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BORIS JOHNSON has been rocked by an exodus of five key aides from Downing Street within 24 hours as the partygate fallout continued today.
The crisis engulfing the Prime Minister deepened as Elena Narozanski left her role as an education policy specialist in the Number 10 policy unit.
Her exit follows that of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield and his principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, on Thursday.
Two other close advisers to Mr Johnson, head of communications Jack Doyle and long-time policy chief Munira Mirza, also resigned on Thursday.
Mr Doyle, a former Daily Mail journalist, is reported to have told staff that recent weeks in Downing Street had “taken a terrible toll on my family life.”
The departure of Ms Mirza is considered to be the most damaging to the Prime Minister. Ms Mirza worked with Mr Johnson for 14 years, including through his eight years as Mayor of London.
Ms Mirza once dismissed criticism of an article by Mr Johnson in a 2018 newspaper column that likened Muslim women in burqas to letter boxes and bank robbers as “hysteria.”
She blamed her departure on the claim by Mr Johnson on Monday that Sir Keir Starmer had failed to prosecute serial sex offender Jimmy Savile when he was director of public prosecutions.
In her resignation letter Ms Mirza told the Prime Minister his accusations were an “inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse.”
Mr Johnson has acknowledged Sir Keir “had nothing to do personally with the decisions” not to prosecute the disgraced Mr Savile.
And Chancellor Rishi Sunak rebuked Mr Johnson by stating: “I wouldn’t have said that.”
Defending Mr Johnson, energy minister Greg Hands insisted the resignations were all part of the PM’s plans.
He said that Mr Johnson “made clear” earlier this week there would be “changes at the top in No 10” after the publication of the Sue Gray report into lockdown-busting parties at Downing Street and Whitehall.
Labour former leader Ed Miliband likened the Prime Minister to the captain of a sinking ship “throwing the crew mates overboard to save himself.”
The five departures from Downing Street have piled fresh pressure on the Prime Minister at a time when growing numbers of Tory MPs have sent no confidence letters to the 1922 committee.
