As SpAds resign next week for the election, Dominic Cummings used his weekly meeting with them to issue threats over complacency. Guido understands Cummings told the bag carriers to thank their private offices as he will be asking ministers and civil servants if their SpAds are “sh*t or not”. Their performance during the election campaign will also determine whether they’re kept on or not afterwards. Guido has some personal SpAd reviews he is happy to pass on…

Guido also hears SpAds are actually struggling to resign in the first place. Many advisors want to step down and get to work in CCHQ’s election campaign machine from Monday, but many are being told by the Cabinet Office that they’ll lose their severance package entitlement if they quit before Thursday.

The Civil Service may want to pick their fights carefully at this time, however, as Cummings used last night’s meeting to “go big” on labouring his pledge for “fundamental reform” of the civil service as a post-election project – asking for ideas from SpAds. First suggestion from Guido is more transparency / leaks please…

UPDATE: Civil Service specifically accusing Helen MacNamara of “being a nightmare” over this. The civil service are also being accused by SpAds of refusing to sanction policies which they see as attempting to influence the election (even though they’ve been refusing projects since before the election bill passed), whilst at the same time preventing them from resigning. They’re in as much a state of purgatory as the Commons…