Unlike other parties, the Tories showed off during the pandemic by not furloughing any staff, keeping all staff on the books. In May, a party spokesman told the FT, “claims that a significant number of redundancies are planned are simply not true”. To the contrary, however, Guido now learns a number of staff have now been made redundant – with the scythe focusing on campaign managers. Not a good sign in the run up to next year’s major spate of local elections…

While the total number of redundancies made today has not been revealed – one newly-jobless party hack floats the campaign manager cull at 50% – multiple sources tell Guido the sackings have fallen disproportionately on the London division. Both sacked sources Guido spoke to cited pessimism over Shaun Bailey’s mayoral campaign as one reason for the move…

A CCHQ spokesperson tells Guido:

“CCHQ’s role is to campaign and win elections and like any organisation, we keep our operations and staffing under review to do this most effectively.

“We have entered a period of consultation with a small number of colleagues as we restructure a small number of teams.”

Don’t expect these to be the last Westminster job layoffs to lie at Covid’s door…