never won even to mark time, most if not all of the 13 Scottish Tories look like being wiped out, what Johnson is reportedly moving towards at the moment to try to resolve the Northern Ireland question would mean leaving the DUP out in the cold, and the recent defections may also make things more difficult in a number of seats, even without factoring in the role of the Lib Dems in Tory-held seats.
If Johnson goes for it, I suspect that'll be the end of the Tory Party as it's been known, and the resignations and defections we've seen so far may be eclipsed by a mass exodus.
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